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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

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Tuesday, May 31, 2016

The Angeles National Forest ringing Los Angeles was the location for the great daytime video footage(click on link below to view) of a Female Puma and her two kittens playing...........Trailcam camera captures the fun that this Big Cat family was having over the past few days

CLICK ON THIS LINK AND WAIT A FEW SECONDS AND YOU CAN WATCH DAYTIME
VIDEO FOOTAGE OF A FEMALE PUMA AND HER TWO KITTENS!!!!!
http://abc7.com/pets/man-captures-video-of-mountain-lion-family-in-angeles-national-forest/1363523/

MAN CAPTURES RARE GLIMPSE OF MOUNTAIN LION FAMILY IN ANGELES NATIONAL FOREST

A photographer captured a rare glimpse of some playful mountain lions in their natural habitat in the Angeles National Forest.

Playtime in the forest. A mother mountain lion and her two kittens offered a rare look at their lives.

"You hear her calling out to the young. They make kind of a bird-chirping sound. The young ones and the mom call out to each other," said photographer Robert Martinez.

They showed up in front of cameras placed in the Angeles National Forest and hung out for about an hour - at times getting a little bit too close-up.

Martinez said the family even knocked over his cameras and other equipment.

Martinez is fascinated by mountain lions. He has spent years placing cameras in different spots, capturing video of the big cats and other animals in their habitats.

He started tracking this mother mountain lion before she became pregnant - even giving her a nickname.

"I call her Limpy because she has a distinct limp," he said. "I saw her doing the mating calls about two years ago. I thought this might be really cool to watch the story unfold."

He was thrilled when Limpy and her kittens showed up last week, playing together, taking naps and walking all over the cameras.

Martinez also said he hopes the videos raise awareness.

"Show the beauty in them and show their natural behavior in their natural habitat - undisturbed by humans," he added.


All animals will take advantage of "groomed trails" to move across the landscape,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,In the Codroy Valley in Newfoundland, Canada, the Lynx below was seen crossing the massive Codroy Bridge over the Memorial Day weekend...................So now you know how Coyotes periodically make it into Central Park, New York City,,,,,,They cross one of the bridges from the Bronx (over the Harlem River) into Manhattan and/or they follow the Amtrak railroad tracks from Westchester into the Bronx and then on into Manhattan

https://www.google.com/url?rct=j&sa=t&url=http://www.gulfnews.ca/news/local/2016/5/30/lynx-spotted-in-codroy-valley.html&ct=ga&cd=CAEYACoUMTE0OTQ5Mzg5NDUyNDYxMzI0MTIyGjFmYmFjNDZmYmZlMjdjMzg6Y29tOmVuOlVT&usg=AFQjCNGT7kWk4IWQOrdQcSIBBoA9DAUsFQ




Lynx spotted in

 Codroy Valley

Bryan Taitbryan.tait@tc.tcPublished on May 30, 2016
gn-lynx.jpg
Ryan Moore photographed this lynx crossing the Grand
 Codroy bridge on May 26. The animal was seen again
crossing the same bridge on May 30.
©Ryan Moore photo

A lynx has been spotted twice in the Codroy 

Valley in the last few days.

The animal was photographed on May 26 crossing the Grand
 Codroy bridge near Belanger Memorial School, and was
seen again on May 30 in the same location.






Last month, this Big male Black Bear rubbing his scent on trees and brush so as to optimize chances of attracting a female bear to mate with



CLICK ON THIS LINK TO WATCH VIDEO
Tiny the Black Bear on the
 Mating Trail (May, 2016)

by KB Bear
Our biggest male bear was out marking trees,
 trying to attract sows recently.
©2016 YouTube, LLC 901 Cherry Ave, San Bruno, CA 94066

Monday, May 30, 2016

In colonial times Pumas were common across Texas..........Today, biologists "perceive(but are not certain) that there is a stable population in West Texas and a shrinking population in South Texas..........East Texas Pumas are all but effectively extirpated with occasional reports of a "loner cat" being spotted........


https://www.google.com/url?rct=j&sa=t&url=http://www.tylerpaper.com/TP-Outdoor/236530/texas-mountain-lions-more-common-west-and-south-but-can-travel-anywhere&ct=ga&cd=CAEYACoUMTA4MTc4NjQ0MjgxMjE4Mzk4MzcyGjQ2OTIwYTk2ZWZjMTE1ODg6Y29tOmVuOlVT&usg=AFQjCNG-LysRI2qd7pYDzSJhpOb-cxFsSw


Texas mountain lions more common west and south, but can travel anywhere

Want to start a street brawl? You don’t have to mention the names Hillary, Bernie or the Donald.
Nope the true magic words to start an old-fashioned donnybrook at least in Texas would be mountain lion, or maybe cougar or panther. They are interchangeable.
“Anecdotal reports suggest that the South Texas population may be declining while the West Texas population may be stable or expanding,” said Jonah Evans, Texas Parks and Wildlife Department’s mammalogist.





However, Evans noted that since mountain lions are not a
 game 
species, the department does not collect data on them so his
 answer is not definitive.
On the other hand, the department does respond to reported
 sightings, which gives biologists some idea  of where mountain
 lions do exist.
“We get from 20 to 80 reports a year. Usually only a hand full
 are able to be confirmed. Many of the reports are clearly misidentifications,” Evans said.
Fake social media posts also muddy the waters when it comes
 to how many of the cats are really being seen and where
Cougars have never really been that numerous in Texas
 because of the nature of the beast. There is plenty of food
 in almost every region, but the cats are solitary animals. 
And while the proliferation of game cameras put more eyes 
in the field year around, the truth is Texas’ mountain lion 
population is at best stable.North and Central Texas and 
extremely rare confirmations in East Texas,” Evans noted.
The biologist explained that while there most definitely can
 be a mountain lion spotted in East Texas, they are going to
be few and far between.


Tracking Mountain Lions In Texas: Study Suggests Population Is Stable
Wildlife biologist Dana Milani and landowner Bert Geary examine an adult female mountain lion. Geary is one of more than 50 landowners who've granted access to their land to study an animal that has been the historical object of scorn by many Texas ranchers.
Price Rumbelow
October 30, 2014
 

Audio Clip

Tracking Mountain Lions In Texas: Study Suggests Population Is Stable

00:00
This
This Texas mountain lion died after stepping into a metal snare laid down by a ranch owner who wants to eliminate mountain lions. Some ranch owners maintain that lions should not be studied but be killed. This image was taken October 18, 2014 in Brewster County, Texas by a trapper employed by the ranch owner. The trapper did not wish to be identified.
The mountain lion of Texas is known by many names in the Southwest. Cougars, panthers and pumas to name three.
In California it’s protected. In Arizona and New Mexico, you can hunt this predator, but with strict limitations. In Texas, mountain lions can be hunted at will. Still, preliminary results from a four-year-old study suggest that the Texas mountain lion population is stable and may be growing.
Data from a Texas project tracking mountain lions by satellite imply a population of between 25-40 animals in one of the sky islands in Texas. Sky island refers to a mountain range surrounded by flatlands or in the case of this study, the high desert that's a 90-minute drive north of the U.S.-Mexico border.The project, privately funded by individuals and nonprofit foundations, is an initiative of the Borderlands Research Institute (BRI) at Sul Ross State University in Alpine, Texas.
What separates this project is that it takes place on private land, an accomplishment in a state where 95 percent of the land is in private hands. What’s more, most of the test area is owned by ranchers, many of whom have harbored revulsion for the mountain lion.
“You have to understand the values that people have, the history that they (ranchers) have, the culture that they have," said Louis Harveson, the leader of the research team.
That history is marked by a loathing for the animal, the notion that mountain lions should be killed on sight. Yet Harveson’s managed to get more than 50 ranchers and other landowners to open their gates to his research team. Harveson assured ranchers that no lions would be brought in from other regions, only that the existing population in the Davis Mountains of west Texas would be studied. He also asked ranchers to consider the animal’s role in maintaining nature’s checks and balances.
“Mountain lions are the apex predator, just like sharks and oceans," said Harveson.
"There’s a food chain that’s in existence," he explained. "And that apex predator symbolizes wildness. This animal that’s able to kill a deer a week or a large prey item a week, that just says that there’s a good healthy ecosystem intact.”  
In four years, Harveson’s team has used leg snares to capture 22 mountain lions, tranquilize them and place satellite and VHF radio beacons on their collars.

James King is a landowner whose family has deep roots in ranching. He’s allowed the research team on his land to record details of the animals’ diet.

“The kill sites are detectable by the fact that the lions don’t move with these GPS collars," said King, referring to the GPS location beacons. When the signal remains fixed on a location, it means one of two scenarios are unfolding.
Either the animal has died, or the stationary signal suggests that the lion has stopped at a kill site, a place where the animal eats its prey.
Wildlife biologist Dana Milani is a member of the research team. She crosses canyons and sepia-toned mountain ridges every working day. She documents the lions’ appetite for deer, rabbit and porcupine. That appetite keeps those lower-level species in check.

“You’re always trying to be quiet to stress the animal less," she said while moving through underbrush.
A
Patricia Moody Harveson
A female adult wakes up after the sedation wears off. She's outfitted with satellite and VHF tracking beacons on her collar.
She said she has been fortunate lately given how elusive the mountain lion is. Milani recently checked and helped collar two adults, a female and a male. She took samples of blood and tissue for genetic analysis before withdrawing and letting the sedation wear off.
She said without the support of ranchers and other landowners, she could not paint a picture of how lions sometimes help ranchers.
A case-in-point, James King has trouble eliminating feral hogs. That’s an invasive species brought to the Americas by Christopher Columbus.

“I shoot a lot of feral hogs and they’re hard to exterminate. And those lions are out there at night doing that job," he said with a wide smile.

King said the antipathy toward the mountain lion goes back to the days when sheep and goats were raised in this part of the Southwest. Today, King said, ranchers principally raise cattle. He said he's encouraged by one development profiled in the study.
This
courtesy: Borderlands Research Institute
This image shows the Davis Mountains in far west Texas. Home ranges of adult female mountain lions are traced in yellow, red, and green and a male's home range is in blue.
"Here in the Davis Mountains, we’re not seeing any kills of domestic cattle," he said.  
"We’ve documented over 200 different kills," said project leader Harveson. "And not one domestic animal has fallen to mountain lions and that’s a fact.”
Across the Southwest, attitudes toward the predator may be changing.
Private landowners in Arizona have just agreed that a 10-mile corridor traveled by lions will be protected. In California, a new UC Davis study suggests migration corridors be created to avoid lions being hit on the highway.
James King said he’s not an evangelist for mountain lions. But like many of his neighbors, King simply wants information about the animal.

“Let’s give these scientists access so they can help us understand the movement, the population, their whole dynamics so we can be better land managers," King said.

The leaders of the Texas study said they don’t want to influence policy. They just want to gather data so that policymakers and area ranchers can make informed decisions on mountain lion management

Wildlife biologist Dana Milani and landowner Bert Geary examine
 an adult female mountain lion. Geary is one of more than 50
 landowners who've granted access to their land to study an
 animal that has been the historical object of scorn by many
Texas ranchers.
Price Rumbelow
October 30, 2014
Audio Clip

Tracking Mountain Lions In Texas: Study Suggests Population Is Stable

00:00
This
This Texas mountain lion died after stepping into a metal snare laid down by a ranch owner who wants to eliminate mountain lions. Some ranch owners maintain that lions should not be studied but be killed. This image was taken October 18, 2014 in Brewster County, Texas by a trapper employed by the ranch owner. The trapper did not wish to be identified.
The mountain lion of Texas is known by many names in the Southwest. Cougars, panthers and pumas to name three.
In California it’s protected. In Arizona and New Mexico, you can hunt this predator, but with strict limitations. In Texas, mountain lions can be hunted at will. Still, preliminary results from a four-year-old study suggest that the Texas mountain lion population is stable and may be growing.
Data from a Texas project tracking mountain lions by satellite imply a population of between 25-40 animals in one of the sky islands in Texas. Sky island refers to a mountain range surrounded by flatlands or in the case of this study, the high desert that's a 90-minute drive north of the U.S.-Mexico border.The project, privately funded by individuals and nonprofit foundations, is an initiative of the Borderlands Research Institute (BRI) at Sul Ross State University in Alpine, Texas.
What separates this project is that it takes place on private land, an accomplishment in a state where 95 percent of the land is in private hands. What’s more, most of the test area is owned by ranchers, many of whom have harbored revulsion for the mountain lion.
“You have to understand the values that people have, the history that they (ranchers) have, the culture that they have," said Louis Harveson, the leader of the research team.
That history is marked by a loathing for the animal, the notion that mountain lions should be killed on sight. Yet Harveson’s managed to get more than 50 ranchers and other landowners to open their gates to his research team. Harveson assured ranchers that no lions would be brought in from other regions, only that the existing population in the Davis Mountains of west Texas would be studied. He also asked ranchers to consider the animal’s role in maintaining nature’s checks and balances.
“Mountain lions are the apex predator, just like sharks and oceans," said Harveson.
"There’s a food chain that’s in existence," he explained. "And that apex predator symbolizes wildness. This animal that’s able to kill a deer a week or a large prey item a week, that just says that there’s a good healthy ecosystem intact.”  
In four years, Harveson’s team has used leg snares to capture 22 mountain lions, tranquilize them and place satellite and VHF radio beacons on their collars.

James King is a landowner whose family has deep roots in ranching. He’s allowed the research team on his land to record details of the animals’ diet.

“The kill sites are detectable by the fact that the lions don’t move with these GPS collars," said King, referring to the GPS location beacons. When the signal remains fixed on a location, it means one of two scenarios are unfolding.
Either the animal has died, or the stationary signal suggests that the lion has stopped at a kill site, a place where the animal eats its prey.
Wildlife biologist Dana Milani is a member of the research team. She crosses canyons and sepia-toned mountain ridges every working day. She documents the lions’ appetite for deer, rabbit and porcupine. That appetite keeps those lower-level species in check.

“You’re always trying to be quiet to stress the animal less," she said while moving through underbrush.
A
Patricia Moody Harveson
A female adult wakes up after the sedation wears off. She's outfitted with satellite and VHF tracking beacons on her collar.
She said she has been fortunate lately given how elusive the mountain lion is. Milani recently checked and helped collar two adults, a female and a male. She took samples of blood and tissue for genetic analysis before withdrawing and letting the sedation wear off.
She said without the support of ranchers and other landowners, she could not paint a picture of how lions sometimes help ranchers.
A case-in-point, James King has trouble eliminating feral hogs. That’s an invasive species brought to the Americas by Christopher Columbus.

“I shoot a lot of feral hogs and they’re hard to exterminate. And those lions are out there at night doing that job," he said with a wide smile.

King said the antipathy toward the mountain lion goes back to the days when sheep and goats were raised in this part of the Southwest. Today, King said, ranchers principally raise cattle. He said he's encouraged by one development profiled in the study.
This
courtesy: Borderlands Research Institute
This image shows the Davis Mountains in far west Texas. Home ranges of adult female mountain lions are traced in yellow, red, and green and a male's home range is in blue.
"Here in the Davis Mountains, we’re not seeing any kills of domestic cattle," he said.  
"We’ve documented over 200 different kills," said project leader Harveson. "And not one domestic animal has fallen to mountain lions and that’s a fact.”
Across the Southwest, attitudes toward the predator may be changing.
Private landowners in Arizona have just agreed that a 10-mile corridor traveled by lions will be protected. In California, a new UC Davis study suggests migration corridors be created to avoid lions being hit on the highway.
James King said he’s not an evangelist for mountain lions. But like many of his neighbors, King simply wants information about the animal.

“Let’s give these scientists access so they can help us understand the movement, the population, their whole dynamics so we can be better land managers," King said.

The leaders of the Texas study said they don’t want to influence policy. They just want to gather data so that policymakers and area ranchers can make informed decisions on mountain lion management























“They are extremely rare in East Texas. Many of the
 reports of ‘black panthers’ are from East Texas as well,
 yet there has never been a proven black mountain lion.
 We do not have density estimates for mountain lions in
Texas, but, I do not believe that there is any sort of stable
population in East Texas. Any confirmed mountain lions
 there are almost certainly are dispersing juvenile males,”
Evans explained.

Sul Ross State University’s Borderlands Research
 Institute has been studying mountains primarily in the
Trans Pecos region for several years. By attaching radio
 transmitting collars with GPS technology to captured cats
 they have learned that adult females have a home range
 that averages more than 30,000 acres. In contrast an adult
 male’s home range is about 130,000 acres, or more than
 200 square miles.
The research shows that while adult mountain lions have
 a large home range, they tend to stay within a specific area
 while traveling large distances daily.
Unlike many other types of wildlife, mountain lions do not
have a specific breeding season.
“It varies considerably. Young can be born at any time of
year, though it’s more common in the warmer months.
Young remain with their mother for 12 to 18 months
before dispersal,” Evans said.

In what may explain Evans comment about the cougars 
that find their way into East Texas are typically juveniles,
 studies have shown that young cats kicked out of the
pride can travel upwards of 600 miles.
Those same male juveniles will be on the move again
when they mature and are in search of a breeding female.
Although a mountain lion is capable of bring down prey
 animals much larger than itself, based on BRI’s ongoing
 research in Far West Texas, almost 50 percent of a
 cougars diet is deer, either white-tailed or mule deer. 
Another 25 percent is feral pig or javelina. They are
 also opportunistic feeders, taking rabbits and other
 small animals when possible.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwjz0ofmvoPNAhUGQiYKHaLvD_MQFggcMAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.fronterasdesk.org%2Fcontent%2F9831%2Ftracking-mountain-lions-texas-study-suggests-population-stable&usg=AFQjCNGzn3t8jugQ-wuTPLxc3CKssuqRqQ&sig2=24p3vxTh7eBn1P9V2sAO6Q


Tracking Mountain Lions In Texas: Study Suggests Population Is Stable

Wildlife biologist Dana Milani and landowner Bert Geary examine
 an adult female mountain lion. Geary is one of more than 50 
landowners who've granted access to their land to study an
 animal that has been the historical object of scorn by many 
Texas ranchers.
Price Rumbelow
October 30, 2014
Audio Clip

Tracking Mountain Lions In Texas: Study Suggests Population Is Stable

00:00
This
This Texas mountain lion died after stepping into a metal snare laid down by a ranch owner who wants to eliminate mountain lions. Some ranch owners maintain that lions should not be studied but be killed. This image was taken October 18, 2014 in Brewster County, Texas by a trapper employed by the ranch owner. The trapper did not wish to be identified.
The mountain lion of Texas is known by many names in the Southwest. Cougars, panthers and pumas to name three.
In California it’s protected. In Arizona and New Mexico, you can hunt this predator, but with strict limitations. In Texas, mountain lions can be hunted at will. Still, preliminary results from a four-year-old study suggest that the Texas mountain lion population is stable and may be growing.
Data from a Texas project tracking mountain lions by satellite imply a population of between 25-40 animals in one of the sky islands in Texas. Sky island refers to a mountain range surrounded by flatlands or in the case of this study, the high desert that's a 90-minute drive north of the U.S.-Mexico border.The project, privately funded by individuals and nonprofit foundations, is an initiative of the Borderlands Research Institute (BRI) at Sul Ross State University in Alpine, Texas.
What separates this project is that it takes place on private land, an accomplishment in a state where 95 percent of the land is in private hands. What’s more, most of the test area is owned by ranchers, many of whom have harbored revulsion for the mountain lion.
“You have to understand the values that people have, the history that they (ranchers) have, the culture that they have," said Louis Harveson, the leader of the research team.
That history is marked by a loathing for the animal, the notion that mountain lions should be killed on sight. Yet Harveson’s managed to get more than 50 ranchers and other landowners to open their gates to his research team. Harveson assured ranchers that no lions would be brought in from other regions, only that the existing population in the Davis Mountains of west Texas would be studied. He also asked ranchers to consider the animal’s role in maintaining nature’s checks and balances.
“Mountain lions are the apex predator, just like sharks and oceans," said Harveson.
"There’s a food chain that’s in existence," he explained. "And that apex predator symbolizes wildness. This animal that’s able to kill a deer a week or a large prey item a week, that just says that there’s a good healthy ecosystem intact.”  
In four years, Harveson’s team has used leg snares to capture 22 mountain lions, tranquilize them and place satellite and VHF radio beacons on their collars.

James King is a landowner whose family has deep roots in ranching. He’s allowed the research team on his land to record details of the animals’ diet.

“The kill sites are detectable by the fact that the lions don’t move with these GPS collars," said King, referring to the GPS location beacons. When the signal remains fixed on a location, it means one of two scenarios are unfolding.
Either the animal has died, or the stationary signal suggests that the lion has stopped at a kill site, a place where the animal eats its prey.
Wildlife biologist Dana Milani is a member of the research team. She crosses canyons and sepia-toned mountain ridges every working day. She documents the lions’ appetite for deer, rabbit and porcupine. That appetite keeps those lower-level species in check.

“You’re always trying to be quiet to stress the animal less," she said while moving through underbrush.
A
Patricia Moody Harveson
A female adult wakes up after the sedation wears off. She's outfitted with satellite and VHF tracking beacons on her collar.
She said she has been fortunate lately given how elusive the mountain lion is. Milani recently checked and helped collar two adults, a female and a male. She took samples of blood and tissue for genetic analysis before withdrawing and letting the sedation wear off.
She said without the support of ranchers and other landowners, she could not paint a picture of how lions sometimes help ranchers.
A case-in-point, James King has trouble eliminating feral hogs. That’s an invasive species brought to the Americas by Christopher Columbus.

“I shoot a lot of feral hogs and they’re hard to exterminate. And those lions are out there at night doing that job," he said with a wide smile.

King said the antipathy toward the mountain lion goes back to the days when sheep and goats were raised in this part of the Southwest. Today, King said, ranchers principally raise cattle. He said he's encouraged by one development profiled in the study.
This
courtesy: Borderlands Research Institute
This image shows the Davis Mountains in far west Texas. Home ranges of adult female mountain lions are traced in yellow, red, and green and a male's home range is in blue.
"Here in the Davis Mountains, we’re not seeing any kills of domestic cattle," he said.  
"We’ve documented over 200 different kills," said project leader Harveson. "And not one domestic animal has fallen to mountain lions and that’s a fact.”
Across the Southwest, attitudes toward the predator may be changing.
Private landowners in Arizona have just agreed that a 10-mile corridor traveled by lions will be protected. In California, a new UC Davis study suggests migration corridors be created to avoid lions being hit on the highway.
James King said he’s not an evangelist for mountain lions. But like many of his neighbors, King simply wants information about the animal.

“Let’s give these scientists access so they can help us understand the movement, the population, their whole dynamics so we can be better land managers," King said.

The leaders of the Texas study said they don’t want to influence policy. They just want to gather data so that policymakers and area ranchers can make informed decisions on mountain lion management

Sunday, May 29, 2016

While I know it is politically correct to say that Government must take into account the wants of folks in particular geographic regions when it comes to restoring top trophic carnivores, I say otherwise!!!!!,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,In fact as the legendary MR SPOCK uttered in In the STAR TREK film, The Wrath of Khan (1982),,,,,,,,,, “Logic clearly dictates that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.”............. Captain Kirk answers------ “Or the one"...........The ecological services needs for all the creatures on our planet, both human and non human, require the most robust array of biological diversity possible--- Including that meat eaters be present at the top of the chain, regardless of whether a particular group of humans understands and wants this or not-----------------“All ethics so far evolved rest upon a single premise: that the individual is a member of a community of interdependent parts"............ "The land ethic simply enlarges the boundaries of the community to include soils, waters, plants and animals, or collectively the land"----- Aldo Leopold,The Land Ethic (1949)


http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/sciencedaily/plants_animals/ecology/~3/xcBNck3T1jY/160527190407.htm?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email


At the top of their game

Research highlights the factors necessary for successful apex predator recovery


Being at the top of the food chain is no guarantee of a species survival. Not only are many of these so-called apex predators susceptible to human impacts, they also are slow to recover from them, which makes these animals vulnerable despite their high-ranking ecosystem status.
Ecologists and conservation biologists have repeatedly sounded the alarm about the global decline of apex predators -- a group that includes gray wolves, spotted owls, bald eagles, cheetahs, killer whales and sea otters. However, restoration practitioners have met with limited success despite major efforts to recover some of the world's most charismatic megafauna.







New research conducted by Adrian Stier while a postdoctoral scholar at UC Santa Barbara's National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis examines the big picture with regard to predator and ecosystem recovery. Stier worked on the study with colleagues at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Oregon State University and University of Florida. Their findings appear in the journal Science Advances.
"Recovery of apex predators is key because they often provide fundamental services such as disease regulation, the maintenance of biodiversity and carbon sequestration," said Stier, who will join UCSB's Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Marine Biology as an assistant professor this fall. "To recover apex predators we must first appreciate that the pathway to predator recovery may differ markedly from the pathway predators initially followed to decline."
The scientists' comprehensive literature review revealed that full recovery of apex predator populations is currently the exception rather than the rule. In addition to well-known considerations such as continued exploitation and slow life histories of these species, several underappreciated factors complicate predator recoveries.









"Not all predator species are equivalent, so we need to tailor successful recovery strategies based on how these animals are connected to the surrounding ecosystem," Stier said. "The 'when' is just as important as 'what' with respect to timing predator recoveries. This means designing adaptive sequences of management strategies that embrace key environmental and species interactions as they emerge."
A good example of a successful restoration project is the reintroduction of wolves to the ecosystem in and around Yellowstone National Park. However, Stier and his co-authors noted that reintroducing wolves has not recreated an ecosystem that looks the same as it did pre-1920 when wolves were abundant. While wolves have contributed to a reduced elk population in recent years, lower elk numbers have not been sufficient to restore willows, the region's dominant woody vegetation on which elk and other animals feed. This in turn has likely limited the recovery of the beaver population, which uses willow as building material for dams in small streams.
"Sometimes just reintroducing a species isn't enough," Stier said. "An ecosystem can morph into a different-looking system that can be relatively stable, and adding in these top predators doesn't necessarily cause that system to recover back into its original state."
Then again, according to Stier, that may not always be the ultimate goal. He and his fellow investigators point out that the recovery of apex predators isn't always well-received and reintroducing them in an artificial way can be controversial.
"It's important to understand what people want to see in their ecosystem and to try and balance conservation needs with social and economic goals," Stier concluded. "We have the opportunity to identify efficient win-win solutions that offer dual prosperity to these majestic carnivores and the human systems within which they are embedded."

Story Source:
The above post is reprinted from materials provided by University of California - Santa Barbara. The original item was written by Julie Cohen.Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.

Journal Reference:
  1. A. C. Stier, J. F. Samhouri, M. Novak, K. N. Marshall, E. J. Ward, R. D. Holt, P. S. Levin. Ecosystem context and historical contingency in apex predator recoveriesScience Advances, 2016; 2 (5): e1501769 DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.1501769