Over the years, we have Posted information from U. Of Delaware Researcher Douglas Tallamy depicting how non native plants reduce the diversity of native insects in a given region............When non-natives dominate a landscape, they create a significant adverse cascade that greatly narrows the variety of bird life in a given locale..........This is especially true when the array of non-native plants are completely without any close native counterparts in a given ecosystem............Native trees support large arrays of immature insects, which in turn attract the greatest array of native bird species, thus fostering optimum diversity...............From my perch, so important to plant the largest number of native plants on your property as possible............If we re constantly choosing plants and flowers native to Europe, Asian and the Middle East, "we are limiting the wildlife and conservation support system on the land we call home"--------# native plants, #native insects, #native plant landscaping, #biodiversity with native plants

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/sciencedaily/plants_animals/ecology/~3/2d3-wf1Q6Dk/150928155900.htm?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email

Research shows that non-native plantings have an impact on the diversity of insect populations.

Credit: Photos by Karin Burghardt, Douglas Tallamy/University of Delaware

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http://www.bringingnaturehome.net/gardening-for-life.html

Redesigning Suburbia

What will it take to give our local animals what they need to survive and reproduce on our properties? NATIVE PLANTS, and lots of them. This is a scientific fact deduced from thousands of studies about how energy moves through food webs. Here is the general reasoning. All animals get their energy directly from plants, or by eating something that has already eaten a plant. The group of animals most responsible for passing energy from plants to the animals that can’t eat plants is insects. This is what makes insects such vital components of healthy ecosystems. So many animals depend on insects for food (e.g., spiders, reptiles and amphibians, rodents, 96% of all terrestrial birds) that removing insects from an ecosystem spells its doom.

But that is exactly what we have tried to do in our suburban landscapes. For over a century we have favored ornamental landscape plants from China and Europe over those that evolved right here. If all plants were created equal, that would be fine. But every plant species protects its leaves with a species-specific mixture of nasty chemicals. With few exceptions, only insect species that have shared a long evolutionary history with a particular plant lineage have developed the physiological adaptations required to digest the chemicals in their host’s leaves. They have specialized over time to eat only the plants sharing those particular chemicals. When we present insects from Pennsylvania with plants that evolved on another continent, chances are those insects will be unable to eat them. We used to think this was good. Kill all insects before they eat our plants! But an insect that cannot eat part of a leaf cannot fulfill its role in the food web. 

We have planted Kousa dogwood, a species from China that supports no insect herbivores, instead of our native flowering dogwood (Cornus florida) that supports 117 species of moths and butterflies alone. In hundreds of thousands of acres we have planted goldenraintree from China instead of one of our beautiful oaks and lost the chance to grow 532 species of caterpillars, all of them nutritious bird food.  My research has shown that alien ornamentals support 29 times less biodiversity than do native ornamentals.

in 2010, author Debra Mitts-Smith published a classic inside look at how The Wolf has been depicted for children via books............Entitled PICTURING THE WOLF IN CHILDREN'S LITERATURE, the author "poses the idea that since the pictures in children's books usually create the first and often only images of wolves most people see, they deserve serious study and reflection"............"Adults will find this a useful guidebook to the wolf that is symbolic of fear or love of the wild in our lives"......."Perhaps it will lead us to differentiate between the wolf of RED RIDING HOOD and the wild wolf that if we are lucky, crosses the road in front of us stopping just long enough for us to register each other's reality before it slips into the woods"---Nancy Jo Tubbs reviewing the book in the Fall 2015 issue of INTERNATIONAL WOLF MAGAZINE

From the villainous beast of “Little Red Riding Hood” and “The Three Little Pigs,” to the nurturing wolves of Romulus and Remus and Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book, the wolf has long been a part of the landscape of children’s literature.

 Meanwhile, since the 1960s and the popularization of scientific research on these animals, children’s books have begun to feature more nuanced views. In Picturing the Wolf in Children’s Literature, Mitts-Smith analyzes visual images of the wolf in children’s books published in Western Europe and North America from 1500 to the present. In particular, she considers how wolves are depicted in and across particular works, the values and attitudes that inform these depictions, and how the concept of the wolf has changed over time. What she discovers is that illustrations and photos in works for children impart social, cultural, and scientific information not only about wolves, but also about humans and human behavior.

First encountered in childhood, picture books act as a training ground where the young learn both how to decode the “symbolic” wolf across various contexts and how to make sense of “real” wolves. Mitts-Smith studies sources including myths, legends, fables, folk and fairy tales, fractured tales, fictional stories, and nonfiction, highlighting those instances in which images play a major role, including illustrated anthologies, chapbooks, picture books, and informational books. This book will be of interest to children’s literature scholars, as well as those interested in the figure of the wolf and how it has been informed over time.

While simultaneously researching Bobcats, the New Hampshire Game and Fish Commission is considering reopening a trapping season on the estimate 1100 adult "cats" that roam the state..............1 Bobcat for every 3-4 miles of viable habitat---Not a large enough population(my opinion) to put under the pressure of an annual trapping season, especially when trappers can use hounds in the pursuit,,,,,,,,,,, the history of these Bobcat trapping seasons is not pretty---having brought the population to near extirpation--- only some 100-150 animals as recently as the 1980's...........Lynx might also be in jeopardy as they are near identical look-a- likes to Bobcats.............Lynx are starting to reappear in the northern sections of the state, spreading their wings from the breeding population that exists in Maine...........# bobcat trapping season in New Hampshire

http://www.fosters.com/article/2015150929408

• Why allow bobcats 

• to be killed again?

• 
  
• Posted Sep. 28, 2015 at 2:31 PM 
  
  
  

How do Wildfires effect wildlife?.........California Forester Eric Huff answers that question this way: "It depends on the duration of the fire, the intensity of the fire, the rate of spread, how quickly animal species, particularly terrestrial, have time to react to the fire"........... "Obviously those species that have more ability to move more rapidly, whether they are avian species or terrestrial mammals, have an advantage"......... "The question of fire intensity is really the key"...................."We need to get back to a native fire regime"............... "Clearly we’ve been very good after 100 years of fire suppression at controlling our environments and in doing so thinking that we were doing the right thing"............. 'But we need to get back to understanding that it’s important to get low-intensity fires going every couple of years and to manage these landscapes that have, in historical and geological timescales, been managed to regular occurrence by fire"---------# Wildfire's impact on wildlife

http://app.getresponse.com/click.html?x=a62b&lc=ZoRq4&mc=IC&s=JtQYYv&u=Yy3s&y=r&

Q&A: The Effect of Wildfires on California Wildlife

By Joshua Rapp Learn

Posted on September 22, 2015

Image Credit: Jeff Head

Wildfires are still raging across California and while they are mostly contained, they have consumed more than 150,000 acres combined. But what happens to wildlife in fires like the Valley and Butte in California that are currently raging across the north of the state?

To get a better idea of the ways animals are affected by the flames and changed landscape, we spoke to Eric Huff, a forester with the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.

How do burning fires affect wildlife?

This is a complicated question, really. It depends on the duration of the fire, the intensity of the fire, the rate of spread, how quickly animal species, particularly terrestrial, have time to react to the fire. Obviously those species that have more ability to move more rapidly, whether they are avian species or terrestrial mammals, have an advantage. The question of fire intensity is really the key.

If you think about how fast the Valley Fire spread, I liken it to a dragon flying overhead and laying fire down in a pretty narrow column of fire. I imagine that there were some animals that could not get out of the way.

How about the ecosystem?

You’re going to have those [animals] that gain from these fires. You’re going to have cavity nesters, insects. You’re going to have species that will be able to feed on those that thrive in burned landscapes. There will be some net positives — I don’t know that they’ll be outweighed by the negatives.

We’re going to see a big boom in woodpeckers, maybe even some black-backed woodpeckers. You’re going to obviously see a big boom in the insect population — bark beetles in particular are going to benefit greatly from those timber landscapes.

We’re not going to see loss of species in their native range. Certainly as forage comes back, we’re going to see deer populations coming back to areas they temporarily abandoned. We’re probably going to see more benefits than adverse impacts there.

So this is part of a natural process?

“I don’t think that I’m speaking out of turn in saying that we need to get back to a native fire regime. Clearly we’ve been very good after 100 years of fire suppression at controlling our environments and in doing so thinking that we were doing the right thing. But we need to get back to understanding that it’s important to get low-intensity fires going every couple of years and to manage these landscapes that have, in historical and geological timescales, been managed to regular occurrence by fire.

The Washoe Tribe [of the Lake Tahoe Basin] would regularly burn off their spring-summer camp as they left for lower elevations. The benefit of that is not just to be able to have more abundant wildlife populations to hunt and gather from. But it also benefits the forest. You’ve got far fewer trees per acre in that kind of setting and far more openings. You have a resilient landscape that can handle lightning strikes and human-controlled fire.

We need to get back to understanding that fire is part of the native regime. We are in California and I don’t think there’s any part of California that hasn’t at least since geologic timescales, been touched by fire.

How have is the fire regime changing?

I think what we’re seeing is a much longer fire season — I don’t think anyone can argue that. From my perspective that’s climate related. We’re going to have to get used to a longer fire season which again really promotes this idea that we’re going to need to have more consistent, lower-intensity fires on the ground so we can create these more resilient landscapes.

Like it or not, our future is going to be, and it has been, inextricably linked to fire. We just have to get around to being accepting of it and using it to our benefit and to the benefit of wildlife populations.

Joshua Rapp Learn is a science writer at The Wildlife Society. Contact him at Joshua.learn@wildlife.org with tips or story suggestions on conservation, wildlife science, management or other story ideas. @JoshuaLearn1 Read more of Joshua's articles.

• California
• fire regime
• natural disasters
• wildfires

New Hampshire has been seeing their Bobcat population grow over the last 40 years.........Once hunted almost to extinction,. Wildlife experts say bobcats have been reported in every city and town in the state, and some estimates put their numbers in the thousands........Between 1935 and 1971, Connecticut put a bounty for killing a bobcat............... That changed in 1972, when the state made trapping or shooting them for sport or for their highly prized pelts, illegal.......................Reports of bobcat sightings have risen steadily over the past 20 years, from about 65 a year in the early 1990s to more than 200 currently..........Fish and Wildlife Officials are now seeking to trap as many "Bobs" as they can, tag them and then seek to monitor their habits so as to better determine an accurate population count and how they utilize the mixed forest, field, suburban and urban mosaic of the state-----------# New Hampshire Bobcat study. # Bobcats

Resurgent Bobcats Prompt State To Study Habitat, Population

B0bcats
 can kill adult deer via ambush

Kansas Wildlife Officials are most certainly on the verge of confirming the 13th verified mountain lion in Kansas since 2007......The "Lion" in the picture below was caught on a wildlife camera in the Chikaskia River region of Sumner County on September 20th........... Prior to this Pumas had not been documented in the Kansas for more than 100 years............Like in Michigan and Kentucky where Pumas were recently documented, Kansas Wildlife Officials claim that no breeding population exists but in fact the recent sightings are of Pumas wandering in from South Dakota and/or Nebraska, the easternmost breeding populations of Pumas in the USA save the 100+ Cats found in south Florida----# kansas pumas, # kansas mountain lions, # kansas cougars

https://www.google.com/url?rct=j&sa=t&url=http://www.kansas.com/sports/outdoors/michael-pearce/article36503460.html&ct=ga&cd=CAEYACoTODk3ODEwMDMzODk5MDc0ODgwNjIaNDY5MjBhOTZlZmMxMTU4ODpjb206ZW46VVM&usg=AFQjCNEo1WiGMGhx_UUyhu-NhTmtdpPxHg

THE COUGAR NETWORK advocacy organization got confirmation from the Michigan Department of Natural Resources that on September 18, a Puma passed by a trail camera in Dickinson County, Michigan, which is in the Upper Peninsula, bordering Wisconsin............ To date, Michigan has recorded more than 30 confirmations of Pumas over the past couple of decades...............The Michigan DNR states that there is no evidence of a breeding population within Michigan and that all the confirmations are of animals"passing through" from other locales----# Michigan cougars, # michigan Pumas, # Michigan mountain lions

Is there a need to kill any of the 478 Brown Bears believed to roam the Kenai Peninusla in Alaska? With up to 40 Bears killed annually by humans in ways other than hunting(auto collisions, etc) and another 69 shot by hunters(at least 23 of them females), that means 23% of the believed to exist population was blown away last year...........Is this a sustainable kill level?.............And even if statistically falling within so-called sustainability levels for long term Bear persistence on the Peninsula, this killing formula feels wrong to me.............Does any of the Biologists in Fish and Game for this region ever think about genetic variability, the fact that hunters along with the other manner of bear kills might be removing critical gene pools from the population.................Is it always about human comfort levels in determining population levels of carnivores or is it as the POPE said this week at the U.N. and it D.C. in the Capitol Rotunda,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,"ALL CREATURES HAVE INHERENT RIGHTS TO EXIST ON THE PLANET",,,,,,,,,,,,"MAN SHOULD NOT SEE HIMSELF AS THE DOMINANT LIFE FORM, BUT AS A FELLOW CREATURE ON THIS ARK WE CALL HOME"-------# Brown Bears, # Kenai Peninsula. # Alaska, # hunting carnivores, # hunting brown bears, # hunting Grizzly bears, # Kenai brown bear population

https://www.google.com/url?rct=j&sa=t&url=http://www.adn.com/article/20150925/biologists-wrestle-how-much-hunting-kenai-brown-bear-population-can-support&ct=ga&cd=CAIyGjU3MWM2ZjllNzE1ZmRjZDg6Y29tOmVuOlVT&usg=AFQjCNHsW3Z21pMMsD4AIc4b7RsC4_UvGw

Biologists wrestle with how much hunting Kenai brown bear population can support

Joseph Robertia

September 25, 2015

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Blaine Anliker of Chugiak poses with the brown bear he shot May 20, 2015 over a registered bait station near Clam Gulch. The bear’s hide measured more than 10 feet and was one of two large brown bears taken last month at bait stations registered to Kenny Bingaman of Soldotna.

Courtesy of Kenny Bingaman

SOLDOTNA – State and federal wildlife managers have not always agreed on the number of brown bears living on the Kenai Peninsula or the best way to manage the population, however large.

But recent studies by the Kenai National Wildlife Refuge and the Alaska Department of Fish and Game have yielded some of the most specific population data in decades.

“As of the end of 2014, there are 478 brown bears on the Peninsula. That’s what we believe is out there,” said John Morton, a supervisory biologist with the refuge.

That’s an increase from earlier estimates, but just a sliver of the 32,000 brown bears that Fish and Game estimates live in Alaska, from the Arctic to Southeast. About 3,000 are believed to live in bear-dense Kodiak Island, which is about twice as big as the Peninsula.

Bear hair on barbed wire

Since 1993, an extrapolated estimate of 250 to 300 Kenai brownies was the benchmark provided by the state, but that changed in 2010, after the refuge conducted an intensive DNA-based study that involved collecting hair samples for more than a month.

Bear habitat across the Peninsula’s 16,000 square miles was divided into cells forming a grid. Each cell had a lure station baited with fermented fish oil and cow’s blood, surrounded by barbed wire. As the bruins stepped over or went under the wire, they left hair on the barbs. More than 11,000 hair samples were collected, which were then sorted – brown bears from black -- and analyzed.

“Our estimate, for 2012 and based on the field work from 2010, was 582 brown bears,” Morton said.

While the number was a snapshot in time, according to Jeff Selinger, Fish and Game’s Soldotna area wildlife manager, the 582 number was useful when added to Fish and Game’s own radio-telemetry studies of the population. The number of bears in Fish and Game’s study changes from year to year as animals die or slip out of their collar, but at any given time 30 to 40 sows are being monitored.

“The collars last six years or more, and we replace them as needed,” Selinger said. “The goal is to follow these bears their entire lives.”

Consequently, biologists can determine exactly where the bears den, where they roam and whether they have any cubs.

Information gleaned so far includes when the grizzlies first breed, average litter size, when cubs are weaned and what percentage of cubs survive the first few years of life, among other things. The information has helped foster some changes in brown bear management.

“We weren’t managing for that specific 250-300 number before the estimate,” Selinger said. “We were trying to manage a stable population with a minimum number of negative interactions with humans. But prior to 2012, it seemed like the number of (Peninsula) bears was going up. There were people who felt threatened by bears, and we were having a lot of DLPs (defense-of-life-or-property shootings).”

Bear cap rises

Prior to 2012, Selinger had been under a department directive for more than a decade to manage brown bears conservatively.When he took the job in 2002, Selinger was asked to manage for an average of not more than 14 brown bears (including no more than six sows) killed during a three-year period. By 2003, he championed and received approval to increase the cap to 20, including no more than eight females older than 12 months.

The higher cap didn’t do hunters much good.

That’s because the number of brown bears killed annually in DLP shootings, dispatched by Fish and Game personnel or who perished in collisions with vehicles, met or exceeded the cap, often before hunters got afield. The peak came in 2008, when 40 bears died from human causes that didn’t involve hunting. 

Hunts happened in 92 percent of the seasons from 1974-2011, but some were only a few days long.  The average harvest was 11.3 bears. 

A different strategy

To quell public concern, the Alaska Board of Game in 2012 recommended more bears be killed. Within months, spring and fall drawing permit hunts, which tightly control the number of hunters and direct them to specific locales, were set up. In addition, a registration hunt was added, and more than 600 hunters applied.

The result: 44 brown bears dead, including 13 adult females.

Then the refuge released its census of 582 bears, and that changed everything again.

“In 2013 we had no cap,” Selinger said.

The bear hunting season was extended and spring hunters were allowed to hunt brown bears over bait.

The result: 71 brown bears dead, including 23 adult females.

Last year, a cap of 70 bears or 17 adult females was established, and hunters stayed under it. Sixty-nine brown bears were killed, including six adult females.

“In basically two-and-a-half years, almost 200 bears were killed, of which 42 were adult females,” Morton said. “That’s huge.”