Visitor Counter

hitwebcounter web counter
Visitors Since Blog Created in March 2010

Click Below to:

Add Blog to Favorites

Coyotes-Wolves-Cougars.blogspot.com

Grizzly bears, black bears, wolves, coyotes, cougars/ mountain lions,bobcats, wolverines, lynx, foxes, fishers and martens are the suite of carnivores that originally inhabited North America after the Pleistocene extinctions. This site invites research, commentary, point/counterpoint on that suite of native animals (predator and prey) that inhabited The Americas circa 1500-at the initial point of European exploration and subsequent colonization. Landscape ecology, journal accounts of explorers and frontiersmen, genetic evaluations of museum animals, peer reviewed 20th and 21st century research on various aspects of our "Wild America" as well as subjective commentary from expert and layman alike. All of the above being revealed and discussed with the underlying goal of one day seeing our Continent rewilded.....Where big enough swaths of open space exist with connective corridors to other large forest, meadow, mountain, valley, prairie, desert and chaparral wildlands.....Thereby enabling all of our historic fauna, including man, to live in a sustainable and healthy environment. - Blogger Rick

Subscribe via email to get updates

Enter your email address:

Receive New Posting Alerts

(A Maximum of One Alert Per Day)

Saturday, February 14, 2015

This past week we posted an article on the continuing spiraling of the worldwide human population and it's impact on wildlife and flora biodiversity...............Useful to go back into the blog archives and once again share Biologist Bill Ripple's illuminating analysis of the Lewis & Clark early 19th century Expedition from St Louis to the West Coast and how the diary entries of our famous Explorers reveals the impact of native tribes on wildlife populations both in the early 1800's as well as over the 300 years predating the Expedtion(AD1500-1800)...........Even low densities of tribesmen coupled with the introduction of Spanish released horses seemingly drastically lowered levels of wildlife populations..............Prior to the arrival of Columbus in the Americas around 1500, the estimates of Native American population in North America ranged from 2 million to 3.8 million people. .................But by the time major western settlement by Europeans began in the 1800s, up to 90 percent of the Native Americans may have died from smallpox, measles and other diseases that had already swept the continent after being introduced by Europeans...............During the Lewis and Clark expedition, the large game animals of the American West should have been under dramatically less hunting pressure by Native Americans(due to their reduced population), and actually at a point of some abundance compared to where they may have been when there were millions more Native Americans hunting them................. And, in theory, there should have been more animals and more species where there were fewer people............. That's exactly what the Lewis and Clark data revealed...................So, as our American human population continues to climb(330 million estimated today) to perhaps a half billion come AD 2100, it becomes more and more critical for large core open spaces to be preserved, with connective corridors between these "islands of green" so as to have the chance of having some semblance of functioning ecosystems and a spirit of wildness(wich our Country was built on and which contributed to our spirit of freedom and American Exceptionalism) ) over the decades ahead

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=5&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CDsQFjAE&url=http%3A%2F%2Foregonstate.edu%2Fua%2Fncs%2Farchives%2F2003%2Fnov%2Flewis-and-clark-notes-reveal-history-human-impacts&ei=t13fVISwB8udgwS-j4OQCw&usg=AFQjCNH50-olUUSPdh7jTtzp7Ft2B1ig-Q

Lewis and Clark notes reveal history of human impacts


11/19/2003
CORVALLIS - Native Americans had a major impact on the wildlife of the American West for hundreds of years prior to European settlement, a report from Oregon State University indicates, based on data from one of the most accurate surveys of its time - the journals of Lewis and Clark.






It is a myth that the West existed in some sort of pristine state, largely unaffected by humans until the 1800s, the research concludes. In fact, in some areas the larger wildlife such as deer, elk or buffalo that were hunted by Native Americans appear to have populations that may have fluctuated greatly, up and down, based on the hunting pressure on them decades or centuries before European settlers arrived.
Such concepts are important to understand because modern wildlife and ecological management practices often use pre-European settlement as a "baseline" for later comparisons, with the implication that humans were having little or no impact on the environment at that time.



That assumption is inaccurate, the OSU researchers say.
"Humans in North America have always interacted with their environment, and this has been going on for a long, long time," said Andrea Laliberte, a rangeland remote sensing scientist who did this study while a graduate student at OSU. "Our findings indicate that even the relatively low human population densities that were present before European settlement show a considerable impact on wildlife.
"It would be almost impossible to determine what these lands looked like without humans."





The new study, which was just published in the journal Bioscience, essentially concluded that in the early 1800s, large game animal populations existed in much higher numbers where human populations were low. Where Native American populations were higher, the animals existed in fewer numbers, to the point of near extinction in some locations and instances.
To help unravel the ecological mysteries of the past, Laliberte and OSU professor of forest resources William Ripple turned to the journals of Lewis and Clark, which were written during their historic journey from 1804-06. Thomas Jefferson, who was a scientist and ecologist in addition to being president, directed Meriwether Lewis and William Clark to take note of many ecological features as they traveled across the largely unknown continent.





As a result, they crafted a journal that has been celebrated for 200 years for its level of scientific detail, daily observations and careful accuracy in reflecting the natural and ecological conditions of the time. (more)
The OSU researchers used this data in a computerized geographic information system to create a new view of nine large mammalian species that were commonly observed on the trip, the degree of human influence on animal populations at various locations, and the status of wildlife in five eco-regions. More detail on the research is available on the web at www.cof.orst.edu/lewis&clark.
"Part of what we now understand is that by the time of the Lewis and Clark expedition, the West and its wildlife had already experienced a major period of transition," Laliberte said. "Prior to the arrival of Columbus in the Americas around 1500, the estimates of Native American population in North America ranged from 2 million to 3.8 million people. But by the time major western settlement by Europeans began in the 1800s, up to 90 percent of the Native Americans may have died from smallpox, measles and other diseases that had already swept the continent after being introduced by Europeans."




What this implies is that during the Lewis and Clark expedition, the large game animals of the American West should have been under dramatically less hunting pressure by Native Americans, and actually at a point of some abundance compared to where they may have been when there were millions more Native Americans hunting them. And, in theory, there should have been more animals and more species where there were fewer people. That's exactly what the Lewis and Clark data revealed.
For most of the trip, large game animals were found in sufficient abundance to easily feed Lewis and Clark's group of explorers, who used them as their primary food - an average day's consumption for the traveling party was either four deer, one elk and one deer, or one bison.




Where Native Americans populations were lower animal abundance increased and some species - especially buffalo, elk and antelope - appeared almost tame. The explorers wrote that they were "so gentle that we pass near them while feeding, without appearing to excite any alarm among them, and when we attract their attention, they frequently approach us more nearly to discover what we are."
Animal populations decreased significantly near Native American settlements, the study showed.
One interesting finding was that in areas between where Native American tribes were in conflict, animal abundance was higher. In August 1806, Clark noted: "I have observed that in the country between the nations which are at war with each other the greatest numbers of wild animals are to be found."




This is consistent, the OSU researchers say, with other studies which have found a greatly increased biodiversity and wildlife abundance in "buffer zones" where, for one reason or another, humans rarely intrude. One modern example, which is rich in wildlife and biodiversity compared to areas around it, exists today in the demilitarized zone between North and South Korea.
In the Columbia Basin, one of the areas with the heaviest Native American populations on the Lewis and Clark trail, almost all of the usual game animals were scarce. The explorers ate some of their horses and 195 dogs during transit across this region.




"Many people have a vision of very little human influence on the land around the time of the Lewis and Clark expedition," Ripple said. "That wasn't the case. The impact of humans, even then, was far greater than most people appreciate. And as we develop ecological theories and management practices today, we must be careful about what we consider pristine. With wildlife in the West, it was not in 1806."

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://bioscience.oxfordjournals.org/content/53/10/994.full
--click on this link to read full artilce

Wildlife Encounters by

 Lewis and Clark: A

 Spatial Analysis of

 Interactions between 

Native Americans and 

Wildlife

  1. William J. Ripple2
  • 1 Andrea S. Laliberte (email: alaliber@nmsu.edu) is a rangeland 
  • remote sensing scientist for the US Department of Agriculture's Agricultural Research 
  • Service at the Jornada Experimental Range, Las Cruces, NM 88003.
  • 2 William J. Ripple (email: Bill.Ripple@orst.edu) is a professor in 
  • the Environmental Remote Sensing Applications Laboratory in the Department of
  •  Forest Resources, Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR 97331.

Abstract

Abstract
The Lewis and Clark journals contain some of the
 earliest and most detailed written descriptions of
 a large part of the United States before
Euro-American settlement. We used the journal
 entries to assess the influence of humans on
wildlife distribution and abundance. 














Areas with denser human population, such as the
 Columbia Basin and the Pacific Coast, had lower
species diversity and a lower abundance of large
mammals. The opposite effect was observed on the
 Plains. We believe that overhunting before
Euro-American contact and the introduction of
the horse, which heightened the effects of hunting,
may have been major contributors to the historical
 absence of some species that are present in the
archaeological record.
 The results show considerable human influence on
wildlife even under relatively low human population
 densities. This finding has major implications for
conservation biology and ecological restoration,
 as human influence is often underestimated when
 considering presettlement conditions.

No comments: