Wolves, Wolf Facts, Cougars, Cougar Facts, Coyotes, Coyote Facts - Wolves, Cougars, Coyotes Forever

A resurgence in Fox pelt prices in the Northwest Territories(up 3 to 5 times over the previous several years) has the Government wanting trappers to "target foxes",,,,,,so that there will not be "problem wildlife".........So whether you are in New York State(see below this one) or up in the "Territories", "kill the critters" continues to be the mantra...........You can understand the ignorance of previous generations of men 100, 200 and 300 years ago as it relates to killing carnivores,,,,,,,,,,,,,,But with all that has been written and discussed since World War 2 about how Carnivores are so critical to maintaining healthy systems, it is astounding and sad that we choose to put the "blinders on" and continue to "kill baby kill" in the name of the economy or our supposed "god given right" to take what we want from the earth-----WAKE UP, WE MUST, IF 7 TO 10 BILLION OF US ARE GOING TO LIVE COMFORTABLY ON THIS PLANET OF OURS WITH FINITE RESOURCES

2012-02-02T20:05:00.000-08:00

Record fox fur prices prompt N.W.T. trapping hopes

The Canadian Press;CTV news.com;

A section of the MacKenzie Delta is shown in this undated handout photo.

YELLOWKNIFE — The Northwest Territories government is hoping record prices for fox fur pelts will encourage northern trappers to target the critters and keep a check on the burgeoning population.

The price doubled at a recent auction in North Bay, Ont., with cross fox pelts going for $100, more than triple the average price. White fox pelts went for $200 -- up from $40 in previous years.

what some trappers refer to as the "crossfox"

Francois Rossouw, with the territory's Industry Department, said that kind of price for fox is unheard of.
"We really hope the prices will get people targeting foxes," Rossouw said. "Every community in the North has their own resident fox it seems. Instead of having problem wildlife, we would prefer to have them harvest the foxes humanely and pelt them up properly and put them into the market."

Fur has garnered above-average prices this year compared to years past, Rossouw said. Wild fox is particularly in demand from Chinese buyers. China controls about 90 per cent of the market and has a large, growing middle-class that is starting to covet fur as a luxurious accessory, Rossouw said. Appetite for ranch fox has been growing and now that demand is spilling over into wild pelts.

Record prices might be enough to tempt trappers such as Fred Mandeville. The Hay River, N.W.T., man has been out on the traplines for more than 60 years. He said he's never gone after foxes before.
"We don't bother them," Mandeville said. "They get caught sometimes in the trap."

Trappers are more interested in catching lynx and marten -- pelts that can bring up to $1 million into the territory annually, he said. That could change if prices for fox pelts stay high, Mandeville suggested. There are plenty of foxes around -- especially closer to Yellowknife -- and there are fewer lynx.

Prices would have to stay pretty high to make it worthwhile for trappers because the business is getting more expensive, he added."The price of gas is so high. That's where the money goes most of the time. They use snow machines nowadays not like the old days...with dog teams. You didn't have to worry about anything."
If trappers start targeting northern foxes, they will have the blessing of some environmentalists who study the population. Peter Ewins, director of species conservation at World Wildlife Fund Canada, said the fox population can boom in the North, especially when there are lots of lemmings for the animals to feed on.
Trapping foxes is a sustainable hunt which tends to regulate itself, he said.

"The trappers will be the first ones to tell you when numbers are in decline because they won't get so many pelts," Ewins said. "There is a lot of work involved to run the trapline. If you keep coming back in after two or three weeks without more than a couple of foxes, it's not worth your while, so you will ease up."
Even if this year's fox prices don't drive trappers to look for foxes, Northwest Territories government officials say the high prices are good news. The numbers indicate animal rights activists haven't put much of a dent in the demand for fur, Rossouw said.

"Everybody thinks the anti-fur movement has clobbered fur and people don't like fur anymore," he said. "At the end of the day, it's still the best fibre to use when it's cold. There is no two ways about it."

-- By Chinta Puxley in Winnipeg

New York State Bobcats appear to be expanding their range southward toward Pennsylvania.........Of course, as soon as a carnivore has some success recolonizing a region, State Game Commissions immediately institute hunting and trapping...........As George Wuerthner so often points out,,,,,,,,,,as long at State Game Commisisions are (1)funded by hunting fees and... (2)Commisioners picked by Govenors who hand out these appointments to ranchers and farmers who either donate heavily to their campaigns or who have great influence on election outcomes,,,,,,,,,,,,,,then Carnivores are going to be trimmed to numbers that do not always have the health of the land as the key population determinant.............

2012-02-02T19:36:00.000-08:00

Southern NY tier sees increase in bobcat population

DEC proposes expansion of hunting area

Written by

Steve Reilly; http://www.stargazette.com/

When a bobcat shot through the beam of Barbara Brown's headlights as she drove down AirporRoad in the Town of Union last month, she was stunned. "It just shocked me," said Brown, of the Town of Maine. "You don't see something like that around here. I could see if it was Utah, but not around here."

Reports of bobcat sightings have surged in the Southern Tier and elsewhere over a few short years, spurring state officials to propose a dramatic expansion in the swath of New York where the rare felines can be hunted and trapped.

The state Department of Environmental Conservation's five-year bobcat management plan, released late last month, proposes a harvest expansion area that includes parts of 24 counties. The proposed new hunting area cuts across the Southern Tier from Lake Erie to Broome County before reaching up into central New York. According to the DEC, there have been 332 reported bobcat sightings in the expanded harvest area over the past five years.

"What began as occasional sightings along the New York/Pennsylvania border has progressed to large numbers of observations, trail camera photos, and incidental captures and releases by trappers," the DEC document states.

bobcat in NY woodlands

It is legal to hunt and trap bobcats in northern New York and parts of the Hudson Valley.
According to DEC spokeswoman Wendy Rosenbach, the proposal to expand the harvest area is due to population growth coupled with interest from hunters and trappers who covet their valuable pelts.
Eastern or northern U.S. bobcat pelts range in price from around $50 to more than $200, although values fluctuate from year to year.

"In response to this interest, we compiled all available data on bobcat observations in New York," Rosenbach said. "Based on that information, we concluded that bobcat populations are increasing and expanding throughout New York state outside of their historic core range in the Taconic, Catskill and Adirondack mountains and into central and western New York."

Where are all these bobcats coming from? The Keystone State is at least partly to blame. Migration of bobcats from Pennsylvania has likely contributed to the growth of the population across the Southern Tier.
"We certainly have high bobcat densities along the northern tier of Pennsylvania," said Matt Lovallo, supervisor of the game mammal section at the Pennsylvania Game Commission.

More than 1,000 bobcats are taken each year in Pennsylvania, he said. Populations are growing in that state as well. "It's just a function of increasing populations, and the natural dispersal of those populations as they increase," Lovallo said. "We've just reached that point where areas of good habitat are saturated and bobcats are striking out to find new areas where they can thrive."

According to the DEC report, bobcats are about twice the size of domestic cats. An average male weighs 21 pounds and has a body length of 34 inches; females average 14 pounds and 30 inches.

John Elms, president of the Broome County Sportsmen's Association, said the proposed change would benefit local hunters who currently have to travel north to find bobcats. "It'll give the predator hunters one more thing to go after," he said.

Predictably, there is opposition to the plan. Anne Muller, president of Hudson Valley-based Wildlilfe Watch, said DEC's hunting regulations exploit wildlife and manipulate populations. The group opposes all forms of sport hunting."Our concern is for individual animals, and the pain and the suffering that they endure," Muller said.

The proposal to expand the hunting area is subject to public comment and review.
Comments may be sent to NYSDEC, Bobcat Management Plan, 625 Broadway, Albany, N.Y. 12233, or by e-mail to fwwildlf@gw.dec.state.ny.us. The comment period ends Feb. 16.

If the proposed changes take effect, there would be two sets of regulations for bobcat hunting/trapping, depending on the area. Standard trapping and small game hunting licenses would be required to pursue bobcat in the current harvest area, and an additional trapping or hunting permit specific to bobcats would be necessary in the expanded harvest area.

"Bobcat population trends in New York also reflect general trends across the United States," Rosenbach said. "We believe the population of bobcats in the proposed area can sustain some harvest by trappers and hunters."

While there are a few scientists who somehow feel that it is ok for the environment to absorb non native species, virtually all ecologists come out very strongly on perpetuating and restoring native associations of plants and animals.............This blog is very comfortable with pushing for the restoration of native plants and animals that were found in North America at the time of European contact; circa AD 1500........When introduced "exotics" enter our systems, the potential for havoc and destruction is high,,,,,,the Giant Python snakes now amuck in The Florida Everglades are a "Frankenstein" engine of destruction for species ranging from birds to Pumas.

2012-02-02T19:20:00.000-08:00

Severe Python Damage to Florida's Native Everglades Animals Documented in New Study

ScienceDaily — Precipitous declines in formerly common mammals in Everglades National Park in Florida have been linked to the presence of invasive Burmese pythons, according to a study by Michael Dorcas, an associate professor of biology at Davidson College, and colleagues. The research is published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The study, the first to document the ecological impacts of this invasive species, strongly supports that animal communities in the 1.5-million-acre park have been markedly altered by the introduction of pythons within 11 years of their establishment as an invasive species. Mid-sized mammals are the most dramatically affected, but some Everglades pythons are as large as 16 feet long, and their prey have included animals as large as deer and alligators.

"The magnitude of these declines underscores the apparent incredible density of pythons in Everglades National Park and justifies the argument for more intensive investigation into their ecological effects, as well as the development of effective control methods," said Dorcas, lead author of the study and author of the 2010 book Invasive Pythons in the United States.

He continued, "Such severe declines in easily seen mammals bode poorly for the many species of conservation concern that are more difficult to sample but that may also be vulnerable to python predation."

giant python caught in the Everglades

The most severe declines, including a nearly complete disappearance of raccoons, rabbits and opossums, have occurred in the remote southernmost regions of the park, where pythons have been established the longest. In this area, populations of raccoons dropped 99.3 percent, opossums 98.9 percent and bobcats 87.5 percent. Marsh and cottontail rabbits, as well as foxes, were not seen at all.
The researchers collected their information via repeated systematic night-time road surveys within the park, counting both live and road-killed animals. Over the period of the study, researchers traveled a total of nearly 39,000 miles from 2003 to 2011 and compared their findings with similar surveys conducted in 1996 and 1997 along the same roadways before pythons were recognized as established in Everglades National Park.

The authors also conducted surveys in ecologically similar areas north of the park where pythons have not yet been discovered. In those areas, mammal abundances were similar to those in the park before pythons proliferated. At sites where pythons have only recently been documented, however, mammal populations were reduced, though not to the dramatic extent observed within the park where pythons are well established.

"Pythons are wreaking havoc on one of America's most beautiful, treasured and naturally bountiful ecosystems," said U.S. Geological Survey director Marcia McNutt. "Right now, the only hope to help halt further python invasion into new areas is swift, decisive and deliberate human action."

The authors suggested that one reason for such dramatic declines in such a short time is that these prey species are "naïve" -- that is, they not used to being preyed upon by pythons since such large snakes have not previously existed in that ecosystem.

"It took 30 years for the brown treesnake to be implicated in the nearly complete disappearance of mammals and birds on Guam; it has apparently taken only 11 years since pythons were recognized as being established in the Everglades for researchers to implicate pythons in the same kind of severe mammal declines," said Robert Reed, a USGS scientist and co-author of the paper. "It is possible that other mammal species, including at-risk ones, have declined as well because of python predation, but at this time, the status of those species is unknown."

Another coauthor of the study was John Willson '02, a research scientist at Virginia Tech University who has worked with Dorcas on several studies, and co-authored the book Invasive Pythons in the United States.

Willson commented, "Our research adds to the increasing evidence that predators, whether native or exotic, exert major influence on the structure of animal communities. The effects of declining mammal populations on the overall Everglades ecosystem, which extends well beyond the national park boundaries, are likely profound, but are probably complex and difficult to predict. Studies examining such effects are sorely needed to more fully understand the impacts pythons are having on one of our most unique and valued national parks."
On January 23 the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service published a rule in the Federal Register that will ban the importation and interstate transportation of four non-native constrictor snakes that threaten the Everglades, including the Burmese python. These snakes are being listed as injurious species under the Lacey Act.

In addition to Dorcas and Willson, authors of the study are Robert N. Reed, USGS; Ray W. Snow, NPS; Michael R. Rochford, University of Florida; Melissa A. Miller, Auburn University; Walter E. Meshaka, Jr., State Museum of Pennsylvania; Paul T. Andreadis, Denison University; Frank J. Mazzotti, University of Florida; Christina M. Romagosa, Auburn University; and Kristen M. Hart, USGS.

Lynx in New Hampshire documented for the first time in years..............Now, a Lynx shows up in Idaho for the first time in 15 years.............transient or resident?........Only 40 Lynx have been recorded in east central Idaho since the late 19th century.............Would be truly a great thing for a lynx revival to occur

2012-02-01T20:49:00.000-08:00

First Canada lynx in 15 years found in Idaho

"It's a very rare occurrence," Tom Keegan, regional manager with the Idaho Department of Fish and Game, said about the incidental capture last week of the high-elevation, forest-dwelling cat.

He said a man walking his dogs spotted the lynx on Thursday in the rugged mountains of east central Idaho in a legal trap set for bobcat and notified state wildlife officials. They released the animal unharmed.

The last lynx confirmed in the 4.3 million-acre forest surrounding Salmon was in 1991, when one was accidentally trapped. The cats were documented elsewhere in Idaho during the 1995-1996 trapping season, after which trapping lynx was outlawed.

Lynx were designated in 2000 as threatened under the U.S. Endangered Species in the lower 48 states, where they roam the high country from Maine to Washington and south through the Rocky Mountains.

The animals have long legs and large, well-furred paws, making them highly adapted for hunting in deep snow for preferred prey like snowshoe hares, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Lynx are infrequently sighted. Biologists mostly rely on tracks and scat to document the reclusive animal's presence.

Just 40 lynx have been recorded in east central Idaho since the late 1800s, according to Fish and Game.

A DNA sample collected from the recently captured cat will be analyzed to verify it is a wild lynx and to gain knowledge about its possible origins, Keegan said.

Like wolverines and other elusive forest carnivores, lynx can travel long distances, even hundreds of miles, he said.

Keegan said it was too early to say whether the lynx found in the Salmon-Challis forest was a sign of the animal's return to its historic range or if it was a random event.

"There's all kinds of speculation. It may be a transient animal or a resident animal," he said.

The Great Lakes delisting of Wolves creates a hybrid management situation for North Dakota with the eastern portion of the State under a delisting paradigm and the western part of the State(West of Hwy 83 and the Missouri River) having wolves still protected under the federal Endangered Species Act .......Stephanie Tucker who is the state furbearer biologist for North Dakota claims that since (in her opinion) there is not enough suitable habitat for wolves to create a breeding population in North Dakota, she has the necessary madates in place for landowners to destroy any transient wolves that are deemed "threatening".......She of course wants delisting throughout the State so that North Dakota never has to worry about a breeding population somehow carving out a toehold........Colonizers from the Western States need to get into North Dakota quickly, create a few packs and thus forcing Ms. Tucker and colleagues to re-evaluate their current mgmt plans to prevent populations from falling under a sustainablwe long-term level

2012-02-01T20:40:00.000-08:00

Gray Wolf Delisting Complicates Situation for North Dakota

By Greg Freeman, North Dakota Game and Fish

BISMARCK - The recent decision by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to remove the Great Lakes population of gray wolves from federal protection might not seem as important in North Dakota as some of the other states in the Midwest, but it is significant nonetheless. Stephanie Tucker, North Dakota Game and Fish Department furbearer biologist, said this development is important because it means the Great Lakes population has recovered enough to no longer warrant protection by the Endangered Species Act.

"However, the Great Lakes population region delisting only includes the portion of North Dakota east of U.S. Highway 83 and the Missouri River, thus complicating their management status in our state," Tucker said. Due to this action, the management of wolves found roaming through the eastern portion of the state will fall back to the State Game and Fish Department under state management guidelines as a protected furbearer. The complicating aspect of the decision is that wolves moving through western North Dakota (west of Highway 83 and the Missouri River) still remain under federal protection because that area falls between the Great Lakes and Rocky Mountain boundaries.

"Although we do get rare sightings in North Dakota, we don't have a resident wolf population in the state, or enough suitable habitat to support one; therefore, we have no plans to allow a hunting season on wolves at this point," Tucker said. "The upside is that under state management, we now have the flexibility to deal with any issues that may arise with the occasional transient animals moving through North Dakota." State law provides a provision for landowners to protect their property from depredation by a state-managed furbearer. Therefore, landowners in eastern North Dakota could shoot a wolf posing a threat to livestock. However, west of highway 83 and the Missouri River, wolves are still an endangered species under stricter federal protection. Subsequently, landowners in that part of the state must first contact proper federal authorities before taking action on their own.

"Our hope is that in the near future, additional delisting action by the Fish and Wildlife Service will address western North Dakota," Tucker said. "Then the confusion over split management status in our state will be eliminated."

The Northeast is experiencing an aberant Winter weather year with temperatures up +5 degrees above the 100 year avearage............As a letter to the editor in the Wall Street Journal by distinguished clmatologists today stated,,,,,, Nearly every climate expert in the world has concluded that we are warming the earth through fossil fuel burning.........The result this year is that Black Bears will come out of their dens in mid Feb rather than in late March seeking food wherever they can find it(near homes and business), lyme disease carrying ticks will be more prolific and looking for hosts even on warm Winter days,,,,,,,,,,,,mosquitoes will be rampant as cold weather has not been here to knock down their populations(and bats are not around to eat them due to the plague of white nose syndrome)............We are screwing with the natural cycle and there will be adverse natural world consequences to deal with as a result

2012-02-01T20:28:00.000-08:00

The Jumanji effect? Extra warm winter playing havoc with hibernating animals

By Jeremy A. Kaplan

| FoxNews.com

Suburban bear sightings are up nationwide. Ravenous black bears scurrying through trash cans for dinner, mosquitoes swarming in the early grass, amorous deer behaving like, well, rabbits. Creatures great and small are being thrown for a loop this winter as the unusually warm climate stirs all forms of wildlife from their natural hibernation and reproduction cycles.

Call it the "Jumanji effect."It will cause bat populations to crater and had famous groundhog Punxsutawney Phil stirring early. And rather than hibernating through the freezing snowstorms typically seen from October to March, black bears are likely to wake early -- and they'll be ravenous, said Paul Curtis, a professor of natural resources and wildlife specialist with Cornell University.

"They'll be hungry when they come out of their dens after hibernating all winter," Curtis told FoxNews.com. "Their fat reserves will be gone and they'll be looking for easy food." Thanks to a winter that has averaged at least five degrees above normal, according to Art DeGaetano, a climatologist and the director of the NOAA Northeast Regional Climate Center -- above-average temperatures that will continue through April, per the National Weather Service's long range forecasts -- Black bears could show their faces in the next few weeks.

"By mid- to late February, black bears will be coming out of their dens," Curtis said. They'll most likely go after bird feeders and other human-created food sources -- up to 80 percent of the omnivorous species' diet is plant material, he explained.

But other animals do have a blood lust, and thanks to the warm weather, they may attack like the plague this summer."This year, lots and lots of hungry ticks will emerge even on warm winter days," said Jody Gangloff-Kaufmann, a professor of entomology and a specialist with the New York State Integrated Pest Management Program. The boom in ticks is partly thanks to a soaring deer population, which will have survived the mild winter in record numbers. And where deer numbers are up, so are ticks.

Other blood-thirsty pests will make the summer of 2012 one for the record books as well, again thanks to the odd weather. The extreme cold snaps typical in many U.S. states have yet to surface -- weather that typically kills a good portion of the dormant mosquito population. "I anticipate the mosquito problems we normally see to be much more intense and begin earlier than usual if the weather continues to be mild," Gangloff-Kaufmann said. "Even the fleas have had a boost so far this winter and many people are complaining about flea problems right now, in the middle of winter."

Still another climate-related factor will cause mosquito swarms to inflate: a serious dip in bats. Mosquito-munching bats have been dying off, due to a fungus that has decimated the population."We may have lost five and a half to six and a half million bats in eastern North America in the last five years," Curtis said. The fungus may be causing them to wake early, itching and hungry. And when they emerge unexpectedly in January or February looking to feed, they starve to death. Will anything save us from the coming mosquito onslaught? Ironically, a lack of precipitation may be our savior as the summer nears.

"Mosquitoes need standing water for breeding," Curtis told FoxNews.com. April showers bring May flowers, but they also bring swarms of mosquitoes in June, July and August. If we have early spring storms and wet weather, Curtis warned, watch out. But a dry spring may cut down on the swarms.

For the time being, Curtis is more concerned with the bears. Scientists typically take advantage of the snows and cold to study hibernating bears in February."Usually, there's snow on the ground, making February an ideal time for studying them," he said. "If we're going to do winter den work, we have to do it early in the year."

The city of Ktchener, Ontario Canada has one of the most enlightened human/coyote coexistance policies in North America...............They are lockstep with the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources in their outlook on living with coyotes and wolves.........As Kitchener Natural areas coordinator Josh Shea puts it: "Coyotes are an important part of the urban ecosystem."........."coyotes check the rising raccoon population, which can carry deadly round worm parasites............Art Timmerman, Mgmt biologist for the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources states: “With a bounty(to seek to rid an area of coyotes), you’re sort of persecuting the animal for doing things coyotes do".....“Not all coyotes are bad coyotes.”..........As our friends at Project Coyote urge,,,,,,,, Never feed a coyote or any other wildlife,,,,Keep pets in doors overnight. Cats and small dogs are the same size as a coyote's regular prey..... Don't leave pet food outside overnight or pile garbage and or compost meat near the home. The smell attracts coyotes and clutter gives them cover to slink around your property,,,,,,Coyotes are territorial. They will often attack other animals, including dogs, that enter their territory,,,,Always keep a dog on a leash, even in wooded areas...............The bottom line is that coyotes and wolves should be a part of Eastern North America's ecosytem,,,,they contribute to a rich biodiversity...... The presence of coyotes and wolves is a good indication that our natural spaces are healthy with a wide array of creatures of all types

2012-01-30T22:50:00.000-08:00

By Ashley Csanad; therecord.com

How to learn to stop worrying and love the coyote

KITCHENER — A yellow-eyed and long-toothed creature lurks in forests throughout Waterloo Region.But the City of Kitchener and wildlife experts say that while urban coyotes might be wily, they aren’t to be feared.

Coyotes have been making headlines in the region and across the province since the start of the year. A dog was eaten by coyotes in Cambridge in early January; a few weeks later, an eight-year-old girl was attacked in suburban Oakville. And in November, paw prints ran through a playground Meinzinger Park in central Kitchener.

Coyotes are more likely to be afraid of people than attack, said Josh Shea, natural areas co-ordinator for the city. So, after receiving a few calls from concerned residents about coyotes in the city, Shea took the chance to reach out to the community. “We’re trying to educate people to live with these animals in the city,” he said, explaining that residents also tend to see more coyotes in winter, when some seek new territory and there aren’t any leaves on the trees to camouflage them.

They’re also an important part of the urban ecosystem. “By having those predators in place it helps other populations in check,” said SheaFor example, coyotes check the rising raccoon population, which can carry deadly round worm parasites.

“These animals have been here a long time . . . It’s important that we take the appropriate steps to learn to live with them,” said Gary Boes, an animal cruelty inspector with the Kitchener-Waterloo Humane Society. “Many of these problems we encounter out there, we’ve created ourselves.”

Urban sprawl, bird feeders and leaving garbage outside can all increase the chances of a coyote encounter. The biggest danger is feeding coyotes, which removes their natural fear of humans.

Boes said coyote attacks are much less frequently than current coverage would suggest, and most of the time domestic pets are attacked, it could have been prevented. Cats shouldn’t be let out overnight and, as municipal bylaws require, dogs should be leashed even in forested areas.

However, the Ministry of Natural Resources states that the coyote population is increasing. And conflicts do occur.

So how can municipalities and individuals deal with “problem coyotes” that develop a taste for livestock or pets or become too comfortable around humans? Property owners have the right to humanely trap or kill problem wildlife on their property. Municipalities must obtain Ministry of Natural Resources approval to initiate a cull or even trap a few problem animals.

“Culls are valuable for over population but culls do not necessarily deal with the problem animals,” said Robin Horwath, general manager of the Ontario Fur Managers Federation, the body that licenses all hunters and trappers in the province but also acts as a liaison between the government and trappers.

Horwath said even an open cull would be limited by municipal bylaws that don’t allow hunting within city limits. So the coyotes that would be hunted are often the country cousins to the urban dwellers that are causing all the fuss.

coyowolf(eastern coyote)

“With a bounty you’re sort of persecuting the animal for doing things coyotes do,” said Art Timmerman, a management biologist with the Ministry of Natural Resources. “Not all coyotes are bad coyotes.”

Your friendly neighbourhood coyote

The City of Kitchener released a tip sheet Monday to help regional residents get along with their neighbourhood coyotes.

• Never feed a coyote or any other wildlife

• Keep pets in doors overnight. Cats and small dogs are the same size as a coyote's regular prey.

• Don't leave pet food outside overnight or pile garbage and or compost meat near the home. The smell attracts coyotes and clutter gives them cover to slink around your property.

• Coyotes are territorial. They will often attack other animals, including dogs, that enter their territory.

• Always keep a dog on a leash, even in wooded areas

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Tips for co-existing with urban coyotes

January 30, 2012

KITCHENER – With coyotes becoming a common sight in urban areas across southern Ontario, largely due to the expansion of neighbourhoods and newer subdivisions into former farmland and green space that were once coyote habitat. In addition, coyote population levels across the province of Ontario are noted to be at a high level.

The City of Kitchener would like to offer the following tips on co-existing with these wild animals:

Never feed a coyote or any other wild animal including raccoons, deer or rabbits. When animals like the coyote are fed, they not only lose their natural fear of humans but often lose their ability or interest to hunt and locate natural food sources that are an important part of their diet and keep them healthy. In the case where a “problem” animal needs to be removed, it is usually because they have become accustomed to being fed by people and are causing a problem. It only takes one person to cause a problem for an entire neighbourhood.

Secure your garbage and compost in durable plastic containers with locking lids. Never compost meat or other animal products in outdoor composters. It is also important to make sure that pet food is not left outdoors, as this can also attract animals to your yard.

Always keep your dog on a leash and under control. Domestic dogs are a threat to a coyote, and some smaller dogs and cats are the same size as a coyote’s regular food and they could attempt to catch and eat pets.

While the city does not post signs to warn people about the presence of coyotes, signage is posted to remind pet owners of the city bylaw prohibiting pet owners from allowing their pets to run off-leash. Keeping pets on a leash - or indoors - will help keep them safe. Coyotes view free-running pets as threats and they will protect their territory by attacking the other animal.
“Coyotes have adapted very well to life in the city, can live in close proximity with their human neighbours and are a beneficial and important animal in an urban environment because they help control small animal populations,” said Josh Shea, natural areas co-ordinator for the city. “Generally, coyotes don’t pose a threat to human safety, but understanding and respecting them can avoid problems.”

Coywolves(Eastern Coyotes)

If you do encounter a coyote, remain calm and slowly back away while giving the animal enough space to escape. If necessary, you should leave the area. Concerns about abnormal coyote behaviour should be reported to the city by calling 519-741-2345

“Coyotes are curious animals that are very aware of their surroundings and the activities happening in their territories.” said Shea, “There is no reason to be afraid if you observe a coyote. From an ecological perspective, having these animals live in and near urban areas is a positive, as they are a natural part of a healthy environment.”

Urban coyote facts

The dog-like animal is a common, although rarely encountered, animal in Kitchener, and is often seen and heard in areas that in areas near farmland, green spaces and natural areas.

The coyote is a highly adaptable and intelligent animal that feeds on a wide variety of food items including fruits, vegetables, mice, squirrels, rabbits, raccoons, geese, ducks, deer, beaver and domestic pets, including cats and dogs.

Coyotes are mainly active at dusk, dawn and during the night but can be seen at anytime of the day, especially during the spring season when they are busy catching food to feed their young. During the winter season, coyotes are also observed more frequently as young animals begin to move around looking for unoccupied territories and the adults are preparing for the breeding season. Also due to the fact that there are no leaves on the trees, it is easier to notice or see these animals.

Coyotes live in small groups that include the adult parents and the young, which are born in April or May. Coyotes can often be heard barking, yipping and yelping during the spring and early summer season when they are raising and teaching their young how to locate and catch food.

Coyotes are territorial and will protect their territory against other coyotes. They will also defend their territory against other species, including cats and dogs. This behaviour is quite natural and is not a sign of the coyote acting overly aggressive.

Like other species of mammals, coyotes can carry rabies. With strict rabies control and prevention programs in Ontario, the likelihood of encountering a coyote with rabies is extremely rare.

The Kitchener Natural Areas Program is a great community resource for more information on coyotes and other local wildlife. Regular environmental events and hikes are planned at local natural areas, providing residents with first-hand education on these topics. For more information, please visit http://www.kitchener.ca/en/livinginkitchener/KitchenerNaturalAreasProgram.asp

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Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources

Living with Coyotes

Coyotes migrated to Ontario from the west more than 100 years ago. Since then, the coyote has adapted well to both rural and urban environments. It performs an important role as a predator in southern Ontario, helping to control the populations of rabbits, rats and mice.

In the country, coyotes are commonly found in open, agricultural land that includes woodlots and areas covered with brush. In cities, coyotes prefer natural green space, such as parks, ravines and stream banks.

Conflicts with coyotes

Coyotes can raise concerns when they

feed on garbage, compost, fruit or vegetable gardens
prey on livestock or pets
come too close to people.

Landowners can take action to manage wildlife on their property.

Conflicts can often be prevented by making changes on your property. For example, removing sources of food by protecting pets and livestock, fencing gardens, and securing garbage and compost, will help encourage coyotes to go elsewhere. Most importantly, never feed coyotes or other wildlife.

For detailed information, refer to these links:

Lethal action is a last resort

A landowner may humanely kill or trap coyotes that are damaging or about to damage their property. Trapping regulations and firearm regulations and bylaws must be followed.
Landowners in central and northern Ontario (roughly north of the Severn River, Bancroft and Pembroke) must report coyotes killed in protection of property to their local Ministry of Natural Resources office.
You may also hire an agent on your behalf.
To locate a licensed trapper, contact the Ontario Fur Managers Federation at (705) 254-3338 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting (705) 254-3338 highlighting or by e-mail at furman@furmanagers.com

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ONTARIO MINISTRY OF NATURAL RESOURCES
Living with Wolves

Wolves are found throughout northern Ontario.

They are an important part of our ecosystem and contribute to Ontario's rich biodiversity. The presence of wolves is a good indication that our natural spaces are healthy.

Wolves are shy and generally avoid humans. However, wolves are social animals: they not only hunt in packs or groups but live most of their lives with other wolves. Wolf packs will reuse den sites over multiple years.

The pack bond is strongest during winter, when the wolves travel and hunt together. In summer, when the pups are young, the adults seldom go on long forays. They may hunt together occasionally after meeting at the den or home site where the pups are being cared for.

Natural prey for wolves includes moose, deer, elk, caribou and beaver.

Wolves are territorial. Each pack occupies an area that it will defend against intruders. Sizes of territories vary greatly depending on the kind and abundance of prey available. When neighbouring packs trespass into each other's territories, fights often ensue that frequently result in the death of pack members.

Conflicts happen

Wolves sometimes find their way to residential areas, where they may come into conflict with pets, disturb garbage, and cause concern for residents.

Please keep in mind…

Wild animals have the same basic needs as humans – food, water and shelter. Sometimes, humans and wild creatures come into conflict when animals are trying to meet their basic needs. Often, conflicts can be prevented if we're willing to make small changes to how we think and act.

People and wild animals live side by side in Ontario. We all share responsibility for preventing and handling human-wildlife conflicts. If you must take action against wildlife, please consider all your options and follow all relevant laws and regulations.

Conflicts with Wolves

How Can I Prevent Conflicts?

Limit food sources

Never feed wolves.
Keep pet food indoors.
Secure garbage in durable plastic containers with locking lids.
Store garbage indoors until collection day.
Keep compost in containers that keep wolves out while allowing for ventilation.
Avoid adding dog or cat waste, or meat, milk or eggs to composters.
Do not feed wildlife such as deer to prevent attracting wolves to your property; remove deer food and salt blocks.

Make your property unwelcoming

Prune bushes and clean up brush piles.
Eliminate small mammal habitat (rock piles, wood or debris).
Use flashing lights, motion sensors and noise makers to deter wolves.
Fence your property to make it less accessible with a two-metre high fence that extends at least 20 centimetres underground.
Install a roller system that can be attached to the top of your fence preventing animals from gaining the foothold they need to pull themselves up and over the top of a fence.
Close off crawl spaces under porches, decks and sheds.

How Can I Handle a Conflict?

If you encounter a wolf

Never approach or touch a wolf.
Never attempt to "tame" a wolf.
Do not turn your back on, or run from, a wolf. Back away from the animal while remaining calm.
Stand tall, wave your hands and make lots of noise.
Use whistles and personal alarm devices to frighten an approaching or threatening animal.
Carry a flashlight at night to scare off wolves.
Do not let dogs chase a wolf. Chasing wolves could result in injuries to your pet.

Lethal action is a last resort

A landowner may humanely kill or trap wolves that are damaging or about to damage their property. Firearm regulations and bylaws must be followed.
Landowners in central and northern Ontario must report wolves killed in protection of property to their local Ministry of Natural Resources office.
You may also hire an agent to act on your behalf.

For more information and assistance…

To locate a local wildlife control agent…
• Speak with your neighbours, family and friends.
• Look for "animal control" in your phone book or online.

To locate a licensed trapper...
• Contact the Ontario Fur Managers Federation at (705) 254-3338 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting (705) 254-3338 end_of_the_skype_highlighting or by e-mail at furman@furmanagers.com

For information on wolves…
• Call your local Ministry of Natural Resources office or the Natural Resources Information Centre at 1-800-667-1940

There have been experiments over the years to determine if noxious food conditioning can make wolves adverse to approaching and killing livestock.............Known as "Taste Conditioning", the USFW folks are hoping that it can be an effective tool in propping up the beleaguered Mexican Wolf population in Arizona and New Mexico......Beef and cow hide are treated with an odorless and tastelss deworming medication that makes wolves queasy............The idea is that when wolves smell cattle in the wild, their nervous system and brain stem will kick into gear and override any desire they have to get near the cattle...........Northern Illinois University retired biology professor, Lowell Nicolaus, claims that not only will such treated wolves avoid livestock at all cost, but that they will also teach their pups to do so as well..............Will the wolves that have been treated be allowed to return to the wild so that researchers can actualy see if the aversion method works...............We root for this to happen

2012-01-29T22:34:00.000-08:00

New diet may keep wolves of cattle

SUSAN MONTOYA BRYAN,Associated Press

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) - Wildlife managers are running out of options when it comes to helping Mexican gray wolves overcome hurdles that have thwarted reintroduction into their historic range in the Southwest.

Harassment and rubber bullets haven't worked, so they're trying something new — a food therapy that has the potential to make the wolves queasy enough to never want anything to do with cattle again.
As in people, the memories associated with eating a bad meal are rooted in the brain stem, triggered any time associated sights and smells pulse their way through the nervous system.

Wildlife managers are trying to tap into that physiological response in the wolves, hoping that feeding them beef laced with an odorless and tasteless medication will make them ill enough to kill their appetite for livestock.

Cattle depredations throughout southwestern New Mexico and southeastern Arizona have served as an Achilles' heel for the federal government's efforts to return the wolves.

Conditioned taste aversion — the technical term for what amounts to a simple reaction — is not a silver bullet for boosting the recovery of the Mexican wolf, but some biologists see it as one of few options remaining for getting the program back on track after nearly 14 years of stumbling.
"Just the very fact that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is trying something new ought to send the message that they really are seriously concerned about the ranchers' concerns," said Dan Moriarty, a professor and chair of the psychological sciences department at the University of San Diego.
"We have to find a way to sort of peacefully co-exist," said Moriarty, who has worked with captive wolves in California. "That's my hope, that the taste aversion will be one more tool."

Gray wolves have rebounded from widespread extermination throughout the Northern Rockies and the Great Lakes region. Since being declared endangered in 1974, the wolf population has grown fivefold — to about 6,200 animals wandering parts of 10 states outside Alaska.
After four decades and tens of millions of dollars, the federal government was recently able to remove the animals from the endangered species list in several states.

The case is much different in the Southwest, where the population of the Mexican wolf — a subspecies of the gray wolf — continues to be about 50 despite more than a decade of work. Biologists had hoped to have more than 100 wolves in the wild by 2006.
About 90 wolves and some dependent pups have been removed — in some cases lethally — from the wild since the program began due to livestock problems. For about four years, the Fish and Wildlife Service operated under a policy that called for trapping or shooting wolves if they had been involved in at least three cattle depredations.

The agency has since scraped the policy, and ranchers have all but given up on keeping track of their dead cows and calves. In the last year, monthly reports from the wolf program show wildlife managers investigated four dozen depredations in Arizona and New Mexico. They determined that wolves were involved in half of the cases.

Caren Cowan, executive director of the New Mexico Cattle Grower's Association, said ranchers are frustrated."You really have no idea how bad it is when a dad calls you and says 'There's a wolf in my yard and my kids and my wife are stuck in the house. What can you do to help me?'
That's the issue, Cowan said. "These animals are habituated to humans and until we can figure that out, I don't know what you do."

Cowan acknowledged, however, that getting wolves to stop preying on livestock would be a huge first step. Biologists working at a captive breeding center at the Sevilleta National Wildlife Refuge in south-central New Mexico treated six wolves last April and another two in October. The animals were fed baits made up of beef, cow hide and an odorless, tasteless deworming medication that makes the wolves queasy.

Fish and Wildlife Service biologist Susan Dicks said the initial tests appear to be successful, with the wolves not wanting anything to do with the beef baits after their first serving.The idea is that when wolves smell cattle in the wild, their nervous system and brain stem will kick into gear and override any desire they have to get near the cattle.

"We're learning as we go, but so far we have seen some good aversions produced," Dicks said. "Again, it's impossible to say yet whether this translates to a livestock animal running around on the hoof."

Wolf releases have been put off for the past year, and it's unclear whether the agency will have the opportunity to release the treated wolves this year so the taste aversion treatments can be fully tested.
The work done with the Mexican wolves is based on decades of research conducted by Lowell Nicolaus, a retired biology professor from Northern Illinois University. He has seen it work with captive wolves and free-ranging raccoons and crows."It just takes one good illness," said Nicolaus of ButteFalls, Ore. "Their avoidance is going to be expressed wherever they see the food or smell it. It doesn't depend on when and where they first ate it or when and where they got sick."

Nicolaus said taste aversion works because it's an unconscious response, not a threat that wolves can overcome such as being hazed or shot at with rubber bullets. The other benefit is biologists say wolves that have an aversion to cattle are likely to pass that on to their pups by teaching them hunting habitats that avoid cattle and focus on deer, elk and other native prey. They call that a feeding tradition.

Bill Given, a wildlife biologist who helped the Fish and Wildlife Service with the first batch of wolf treatments at Sevilleta, describes taste aversion as a natural solution that taps into an evolutionary defense mechanism that is common among all animals.

"You can build a great fence or you can have a dog as a shepherd, but none of those things can change the desire to consume the livestock," he said. "They just make it challenging and then the predator has to work around that barrier."

To ranchers, the wolves are "killing machines," Cowan said. The biologists don't necessarily disagree.
"There's no stopping the feeding and the sex drive. All life is about those two things," Given said, noting that wildlife managers have an opportunity to gain some control through taste aversion.
The next challenge will be proving its value on the range by monitoring wolves that have been treated.I think it does have a lot of promise," Dicks said. "And part of it is we're willing to try anything to get these animals successfully on the ground without impacting livestock growers."

Louisiana currently has an outdated and 19th century mentality about how to coexsist with Coyotes........In fact, the Louisiana Dept of Wildlife has labeled Coyotes as "outlaw quadrapeds"............The State allows every type of hunting method to rid the land of our Songdogs including lasers, night vision devices and noise suppressors...........The "Old boys" in Louisiana are completely transparent in their hatred as well as their "who cares about the facts" mentality regarding how effectively Coyotes control rodent populations........The author of the article touches on these benefits but then unconditionally states that coyotes can multiply rapidly and overun Louisiana.............He does not choose to communicate that generally one finds 1 to 2 coyotes per square mile in any given habitat and that as a mid sized carnivore is limited by prey density..............Louisiana mirrors Maine as an extreme anti-coyote State,,,,,,,Camilla Fox of PROJECT COYOTE has her work cut out for her in educating people in both of these States

2012-01-29T22:10:00.000-08:00

Coyotes are a growing problem

Alan Matherne
houmatoday.com

Coyotes are considered nuisance animals by most people. In fact, the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries classifies them as "outlaw quadrupeds" and provide for extreme methods of controlling them, including night hunting with lasers, night vision devices and noise suppressors.

The coyote, which is a member of the dog family, began to appear in Louisiana sometime after 1942, and the first capture of a coyote here was in Vernon Parish in 1949. Since then, coyotes have expanded their range and are found in all Louisiana parishes. Populations of these animals vary depending upon habitat type and food availability.

In the past few months, there have been local reports of coyote sightings and killings of pets and livestock. Does that mean that coyotes are "bad" animals? Of course not. Coyotes are valuable members of the wildlife community. As predators, they help keep rodent populations down and as scavengers, eating old, sick or injured animals, they help keep the woods and fields clean.

It's when populations of coyotes become unacceptably high and the habitats of these creatures and humans intermingle with them, that problems occur. Although technically carnivores, in practice they are omnivores, eating whatever is available, and as such they can sometimes have adverse effects on wildlife populations.

When wild food sources are scarce, they will seek food of all types, including livestock, young deer and even pets.

Hunting is one way of controlling these predators and trapping is another.I n order to help land owners, managers and other users control coyotes, feral hogs and other nuisance animals, a field day sponsored by the LSU AgCenter through the Sea Grant program, "Predator Control 2012," is scheduled from 1:30 to 5:30 p.m. Monday at the LSU AgCenter facility, 119 Robin St., Napoleonville.

The program includes a program from Walter Cotton, a world-class nuisance animal trapper and hunter, wildlife damage biologist and predator-control expert. Cotton will demonstrate methods for capturing with snares and foothold traps and provide hunting and calling techniques.

The problems associated with coyotes and feral hogs will be discussed and methods for legally taking — including night hunting — nuisance animals and outlaw quadrupeds will be explained by LSU AgCenter staff. Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries and local law-enforcement personnel will answer questions.

This program is free and open to the public, but space is limited and preregistration is required. To register, visit www.bayoulog.com/events or call any of the three local LSU AgCenter offices, 873-6495 in Houma, 446-1316 in Thibodaux or 369-6386 in Napoleonville.

Alan Matherne is the LSU AgCenter's area fisheries and coastal issues agent for Terrebonne, Lafourche and Assumption parishes. He can be reached at 873-6495 or amatherne@agcenter.lsu.edu

We reported a couple of months back on how Bobcats are starting to spread out and recolonize all sections of Ohio..........From their solid base of operations in the rolling hills in the southeast(West Virginia as well as Pennsylvania are the source points for "Bob's" dispersal), the "cats" have been seen in both the northwest and northeastern counties........Still getting protection as an endangered species, biologists are conjecturing that it will be at least 5 more years before a hunting/trapping season would be considered as only 20% of viable habitat has a reproducing population currently.........Gone from the Ohio since 1850 due to land conversion and human persecution, maturing woodlands and restored strip mine sites might harbor as many as 1000 of these carnivores today..............Evidence thus far has them consuming voles, rabbits, mice and squirrels.......Deer have not turned up in the stomachs nor has turkeys........

2012-01-29T21:55:00.000-08:00

Outdoors: Bobcats returning to Ohio

Tenuous population still not open to trapping

Bobcats weigh on average 15 pounds (females) to 28 pounds (males).

By Dave Golowenski

For The Columbus Dispatch

Wilderness is not a requirement for some wild things, and that can be construed as fortunate for Ohio. While not entirely a manicured maze of residential cul-de-sacs splayed amid cornfields, Ohio isn't exactly a zoological Eden, either.

It's remarkable, then, that bobcats are showing up in places where they haven't been seen in generations. Habitat has come a long way, as have the cats. Not long ago, the road-kill remains of a bobcat were picked up in Richland County, about an hour's drive northeast of Columbus. In November, a young male bobcat in farm-heavy Williams County in the northwest corner of the state was ensnared in a trap and later died after being untangled.

Although those two individuals fared poorly in their pioneering, most Ohio bobcats are doing well, said Suzie Prange, wildlife biologist with the Division of Wildlife. Not so well, though, that anyone should expect legal trapping in the very near future. Bobcats, the state's lone resident native wildcat species, remain listed as endangered. They will still be kept out of harm's way should the listing be downgraded to threatened. After that, who knows?

"I see the possibility of limited trapping in the foreseeable future," Prange said, although that future seems at least five years away. The bobcat's reappearance is relatively recent and, thus, fragile and somewhat tentative.

Extirpated by hunting and habitat loss some 160 years ago, the bobcat began to make a slow comeback in recent decades by emigrating from West Virginia and Pennsylvania. In recent years, the resurgence has accelerated.

Among a current statewide population that Prange says might approach 1,000 is a well-established cluster of bobcats in the former strip-mined terrain of Noble County, 100 or so miles southeast of Columbus. Reclaimed strip mines, where rocky outcroppings create sheltering overhangs and shrubby, grassy growth spawns rodents for dining, appear to be a preferred habitat.
Outside of that stronghold, bobcats appear to be more transient and less residential.
"In about 80 percent of the available habitat, they're not self-producing yet," Prange said.

The wildlife division has been trying to find out what's up with Ohio's bobcats. The research has established that the Noble County population is genetically distinct from bobcats in other relative strongholds in southern Ohio, including Shawnee State Forest and the Jackson-Vinton county area.
Autopsies on dead bobcats have revealed, Prange said, that the diet consists almost exclusively of voles, mice, squirrels and rabbits — with an occasional raccoon or muskrat. Based on the contents of about 100 stomachs, hunters should be happy to know that bobcats appear to pose little threat to Ohio's wild turkeys. "We've found two incidents of bird remains. We were a little surprised" the number was so few, Prange said.More surprising was the stomach contents of a Mahoning County bobcat, which had devoured a porcupine. Quills and a hind foot were unmistakable, although where an Ohio bobcat found a porcupine remains unanswered.

A more relevant question centers on how quickly the established bobcats of Noble County can link up with the more widespread and footloose population that isn't readily reproducing, if at all. Such a connection should facilitate more widespread breeding that one day is likely to stretch throughout much of southern and eastern Ohio, Prange said.

Although bobcats can vary widely in size and weight, adult males average about 28 pounds and adult females about 15 pounds. When trapped in Ohio, a bobcat must be released, which isn't overly difficult for an experienced trapper."They're not as bad in a trap as you would imagine," Prange said. When approached, they "cower down like most other things."

With barely 20 Pumas having a tenuous toehold in Nebraska, it is truly outrageous that State Senator LeRoy Louden wants to institute a trophy hunting season on the Cats.........How do you hunt "ghosts"??????.......Is the Senator insane in his seeking to create a spiral of death before this trophic carninvore has had a chance to recover in his State?.......He is the same Senator who in 2010 passed a bill that labels Pumas predators and therefore able to be killed by property owners for any reason...............There is still time to kill his trophy season call to arms...............Contact the Nebraska Legislature and urge them to defeat LB 928(Pumas can be hunted for sport bill)

2012-01-28T22:34:00.000-08:00

Nebraska Senator Introduces Bill to Trophy Hunt Lions

Last month, one of Nebraska's rare mountain lions had to be euthanized after sustaining severe injuries from being caught in a steel-jawed leg hold trap. She was one of only a handful of female lions believed to live in the state. In a population of just twenty cats, breeding-aged females play a crucial role. Residents saw this loss as a huge setback in the species' recovery, with many wanting a statewide ban on the traps and an increase in protection laws for mountain lions. State Senator LeRoy Louden, however, has continued his push to kill off the cats.

In 2010 Senator Louden introduced a bill to reclassify mountain lions as "predators" (on the same list as opossums, coyotes, and skunks, among other "unwanted animals") and to allow ranchers to freely kill mountain lions on their property without needing permits or having to contact the game agency first (more). It passed. Now, Senator Louden is taking it one step further with Legislative Bill 928.   If passed, LB 928 would allow the Nebraska Game & Parks Commission to open an annual trophy hunting season on mountain lions.

The public and even some Game & Parks employees are shaking their heads, saying it's far too soon to think about allowing the public to kill the cats for fun. There are only twenty lions after all, and less than 5% of Nebraska residents are hunters--with just a fraction of those interested in hunting a big game species.

There is a massive pile of actual important issues the Senator should be focusing on such as job creation which, along with child welfare reform, are stated on his website as being the "top priorities in this year's session." By instead trying to push a bill that would promote the extermination of a species (and one that should currently be listed as state-endangered) Senator Louden is not only wasting time and resources, but he is showing a blatant disregard for the views of the people he was elected to represent. But then again, perhaps he is looking out for the public welfare... he felt it was necessary to write into law that a lion hunting tag shall not exceed $25. My, how nice of him!

If you are also outraged by LB 928, please take a moment to share your thoughts with the Nebraska Legislature. Remind them that this bill is unnecessary and that the majority of residents do not want Nebraska's lions hunted for sport.

Our friend Marc Bekoff speaks with the highest empathy for both the wild and domestic creatures with whom we share this planet with: "Hunters in Minnesota are upset when dogs are harmed and killed by traps...... "The stories they tell about the pain, suffering, and death of their own and other beloved companion animals are horrific and bring me to tears"...... "But there's something going on here that nags me a lot".............. "While the pain, suffering, and death of their companion dogs move them they still want to be able to hunt other sentient beings who also are capable of enduring pain and suffering, not only when they're shot and killed but when they're stalked and otherwise chased".............."If harming and killing a dog bothers you, as it should, then so should harming and killing other animals"........... "It's interesting how some people are able to compartmentalize their beliefs and attitudes about pain, suffering, and death that include some sentient beings but exclude others"....... "This would be a fertile area of study for people interested in such matters, including conservational psychologists"

2012-01-28T22:25:00.000-08:00

Do animals think and feel?

by Marc Bekoff

Hunters Upset When Dogs Are Trapped, but Still Want to Hunt

Why don't the pain, suffering, and death of other animals matter?

Published on January 25, 2012 by Marc Bekoff in Animal Emotions

I'm always interested in, and amazed at, how complex, challenging, and inconsistent our relationships with other animals can be. People worldwide got extremely upset about the massacre of more than 50 animals in Ohio last October and at the same time pay little or no attention to the fate of millions, really billiions, of food and research animals. Numerous people also got incredibly upset when a cat was killed and defaced as a sick political statement. Of course, I'd like to think that everyone would be extremely upset and vocal about these and all other forms of animal abuse.

Just today I learned that hunters in Minnesota are upset when dogs are harmed and killed by traps. The stories they tell about the pain, suffering, and death of their own and other beloved companion animals are horrific and bring me to tears. But there's something going on here that nags me a lot. While the pain, suffering, and death of their companion dogs move them they still want to be able to hunt other sentient beings who also are capable of enduring pain and suffering, not only when they're shot and killed but when they're stalked and otherwise chased.

Even if people stalk animals but don't try to kill them, animals suffer greatly. Just seeing a potential predator, including humans, is stressful. Patrick Bateson, at the University of Cambridge in England, found red deer stalked by dogs showed stress responses similar to those experienced when animals were anxious and scared. Deer showed high levels of cortisol and the breakdown of red blood cells, indicating extreme physiological and psychological stress. Stalked deer also displayed excessive fatigue and damaged muscles. Non-stalked deer and those shot without prolonged stalking didn't show similar stress responses. The stalker's intentions, malevolent or not, seem unimportant. It's reasonable to believe that animals will show fear and anxiety responses to human stalkers that are similar to those shown to non-humans stalkers.

Whlle I know many hunters don't support trapping, one trapper would like to see traps "allowed only underwater [for beavers, muskrats and otters] or 5 feet off the ground, so dogs can't get caught."

There's something very wrong about this picture, opposing trapping yet supporting hunting, or advocating the use of traps underwater. Even if trapping is banned, the animals who are hunted are no less sentient than the dogs who are regretably trapped. Furthermore, aquatic animals suffer as much as land animals but we just don't see what happens beneath the surface.

Consider what Camilla Fox, founder of Project Coyote, wrote in my Encyclopedia of Animal Behavior about trapping aquatic animals: "Leghold and submarine traps act by restraining the animals underwater until they drown. Most semi-aquatic animals, including mink, muskrat, and beaver, are adapted to diving by means of special oxygen conservation mechanisms."

I've also noted previously, "The experience of drowning in a trap is extremely terrifying. Imagine what a dog or cat might feel. Biologists Frederick Gilbert and Norman Gofton discovered that animals display intense and violent struggling and were found to take up to four minutes for mink to die, nine minutes for muskrats to die, and ten to thirteen minutes for beavers to die. Mink have been shown to struggle frantically prior to loss of consciousness, an indication of extreme trauma. Most animals caught in aquatic traps struggle for more than three minutes before losing consciousness."

Hunting and fishing are sanctioned assaults on the lives of numerous animals (there is a growing scientific literature showing that fish feel pain and are sentient beings). Huge industries are devoted to making them easier. In many states wildlife agencies spend more money promoting hunting and fishing, including killing predators to enhance hunting opportunities, than on protecting wildlife, including imperiled or endangered species.

Many people who hunt and fish truly enjoy the richness of the experience, but they don't want to make animals suffer. Perhaps if they fully realized the intense pain and suffering for which they're responsible while stalking and hunting and fishing, they'd forego the emotional rush of the experience. And, there are lots of ways to experience nature, rewild our hearts, and have quality time with family and friends without intruding on, and stressing, injuring, or killing other animals.

If harming and killing a dog bothers you, as it should, then so should harming and killing other animals. It's interesting how some people are able to compartmentalize their beliefs and attitudes about pain, suffering, and death that include some sentient beings but exclude others. This would be a fertile area of study for people interested in such matters, including conservational psychologists.

Marc Bekoff is Professor Emeritus of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Colorado, Boulder.

Nick Geovck penned a story our friend George Wuerthner and Brooks Fahy would be proud of...........He asks the question: "Do wolves, bears, mountain lions and other predators kill game?"..... "Of course they do, and they should be managed to sustain and yet control their populations using sound science, not hysteria"......." In 1992, three years before wolves were reintroduced into Yellowstone National Park and central Idaho, the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks official estimate of the elk herd was 89,000 elk in Montana...... "Today we have a statewide estimate of 150,000 elk"........Too many elk or too many predators???????(or) two many hypocritical ranchers, hunters and State lawmakers who in 2003 called for a significant reduction in the bloated elk herd because deep down they knew what our great naturalist Aldo Leopold stated so well when he eloquently stated: : "I have lived to see state after state extirpate its wolves"......" I have watched the face of many a newly wolfless mountain, and seen the south-facing slopes wrinkle with a maze of new deer trails"..... "I have seen every edible bush and seedling browsed, first to anaemic desuetude, and then to death"..... "I have seen every edible tree defoliated to the height of a saddlehorn"....... "Such a mountain looks as if someone had given God a new pruning shears, and forbidden Him all other exercise"....... "In the end the starved bones of the hoped-for deer herd, dead of its own too-much, bleach with the bones of the dead sage, or molder under the high-lined junipers"

2012-01-28T22:12:00.000-08:00

Hatred of predators reaches ridiculous fervor

by Nick Geovck |

Grey wolf

"Conserva-tion is a state of harmony between men and land. By land is meant all of the things on, over, or in the earth. Harmony with land is like harmony with a friend; you cannot cherish his right hand and chop off his left. That is to say, you cannot love game and hate predators."- Aldo Leopold

Let's kill every wolf in Montana. Sounds like a popular idea these days among hunters.
While we're at it, let's kill every grizzly bear, every black bear and every mountain lion. Throw in golden eagles, bald eagles, rattlesnakes and coyotes.

We'd be left with a hunter's paradise - a state teeming with game animals and hunting opportunity, right?That's the sentiment I heard recently at a meeting on the hunting season setting proposals in Butte, where an oft-angry group of sportsmen called for large-scale killing of predators to increase the number of deer, elk and other game species. The suggestions ranged from having government trappers shoot wolves from helicopters to creating a season on eagles so they don't kill mountain goats.

Of course Butte sportsmen aren't alone. Over the past few years anger has been building blaming predators - and in particular wolves - for lower game herds and for less hunting opportunity. Wolf haters throw around words like "annihilation" and "devastation" when it comes to Montana's deer and elk herds. And even some respected conservation groups have gotten in on the wolf bashing through public statements decrying the effects of predators.

What state are these people living in? Here are a few facts about Montana's wildlife populations and hunting over the past two decades, covering the period during which the much-maligned western gray wolf has been on the landscape.

In 1992, three years before wolves were reintroduced into Yellowstone National Park and central Idaho, the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks official estimate of the elk herd was 89,000 elk in Montana. Today we have a statewide estimate of 150,000 elk.

In 2003, the state Legislature passed a bill that required FWP biologists bring elk numbers down to the targeted objective populations laid out in the statewide elk plan. They were responding to complaints from ranchers about too many elk on their private land.

wolves chasing elk

Ironically, some of the same lawmakers who supported that bill are among the most vocal wolf bashers. That hypocrisy begs the question: are there too many elk or too many wolves in Montana?
Anyway, the Legislature in recent years has given FWP several tools to kill more elk, including giving hunters the chance to kill two elk per year.

And since then, Montana has on three occasions extended the general elk season to give hunters two additional weeks to kill elk in years when the harvest was slow.Second elk tags, extended seasons and liberal regulations allowing more cow elk hunting: where's the loss of hunting opportunity?
In truth, elk hunters have had more opportunity than in decades and now we've seen the effects of that.

Over the past couple years we've brought elk back down closer to the target populations or in some cases dropped it below those objective numbers. Accordingly, FWP biologists have gone from liberal to more conservative seasons, allowing fewer cow elk to be killed in many areas and reducing the second tags.

It proves that two-legged predators with high-powered rifles can be extremely effective at killing elk.
Now clearly wolves and other predators have had a hand in bringing down some of Montana's elk herds. People often cite the herd in the northern end of Yellowstone National Park, which topped in the mid-1990s at 19,000 animals and has dropped by more than 60 percent.

What often gets left out of the argument from wolf haters is whether that was a sustainable number of elk that was healthy for the land. It wasn't, and biologists cannot manage wildlife populations for their highest population every year.

And I'd assert that the large turkey shoots on elk just north of the Yellowstone boundary near Gardiner, where hundreds of elk would come out at a time, was a quality elk hunt that was good for the image of hunting.

Do wolves, bears, mountain lions and other predators kill game? Of course they do, and they should be managed to sustain and yet control their populations using sound science, not hysteria.
In the early 20th century, we tried predator control as a cure-all to boost game numbers. It failed, because it didn't take into account the myriad of factors that go into sustaining healthy wildlife numbers.

We only need to look to the father of modern wildlife science - Aldo Leopold - to remember that conservation is much more complicated than killing predators en masse.

He said:
I have lived to see state after state extirpate its wolves. I have watched the face of many a newly wolfless mountain, and seen the south-facing slopes wrinkle with a maze of new deer trails. I have seen every edible bush and seedling browsed, first to anaemic desuetude, and then to death. I have seen every edible tree defoliated to the height of a saddlehorn. Such a mountain looks as if someone had given God a new pruning shears, and forbidden Him all other exercise. In the end the starved bones of the hoped-for deer herd, dead of its own too-much, bleach with the bones of the dead sage, or molder under the high-lined junipers.

Pumas are trying desperately to make Minnesota their next successful relocation State as 14 confirmed sightings of our largest native "cat" have been confirmed by the Dept. of Natural Resources since 2007.............A man who shot a Puma in November has been charged with a misdemeanor under State law,,,,,,,Minnesota Statutes section 97A.301, Subdivision 1(1) states: Misdemeanor. Unless a different penalty is prescribed, a person is guilty of a misdemeanor if that person: (1) takes, buys, sells, transports or possesses a wild animal in violation of the game and fish laws. According to Minnesota Statutes section 97B.641, there is no open season for cougars in the state of Minnesota.

2012-01-27T23:19:00.000-08:00

Minnesota man charged with shooting cougar

Minnesota DNR Press Release

Charges have been filed today by the Jackson County attorney's office against a Jackson County man in southwestern Minnesota for allegedly shooting a cougar on Nov. 27, 2011, according to the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (DNR).

Daniel Hamman, 26, was charged by citation with shooting a protected animal.Hamman allegedly shot the cougar after being contacted by a neighbor, who saw the cat run from a rural grove of trees into a culvert. The cougar was shot as it flushed from the culvert.

Maximum penalties Hamman could face include a fine up to $1,000 and up to 90 days in jail.The DNR has filed an affidavit of restitution requesting the court to order Hamman to pay $1,000 to the state for the cougar. Criminal charges are not evidence of guilt. A defendant/suspect is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty

.The cougar shot in Jackson County was a 125-pound male, estimated to be one to three years old. The DNR conducted a necropsy of the cougar to assess the condition of the animal, look for signs of captivity and collect additional samples to help determine the origin of the animal. No obvious signs of captivity were present such as being declawed, exhibiting excessive pad wear, or having tattoos or microchips. Samples have been submitted to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Wildlife Forensics Lab in Missoula, Mont., to do a DNA analysis; results are pending. The DNR plans to have the cougar mounted and used for educational purposes.

Since 2007, the DNR has confirmed 14 cougar sightings across the state. Eleven have been from trail cameras or video. One was road killed, one was found dead and one was shot. Dozens of other, unconfirmed sightings have also been reported.

Why might cougars show up in Minnesota? Cougars are solitary, roaming animals. As young males reach maturity, they begin to look for new territory and will travel considerable distances. The timing of many of Minnesota's verified cougar sightings (mid- 2000s and forward) is not unexpected given the somewhat rapid increase in the cougar population in the western Dakotas that began in the mid-1990s. Extensive research in the Black Hills has documented the changing cougar dynamics that typically lead to increased dispersal of young males.

Although verifications have increased, evidence of cougars in Minnesota remains extremely rare.
Cougars are protected animals in Minnesota. State statute makes it illegal for a citizen to kill a cougar in most circumstances. Minnesotans can kill a cougar if a life threatening situation arises. Public safety officials are authorized to kill a cougar to protect public safety. If a cougar poses an immediate threat to public safety, a DNR conservation officer or local law enforcement person should be contacted as soon as possible.

Minnesota Statutes section 97A.301, Subdivision 1(1) states: Misdemeanor. Unless a different penalty is prescribed, a person is guilty of a misdemeanor if that person: (1) takes, buys, sells, transports or possesses a wild animal in violation of the game and fish laws. According to Minnesota Statutes section 97B.641, there is no open season for cougars in the state of Minnesota.

"The computer-generated wolves have more personality than any of the dull characters in The Grey" saids USA Today reviewer Claudia Puig...............She goes on to say: "Wolves are much maligned in literature and films".... "The Grey (* * stars out of four, R, opens Friday) takes the notion of their vicious natures to new extremes as dozens of hulking, bright-eyed beasts attack a ragtag assortment of plane-crash survivors with startling ferocity"........... "When they're not ripping people to shreds — as seen up close and personal through an annoyingly shaky camera — they're lurking ominously nearby, howling and growling"................Ms. Puig comes the closest of any film reviewer to acknowledging that wolves are "maligned in literature and films"................but she, like her collective body of film critic colleagues fails to follow up on this theme and chooses not to question the validity of how The Grey's Director, Joe Carnahan , chooses to portray Wolf behavior in the wild..............I will not see this film...............Mr. Carnahan was either negligent in his research,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,or just said, screw the facts,,,,,,I am going to play on peoples mi-information and am going to scare the s..t out of them by making the wolves out to be evil and blatant killers.................Why not he likely thought,,,,,,,,,should make for box office bonanza------I root for a dismal opening weekend............4 THUMBS DOWN FOR HIM AND ACTOR LIAM NEESON AND CREW

2012-01-27T23:13:00.000-08:00

'The Grey': Drab, but the wolves look great

By Claudia Puig, USA TODAY

What starts as a tense and moody survival thriller fairly quickly becomes tedious, forced and far-fetched as a septet of men is preyed upon by a wolf pack in the Alaska wilderness.

Wolves are much maligned in literature and films. The Grey (* * stars out of four, R, opens Friday) takes the notion of their vicious natures to new extremes as dozens of hulking, bright-eyed beasts attack a ragtag assortment of plane-crash survivors with startling ferocity. When they're not ripping people to shreds — as seen up close and personal through an annoyingly shaky camera — they're lurking ominously nearby, howling and growling.

Liam Neeson stars as Ottway, a melancholy loner working among oil-rig roughnecks. Apparently, it's his job to keep the work site safe from animal attacks. When he's not shooting the furry denizens, he's obsessing over a letter he wrote to a woman he loved and lost. He spends a good portion of the movie rereading that letter. He has recurring dreams about his beloved lying in gauzy sheets, and he often recites the lines of a trite poem and consistently reaffirms his lack of religious faith. Fresh moves are clearly not this guy's thing.

Subtlety is not a trait preferred by writer-director Joe Carnahan (The A Team), either. Early on, Neeson's Ottway sticks a shotgun in his mouth. Why he doesn't pull the trigger is left unexplained.

Next, he boards a small plane bound for Anchorage. Shortly after takeoff, turbulence rocks the plane and it crashes spectacularly in what looks like Arctic tundra. Bodies and plane parts are mangled and scattered across the icy landscape. Ottway takes charge, rounding up the half-dozen survivors and calming a dying man.

This all seems out of character for a guy who a few scenes earlier had seemingly lost the will to live. But he's still no match for the menacing wolves.

Suspense devolves into a rote tale of man vs. beast. The survivors don't fully capture our sympathies because no one is given much dimension. Verbal nastiness erupts occasionally between the humans, but most of their time is spent trudging through snowdrifts and getting into bloody tussles with wolves.

In a climactic scene, the wolf pack inexplicably stands patiently, waiting for Ottway to get ready, arm himself and take a few moments to recite a snippet of a hackneyed poem before they attack. It's as if they were instructed on the gentlemanly art of battle.

In every other scene, the wolves come off as more brutal than bears, sharks and anacondas combined. With its reliance on jolts, sudden movements and thunderous sounds, The Grey is more startling than frightening.
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'The Grey' slammed for 'bloodthirsty' portrayal of wolves

"The Grey," the survival thriller starring Liam Neeson as a man who must battle bloodthirsty wolves to survive, is poised to reign at the box office this weekend.
But not if animal rights activists have anything to say about it.

The film stars Neeson as an oil refinery sharpshooter who finds himself fighting the elements and bloodthirsty wolves following a plane crash. As might be expected, harsh outcomes abound for man and beast.

But animal rights activists say the film is folly, and will only add to the persistent misrepresentation in TV, film and literature of the wolf as an aggressive, man-hunting creature. In fact, experts say, wolves fear humans and avoid interaction at all costs.

PETA, People for the Ethical Treament of Animals, is among those urging a boycott of the film: "The writers paint a pack of wolves living in the Alaskan wilderness as bloodthirsty monsters, intent on killing every survivor of a plane crash by tearing each person limb from limb."

The Wolf Conservation Center is taking a different approach, using the film as a platform to raise awareness about the perils facing wolves in the wild and how their real-live nature diverges from the Hollywood portrayal.

"In reality, wild wolves are shy and elusive," the center's website says. "A person in wolf country has a greater chance of being hit by lightning...than being injured by a wolf."

WolfWatcher.org, meanwhile, is taking Neeson and writer / director Joe Carnahan to task for engaging in on-set bonding by actually eating wolf meat.

Carnahan has downplayed criticism by saying that there are in fact reports of wolves turning on man, but says that ultimately the film is about a man's inner journey to find his survival instincts.

Carnahan himself told our sister blog, Greenspace, that he wants the wolves to be seen in the right light: “I never intended [the wolves] to be the aggressor; I look at them as the defenders. I think these guys are in a very territorially sensitive place. [The humans] were trespassing and intruders.”

Wolfwatcher.org is nonetheless urging wildlife activists to print out flyers describing the true nature of wolves -- such as their desire to avoid humans at all costs -- and hand them out at local movie theaters showing "The Grey."

"This film comes out at the worst of times, when wolves are literally fighting for their lives," the organization says on its site.

The movie, which opens today in 2,700 theaters nationwide, is expected to make about $14 million, according to Box Office Guru. Animal rights activists will surely howl, but our review calls this thriller is "a solid January surprise."

Idaho Wolf hunting and trapping season started August 30, 2011 and can last up to 10 months,based on density of wolves in different sections of the State...........Electronic calls ok to use; wolves attracted to bear baits can be taken..........A crime that wolf packs are being targeted during breeding and pup rearing, Jan-June of each year

2012-01-27T22:45:00.000-08:00

Idaho Wolf Hunting and Trapping Seasons

-Idaho Dept. of fish & Game

Harvest Information | Hunting Seasons & Rules - [PDF, 620 kb] | Trapping Seasons ; Rules - [PDF, 725 kb] | Trapping Class Schedule

2011-2012 Wolf Hunting Season:

Standard hunting season dates statewide: Aug 30 - Mar 31, except for Aug 30 - Dec 31 in Island Park and Beaverhead wolf management zones and Aug 30 - June 30 in Lolo and Selway zones.
Hunters may buy 2 tags per calendar year.
Bag limit: No person may take more than one wolf per legal tag in his or her possession.
Hunting hours are one half hour before sunrise to one half hour after sunset.
Wolf seasons are Any-Weapon seasons.
Electronic calls may be used statewide.
Wolves may be taken incidentally during fall bear baiting.
Reduced-price nonresident wolf tags ($31.75) statewide.
Hunters must report killing a wolf within 72 hours. Hunters must present skull and hide to IDFG office within 10 days.
The wolf season closes when the harvest limit for that zone is reached or the season closing date, whichever comes first.

Wolf Hunting Seasons
Zone (Hunting Units)	Season Dates	Harvest Limit	Notes
Panhandle (1, 2, 3, 4, 4A, 5, 6, 7, 9)	Aug 30 - Mar 31
Palouse-Hells Canyon (8, 8A, 11, 11A, 13, 18)	Aug 30 - Mar 31
Lolo (10, 12)	Aug 30 - June 30
Dworshak-Elk City (10A, 14, 15, 16)	Aug 30 - Mar 31
Selway (16A, 17, 19, 20)	Aug 30 - June 30
Middle Fork (20A, 26, 27)	Aug 30 - Mar 31
Salmon (21, 21A, 28, 36B)	Aug 30 - Mar 31	40
McCall-Weiser (19A, 22, 23, 24, 25, 31, 32, 32A)	Aug 30 - Mar 31		Motorized hunting restrictions apply in some units. Please see Page 70 of the big game brochure.
Sawtooth (33, 34, 35, 36, 39)	Aug 30 - Mar 31	60
Southern Mountains (29, 36A, 37, 37A, 43, 44, 48, 49, 50, 51)	Aug 30 - Mar 31	25	Motorized hunting restrictions apply in some units. Please see Page 70 of the big game brochure.
Beaverhead (30, 30A, 58, 59, 59A)	Aug 30 - Dec 31	10	Motorized hunting restrictions apply in some units. Please see Page 70 of the big game brochure.
Island Park (60, 60A, 61, 62, 62A, 64, 65, 67)	Aug 30 - Dec 31	30	Motorized hunting restrictions apply in some units. Please see Page 70 of the big game brochure.
Southern Idaho (38, 40, 41, 42, 45, 46, 47, 52, 52A, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 63, 63A, 66, 66A, 68, 68A, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 73A, 74, 75, 76, 77, 78	Aug 30 - Mar 31		Motorized hunting restrictions apply in some units. Please see Page 70 of the big game brochure.

2011-2012 Seasons and Rules for Wolf Hunting
— [PDF, 620 KB]

Two exciting and promising restoration stories for Bison in the USA and Canada are unfolding..........The American Prairie Foundation Reserve in Montana are getting 70 Plains Bison from Elk Island National Park in Alberta, Canada................and the Banff National Park in Canada is letting their wild herd roam the entire Park rather than being confined to a small, fenced in enclosure.........Both herds are wild stock,,,,,,,,,,,and not mixed with any domestic cattle genes.................Very Special day it is................Only thing needed in the Prairie reserve is for wolves to join the bison in their age old dance of predator and prey..............That "dance" will take place in Banff where wolves still roam the landscape

2012-01-27T06:38:00.000-08:00

Alberta bison roam a new home in Montana

kaleigh rogers

From Globe and Mail

After more than 100 years of trying to preserve the bison in North America, conservationists are relocating 70 of the species from Canada to their ancestral home in Montana – the second such move in three years.

The plains bison – 35 female and 35 male – come from Elk Island National Park in Alberta, where herds of the animals have been raised in conservation since the species faced near global extinction in the early 20th century. “It’s really been recovery central for plains bison and wood bison in North America,” said Stephen Flemming, superintendent at Elk Island National Park.

Despite a previously abundant bison population on the continent, overhunting and the settling of the West in the late 1800s all but wiped out the animal, leaving fewer than 200 by the turn of the century. In response to the dwindling numbers, several private citizens in Canada and the United States began herding bison in an attempt to preserve the species.

In 1906, the government of Canada bought one of these herds from a private owner in Montana and over several years moved the animals to their permanent home in the parkland. Now, the Elk Island herd averages around 500 a year, including a surplus that allows Elk Island to share the wealth with other growing conservation areas across the continent.

This year, and once before in 2010, the American Prairie Foundation wildlife reserve in Montana was the recipient of the calves, in a unique homecoming to the bison’s ancestral land.
The calves, born last spring, left Alberta by transport truck Tuesday afternoon.

“We send out just young ones because they’re the guys that can travel well and they’re the ones that are better for building up a new herd,” Mr. Flemming said “Big guys can harm themselves or each other.”

Once in Montana, the calves will join APF’s existing herd, topping off the population at more than 210. The reserve is home to many other native prairie animals, including ferrets, prairie dogs and hawks and is constantly growing as the APF acquires more land, according to Alison Fox, partnership and marketing manager.

“Our goal is to eventually create a nature reserve of 3.5 million acres ... of rolling hills and native prairie land,” Ms. Fox said.The success of the herd is especially important because there are still very few wild bison left, according to Cormack Gates, a biology professor and bison expert at the University of Calgary. Wild herds are not to be confused with domesticated bison, which are farmed for food and often a crossbreed with cows, he said.

“When humans intervene, when we start taking care of things like mate selection ... we’ve removed the natural selective forces that shaped the bison in the first place,” Prof. Gates said.“The wild herds that are left exposed to all of the vagaries of nature are the ones that will continue the evolutionary path for the species.”

With a healthy herd of about 450 plains bison still remaining in Elk Island, Mr. Flemming said this trip is a special marker.“We couldn’t be happier to send them back home to Montana,” he said.
“It’s very exciting. We’ll never be back to millions of bison, of course, but to have many thousands of bison will require private land ownership and what we’re seeing in Montana is that this can be done

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cbc report
Bison in Canada's Elk Island National Park. (Courtesy of American Prairie Foundation, Dennis J. Lingohr/AP)
"The process is not just to have them captive and recovering, they need to be part of nature and interacting with nature," said ELHF director Harvey Locke. "That's what Banff park needs."
In the past, bison were contained in a "buffalo paddock" near the old air strip in Banff.
According to the ELHF website, a Banff Bow Valley study in 1996 recognized that the fence around the paddock — combined with the other recent developments in and around Banff — formed a serious impediment to the movement of wildlife.

In 1997, the Banff National Park Management Plan said the buffalo paddock fence and captive herd should be removed but also stated that release of wild bison into the park should be studied.
The idea of re-introducing them was part of the review draft of the 2009 Banff National Park Management Plan.

"I can tell you in Yellowstone they're all over the landscape all the time ... and it's a wonderful thing to see them," said Locke. Now federal officals have confirmed they are moving ahead with the proposal.

The Pine Marten which step by step and tree by tree is returning to the Great Lakes and New England States has reoccupied its mesocarnivore role in Wisconsin woodlands..........Extirpated by the 1920's as deep pine woods got logged out, Wisconsin transplanted Martens back into recovering forests in the 1980's and now has approved a management plan that sets a 300 population goal(260 of the little "climbers" are thought to exist now) that biologists project will sustain the Marten for the next 100 years.........Considered an "umbrella" species that benefits pileated woodpecker and barred owl populations, the tough litte Marten puts another piece of the "wild" back into Wisconsin.............A good day it is when State Game Commisions restore carnivores as well as browsers to to the system

2012-01-26T05:37:00.000-08:00

Natural Resources Board OKs plan for endangered American marten

RON SEELY
Wisconsin State Journal

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State Department of Natural Resources photo

By the 1920s, with Wisconsin's old-growth northern forests mostly lost to the sawmill, a small but tenacious native animal that loves deep woodlands appeared as doomed as the big stands of white pine in which it flourished. For decades, Wisconsin forests would be absent the American marten and its curious ways.

But the marten, also known as the pine marten, is back again in the heart of some of the state's most remote and piney pockets. On Wednesday the state Natural Resources Board approved a new management plan for the state-endangered animal that is designed to ensure the marten's place in northern forests once again for decades to come. The plan will continue an effort that started in the mid-1980s with relocation of martens from other states to Wisconsin.

"They like the deep, dark older forests of Wisconsin," said Jim Woodford, a conservation biologist with the state Department of Natural Resources who has worked for years on the project to return the American marten to the Northwoods. "They represent the wilderness. That's a big selling point to me."

In fact, Woodford said, the marten is perhaps one of the best indicators that Wisconsin's northern forests are healthy. In biological parlance, it is known as an "umbrella" species. When the environment is improved to help martens, other species also flourish, including the pileated woodpecker and barred owl.
Besides such practical reasons for ensuring the marten's future, Jonathon Gilbert, with the Great Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife Commission, said the marten is important in the cultural life of the state's Chippewa tribes. He said the American marten is a clan animal with spiritual significance to the tribes, which are working with the DNR, along with the U.S. Forest Service, on managing the species.

Woodford told the Natural Resources Board on Wednesday that two major populations of the American marten now live in Wisconsin, both in remote areas of the Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest. One population is centered in Iron and Ashland counties while another is to the east in Forest County. The total population is difficult to estimate because of the animal's furtive, nocturnal habits, according to Woodford, but could be around 260 or more. The management plan approved by the board, which calls for more studies of the animal as well as management of forests to foster marten habitat, indicates that a population of around 300 is probably best for guaranteeing that the marten numbers remain healthy for the next 100 years.
"We think Wisconsin needs the American marten," Woodford said.

Read more: http://host.madison.com/wsj/news/local/environment/natural-resources-board-oks-plan-for-endangered-american-marten/article_9b27b486-47af-11e1-adc8-001871e3ce6c.html?mode=story#ixzz1kZR7uNnk

As in politics or in any business that involves portraying so-called "facts" with transparency and full disclosure, deer kill statistics can be manipulated and framed to "color" and "spun" to make your position on an issue look more favorable than the competing interests point of view...............Case in point is portrayed below in determining if West Virginia or Missouri has better white tail deer opportunities for out-of-state hunters............According to the Missouri Department of Conservation, Show-Me State hunters killed about 239,000 deer. According to the West Virginia Division of Natural Resources, Mountain State hunters killed slightly more than 133,000 deer. Advantage to Missouri, right? Not necessarily.....Missouri's land area is 69,704 square miles. Divide 239,000 by 69,704 square miles and you get a productivity average of 3.43 deer killed per square mile......West Virginia's land area is 24,229 square miles. Divide 24,229 by 133,000 and you get a productivity average of 5.49 deer per square mile....Advantage West Virginia.........Statistical spin, oh how so relevant in this election year upcoming as well as vying for hunter $$ in Missouri and West Virginia

2012-01-25T07:40:00.000-08:00

Deer-kill statistics are sometimes deceiving

by John McCoy

John McCoy photo

The old expression, "The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence," was probably written to describe deer hunters. No matter where hunters are from, they always seem to believe they'd have better success if they hunted somewhere else.

Case in point: Ask West Virginians if they'd rather hunt deer in the Mountain State or in Missouri, and they'd probably choose Missouri. But would they really have it any better in the Show-Me State? Let's take a look at the harvest totals from both states' recently concluded whitetail seasons.

According to the Missouri Department of Conservation, Show-Me State hunters killed about 239,000 deer. According to the West Virginia Division of Natural Resources, Mountain State hunters killed slightly more than 133,000 deer. Advantage to Missouri, right? Not necessarily.

Missouri's land area is 69,704 square miles. Divide 239,000 by 69,704 square miles and you get a productivity average of 3.43 deer killed per square mile.

West Virginia's land area is 24,229 square miles. Divide 24,229 by 133,000 and you get a productivity average of 5.49 deer per square mile. Advantage West Virginia.

The devil in all this ciphering, is in the details. If statistics are available, it would be interesting to see which state produces more trophy bucks. Conventional wisdom would say Missouri. But West Virginia's four bowhunting-only counties account for about 75 Pope and Young Club bucks each year. That's a slew of trophies.

The arguments could go back and forth forever, but the bottom line is this. Chances are many hunters in Missouri would jump at the chance to hunt in West Virginia, and vice versa. The grass is always greener….

Leaving Black Bears to the side as the apex trophic carnivore roaming the New York State woodlands, farms and fields, the Bobcat and Coyote are the Empire States' two largest mesocarnivores..............The NY State Dept. of Conservation released its proposed 5 year Bobcat management plan and of course hunters and trappers got "first dibs" on establishing the protocols........The DEC did step up and acknowledge that there are other "users" of Bobcats, including wildlife enthusiasts and photographers (as examples of non-hunting "workers of the outdoors".............The problem that so many of us readers of this blog still see with this thinking goes back to "use",,,,,,,,,,,,We humans should be factored into any wildlife mgmt plan,,,,,but not only on how we "consume wildlife",,,,,, Also critical to incorporate into any plan is how wildlife works into the circle of land health.........Leopold's land ethic is never even given lip service from land managers when devising plans on wildlife populations.........If only they(and we) would start "thinking like the mountain" which knows far too well the negative impacts that come about when carnivore populations are either stripped from the land or reduced to so minute levels so as not to be able to fulfill ecosystem services(thanks to our friend Frank Carbone for sending me this article)

2012-01-24T04:36:00.000-08:00

Bobcat

Scientific Name: Lynx rufus

New York State Bobcat Management Plan

The Management Plan for Bobcat in New York State, 2012-2017 (PDF) (2.0 MB) is available for public review and comment. The draft plan describes three primary goals for bobcat management:

Maintain viable population levels and monitor trends in bobcat distribution and relative abundance;
Provide for sustainable use and enjoyment of bobcat by the public; and
Minimize negative bobcat-human interactions.

DEC staff worked closely with trappers and small game hunters to gain preliminary input regarding the future management of the bobcat resource. Input obtained from these groups was used by DEC biologists and managers to develop the recommendations and management actions contained in the draft plan.
While hunters and trappers are the most common users of the bobcat resource, wildlife enthusiasts, nature photographers, and others also benefit from a healthy bobcat population. As evidenced by the number of observation reports fielded by Department staff, the public is very interested in bobcats and can play a role in their management by facilitating the collection of data on the species.
Comments may be submitted in writing through February 16, 2012 to NYSDEC, Bobcat Management Plan, 625 Broadway, Albany, NY 12233-4754 or by e-mail.

Description

Bobcat are about twice the size of a domestic cat and usually smaller than the Canada lynx. Their fur is dense, short, and soft and is generally shorter and more reddish in the summer and longer and more gray in the winter. Spotting occurs in some bobcats and is faded in others. The face has notable long hairs along the cheeks and black tufts at the tops of each ear.
Males are, on average, one-third larger than females. Both sexes can be greater than 30 pounds; however, averages for males and females are 21 and 14 pounds, respectively. Body length for males is 34 inches and 30 inches for females. Tail length is usually between 5 and 6 inches for both sexes.

Sometimes sightings of bobcat are confused with Canada lynx. Bobcat can be easily distinguished from lynx by the absence of the huge, seemingly oversized paws and a black-tipped tail that are characteristic of the lynx. Bobcats have paws that are proportional to their body size, and their tail is black spotted. Lynx tracks are roughly twice the size of that of a bobcat. DEC attempted a lynx restoration program in the Adirondacks in the late 1980s and early 1990s, but the animals released there dispersed far and wide and a resident breeding population was never established. Currently, the lynx is considered extirpated in New York because there is no evidence of any remnant population of resident animals.

Distribution and Habitat

Based on surveys from the late 1970s, bobcat occupied 13,500 square miles (a little more than one-quarter) of New York. There were three population centers: (1) Adirondack, (2) Catskill, and (3) Taconic regions. The Adirondack Study area had about 5 bobcats for every 100 square miles of area, while the Catskill area had about 16 bobcats for every 100 square miles of area. Bobcats also occur occasionally in many areas of western New York (and probably breed there).

The most critical features of bobcat habitat are places for refuge and protection, such as ledges. Bobcat often use rocky ledges and rock piles for shelter, breeding, and raising young. Brush piles, hollow trees, and logs are other good structures for resting and dens. Evergreen bogs and swamps, and other secluded places also fill the bobcat's requirement for refuge and protection.

Bobcat usually are not present where there are continuous human population centers; however, they can use patches of habitat if the patches are not completely isolated by urban development.

Food and Feeding

Research in the late 1970s found that white-tailed deer, rabbit, and hare are the most common items in the diet of bobcat in New York. They eat deer more often during the winter than other times of the year and will store or cache carcasses for future use. Deer can be a valuable prey item in areas of deep snow because one carcass can last for several weeks. Opportunistic prey items include birds, squirrels, meadow voles, and road kill.

Behavior

Bobcat are solitary animals and may be active at any time, day or night. Males have larger home ranges than females, and they travel greater distances on a daily basis. The average home range of a male in the Adirondacks is 136 square miles. The average female home range is 33 square miles. In the Catskills, the average male home range is 14 square miles, while the female average is 12 square miles. Home ranges are smaller in areas of good habitat than in areas of poor habitat.

Bobcat will use multiple strategies while hunting. They may approach stealthily, using any form of cover available between them and their prey, attempting to get close enough to pounce and strike. They may also use an ambush technique where they will sit and wait for prey to pass by, thereby affording them the opportunity to strike undetected. Smaller prey items such as mice and birds are consumed whole. Larger animals taken and stored are eaten in the position they lay, and can be identified as a bobcat cache by the upper parts being consumed, while the portion of the cache in contact with the ground may be untouched.
Scent marking using feces, urine, and scrapes of fluid from their anal glands have all been documented as ways they mark territory, and are commonly found on the underside of leaning trees, logs, shelter rocks, or stumps.

Reproduction

Bobcats begin to breed between mid-January and early February. Some researchers found breeding activities continuing into July. Females can reproduce in their first year, while males breed in their second year and likely mate with more than one female. Courtship activities may include chasing, ambushing, and what appears to be fighting.

The average gestation period for a litter is 62 days, but varies from 50 to 70 days. Most litters are born in April and May, ranging from March through July. Young are born in a dry, well hidden den, usually found within natural rocky areas and caves where available, and the female will likely have numerous auxiliary dens which they will use to aid in raising their young. Females raise one litter of 1-5 kittens alone. Kittens are able to accompany their mother away from the den by their third month, and disperse prior to the birth of the following year's litter.

Predators, Parasites and Disease

Bobcat kittens are killed by foxes, owls, and adult male bobcats. Adults may be injured or killed by their prey animals. The most common cause of death for kittens and juveniles is low food supply. It is not uncommon for an adult to die of starvation, especially during severe winters.

The importance of disease to wild bobcat populations is not well known. Some researchers have suggested that diseases carried by raccoons and feral cats may be an important mortality factor for bobcats. Twelve infectious diseases have been documented in wild bobcat. These diseases include rabies, feline distemper, and feline leukemia. They also carry a variety of parasites including tapeworms, roundworms, and others that are common in their prey species.

Management

A 1983 publication reports that 47 states in the U.S. had bobcat within their boundaries at that time. Thirteen states had a policy of total protection (no harvest). Thirty states had hunting seasons, while 32 had trapping seasons. Three states, Wyoming, Texas, and North Dakota, allowed year-round harvest.
Many northern New York counties paid bounties on bobcat before 1971. The New York State Legislature passed a law ending the payment of bounties in 1971.

In 1973, a group of 75 countries (including the U.S.) developed the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) treaty. CITES made it illegal to export pelts of endangered spotted cats such as cheetah, leopard, and ocelot. The treaty also included a list of species that had the potential to be affected negatively by the export ban. Bobcat are on this list because they are a spotted cat, and possibly an alternative for the banned pelts.

Although the federal government, under CITES, controls export of bobcat pelts, the states are responsible for management. Bobcat were unprotected in New York until the Legislature gave DEC the authority to set open seasons in 1976. The Department closed a large portion of the state to bobcat harvest after 1976, and started a pelt tagging system to track bobcat harvested by hunters or trappers in some areas with open seasons beginning in 1977. Hunting has been the dominant harvest method since the 1988-89 season. This is likely due to declining pelt prices and the resultant decrease in licensed trappers.

Although the status of bobcat in New York is stable, the Bureau of Wildlife will continue monitoring bobcat populations to determine whether any important changes occur. Wildlife biologists are developing a "sighting index" based on observations of bobcats by volunteer bowhunters, or you can report bobcat sightings by filling out a Bobcat Observation Report (see "Important Links" above in the right-hand column). This information, along with harvest statistics, provides the primary tools for assessing bobcat population trends.

When it comes to wolves and pumas, th pundits are always quick to go negative and state that there is "virtually no chance" that they will ever recolonize a region that they formally called home.............Last seen in Illinois as the civil war broke out in 1860, forest and prairie conversion to farm and town seems to leave only "fragments" of wild lands remaining for C.lups.........There is a viable deer population for both wolves and pumas to prey on,,,,,,,,there is an attempt by the State to put aside more open space,,,,,,,,,and road densities in sections of Illinois are still modest in scope...............Additional forest preserve cover seems to be the key if Wolves and pumas are to once again make their home in prairie country

2012-01-23T05:12:00.000-08:00

Gray wolves unlikely to make a comeback to Illinois

by Lorena Villa-Parkman

Illinois shouldn´t be crying wolf. At least not yet.   There have been unverified sightings of wolves in northern Illinois over the years since the population was entirely wiped out in 1860. But it´s unlikely the gray wolf will make a comeback here, according to experts.

 

"It is a very populous state and there are very few opportunities for wolves to thrive," said Pat Goodman, animal behaviorist and curator at Wolf Park, Ind. "There have been sightings from time to time, but the question is whether or not a wolf could establish a breeding population that could sustain itself. I doubt it."   

That´s because unpopulated areas and open forests are harder to find. Illinois is around 90 percent farmland. Ranchers and farmers are protective of their lands and stock and wolves are perceived as threats.

"They are not great animals to have living in your backyard," said Lawrence Heaney, curator of mammals at The Field Museum. "They´ll eat your dog and your cat, although they almost never bother people, but they are perfectly happy eating the animals we eat or live with."

  Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota already have a healthy population of gray wolves. There were 687 wolves in Michigan, 782 in Wisconsin and 2921 in Minnesota, according to the Minnesota DNR Report: Distribution and Abundance of Wolves in Minnesota, 2007 – 2008.

The wolf population has recovered so successfully in the Great Lakes states that in 2011 the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service removed wolves in Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin from the list of endangered species Act.

"They need lower human population and good preying source at least," said Dan Stark, large carnivore program leader of the Division of Fish and Wildlife for the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources.  

Packs originate when young wolves leave their family to find a mate and set a territory of their own. Sometimes they will travel hundreds of miles looking for a suitable area to populate.

"If they are in a situation where the density is high and where there aren't spaces available for them, they just keep looking," said Heaney.

Wolves are moving into other states as well.

A lone gray wolf crossed from Oregon to California in the border south of Klamath Falls on Dec. 28. The two and a half year male known as OR-7 is the first confirmed wild wolf in California since 1924. "Maybe this is not the first one lined to go to California," said Patrick Valentino, director of planning and development and coordinator for Northern California Wolf Center activities. "We don't know if they are more wolves on their way and maybe, at some point a male and female will meet here, have their pups and create a pack in California."

By looking for new territories, wolves are not only searching for food and a place to claim, but also they are probably protecting themselves from genetic inbreeding, Valentino said.

Through collars with radio transmitters, experts have found out that wolves travel around 50 to 200 miles in search for a new territory. Some of them have been known to travel 500 to 1000 miles. "If a wolf from Minnesota heads south and survives, if it´s not ran over by a car or shot, it might very well keep looking for a place where there are other wolves," Heaney said. "But if they find a place where there is food and space but no possible mates, they are not going to stay."

Studies in Minnesota and Wisconsin show there are some fluctuations in the number of wolves that live in the area, but it´s still a stable population. "The good habitats are occupied by them, so there aren´t any nice empty spots for new packs and they have to go looking somewhere else," Goodman said.

Minnesota wolves are known to have territories as large as 40 sq. miles. "But that ranges from 20 to 200 sq. miles," said Dan Stark, large carnivore program leader of the Division of Fish and Wildlife for the Minnesota department.  

The state of Minnesota has a very healthy wolf population because they were more difficult to kill in it´s forest terrain. "There were extensive efforts to exterminate them in the neighboring states and they were effective," Stark said. "In Minnesota we have pretty expansive forest areas that hid wolves and when we eliminated aerial gunning or poisoning as killing techniques, the wolf population started to come back."  

Minnesota wolf population is connected to the extensive wolf population in Canada. "Having that source helped local wolves thrive. Whereas Wisconsin and Michigan are disconnected from those packs because of the lakes. However, once Minnesota got occupied then their populations started to get a new influx of wolves," Stark said.  

So, why are wolves shunning Illinois as their place of residence?   

"They need food," Heaney said. "In Illinois there is plenty of it, the deer population is dense, they have that."  
The problem comes when wolves can´t find a place to get on with their lives without being disturbed. "They have to be able to go about their hunting and not be harassed, so if they end up in an area with lots of people or domestic dogs, it bothers them," Heaney said. "Lots of them are killed by hunters."

  When the young wolves disperse from their original territory it´s a time of very high mortality for them. They expose themselves to all kind of unknown dangers. "Most of the dispersers are not going to survive," Heaney said.  

"There is a lot of chance involved when they leave their pack," Goodman said. "They need a viable place to call home and Illinois is not it."

  "I think it´s absolutely inevitable that we are going to have wolves coming back to Illinois," said Heaney. "But it won´t be common and it´s pretty unlikely for them to establish. There is not enough space where they wouldn´t feel threatened."

View Wolf distribution in a larger map

A new friend of this blog, independent wildlife and wilderness advocate, Robert Goldman, published a recent article setting the record straight on why Wolves should be restored to Maine........." Wolves in Maine would naturally strengthen moose and deer populations here"....." It is what they do as vital, natural predators in every ecosystem they inhabit"....... "Field biologists report that with wolves back on the land, the entire ecology is healthier"........"The same ecological principles at work in the Rockies apply here in Maine"..... "With the wolves' return to their native New England homeland, prey species and the land itself will be healthier".... "That is the way nature works, just as we were taught in grade school"...."In the vast forest lands of Maine and across the region, there is ample room and prey for wolves to live here again, as they did for thousands of years"

2012-01-21T20:29:00.000-08:00

Robert Goldman: Of wolves, ecology and justice

By Robert Goldman
The Sun Journal of Maine

The paw print was almost the size of my hand. I knelt down to study it and with my fingertips traced the outline of the print, the pads, the subtle punctuation of its nails, and pondered the animal that left it.

I was on the fourth day of a six-day backpack in Northern Yellowstone and this was the territory of the Blacktail Pack. A gray wolf had passed this way not long before.

I was very happy to see this paw print. As a lifelong lover of canines, it's easy to love wolves, especially when you know the truth about them.

The truth about wolves was difficult to find in the anti-wolf "opinion" piece that appeared in this newspaper on Sept. 25, by V. Paul Reynolds (Outdoors in Maine: Keeping Wolves from Maine's door).
What needs to be kept from Maine's door is malicious and inaccurate information about wolves that, for centuries, has resulted in the unjust demonization and heartless massacre of this vital and beautiful animal.

If I knew little or nothing about wolves and, instead, relied on fairy tales and anti-wolf propaganda, upon seeing the wolf's paw print in Yellowstone, I would have immediately fled from the trail screaming hysterically, afraid of being mercilessly attacked by an other-worldly beast or infected with some strange wolf disease.

Instead, I've taken the time to learn the truth about wolves from world renowned ecologists, wolf experts and nature writers, such as Aldo Leopold, Adolph Murie, David Mech, Farley Mowat and Barry Lopez.
Mr. Lopez's "Of Wolves and Men" is truly enlightening. Young and old will enjoy learning about wolves from Mr. Mowat's wonderful book "Never Cry Wolf."

With knowledge and wisdom, it is possible to replace the completely false, demonic image of wolves with understanding, compassion and respect for the amazing beings wolves are, in reality.Wolves are intelligent, social, natural predators and are native to New England and almost every corner of North America.
They are instinctively wary of people and avoid contact with humans.

As natural predators, they provide a vital balance to the prey species that exist in the various ecosystems they inhabit. Wolves actually strengthen their prey by culling the weak, the old and the sick.Sport hunters do exactly the opposite, as they target the bigger, healthier animals, thereby removing those animals from the gene pool.

Wolves in Maine would naturally strengthen moose and deer populations here. It is what they do as vital, natural predators in every ecosystem they inhabit.

By the early the 20th century, wolves were missing from almost every part of the United States. A relentlessly cruel campaign of poisoning, trapping, shooting and massacre, brutalized this native animal.
The centuries-long wolf massacres were perpetrated at the local, state and federal levels. It was a horrific, unjust war on wolves and nature.The mass killing of America's wolves and other native wildlife was firmly rooted in human ignorance, intolerance and cruelty.

With time, much of the country learned from its mistakes.By the early 1970s, the federal government, reflecting the will of a far more enlightened American people, enacted the Endangered Species Act. Wolves were added to the list of protected species. In the mid-1980s, a small group of pioneer wolves, on their own, wandered south into the American Rockies from Canada.

Ten years later, when the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service re-introduced a mere 33 wolves back into Yellowstone National Park and parts of nearby Idaho, that only served to accelerate a natural process that was already under way.

As the federal government had previously played a central role in the massacre of hundreds of thousands of wolves from coast to coast, this small but remarkable action for ecological justice and atonement was a positive reflection of maturing American attitudes toward wildlife and the natural world.

Today, many ranchers and sport hunters unfortunately continue to spread false information about wolves. They greatly exaggerate wolf depredation on cattle.

Despite the anti-wolf whining of some sport hunters out West, the facts reveal that elk populations throughout the Rocky Mountains are strong and healthy. After more than 15 years with wolves back in the Rockies, state departments of wildlife in those states report that elk populations are at or above expected levels. Elk are there across the landscape and doing well. And field biologists report that with wolves back on the land, the entire ecology is healthier.

The same ecological principles at work in the Rockies apply here in Maine. With the wolves' return to their native New England homeland, prey species and the land itself will be healthier. That is the way nature works, just as we were taught in grade school.In the vast forest lands of Maine and across the region, there is ample room and prey for wolves to live here again, as they did for thousands of years.

It is time to cast ignorance, prejudice and misperceptions about this native species aside. Wolves are vital, fascinating and worthy beings. With honesty and respect, with knowledge and a more generous sense of stewardship toward the land and all creatures, great and small, wolves can live here again, where they belong.

Robert Goldman is an independent wildlife and wilderness advocate. He lives in South Portland.

Frequent blog contributor George Wuerthner(a good friend of ths publication) supplied us with this disheartening story on Montana ranchers blocking the State initiative, "BIGHORN SHEEP CONSERVATION STRATEGY,,,, by saying that the Dept of Fish& Wildlife has an obligation to consult with landowners abutting the planned release site, the Lewis & Clark Caverns area..........One of the statewide objectives in Montana's bighorn sheep strategy is to "establish five new viable and huntable populations over the course of the next 10 years and augment existing populations where appropriate." Relocations typically consist of 20 to 40 bighorns being released for two consecutive winters........ FWP has "struck out" with every attempt at sheep relocation during the past six years, and if that continues, Montanans will have to reconsider how to move forward...... Some large landowners fear bighorns interfere with ranching operations.......... Others worry that the public will disregard private property to view or hunt the sheep.........Bottom line that once again a narrow segment of the population(ranchers and hunters) determining the fate of wildlife populations.........THIS MUST CHANGE IF REWILDING IS TO TAKE PLACE AS GEORGE HAS SPOKEN ABOUT ELOQUENTLY IN HIS COLUMNS ON STATE GAME COMMISSIONS BEING CONSTANTLY "IN THE POCKETS" OF RANCHERS AND HUNTERS........ AND THOSE COMMISSIONS NOT SEEKING TO HEAR FROM ANY OTHER STATE RESIDENTS AS THEY MAKE THEIR LAND USE DECISIONS

2012-01-21T20:13:00.000-08:00

Bighorn transplant called off; neighbors say state tried to ram plan past them

By EVE BYRON Independent Record

This Aug. 9, 2007 file photo shows a flock of bighorn sheep grazing in a field west of Elmo, Mont.

The Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks Commission has voted to reject a plan to reintroduce bighorn sheep to historic range in the Lewis and Clark Caverns State Park area in western Montana after neighboring landowners voiced opposition.

HELENA — A plan to relocate bighorn sheep to the Lewis and Clark Caverns area was shot down last week after landowners in the area said they weren't sufficiently notified of the proposal and opposed it.
It was the first attempt to transplant sheep under Montana's first-ever Bighorn Sheep Conservation Strategy, which was adopted in 2010. The discussion at Thursday's Fish, Wildlife and Parks Commission meeting touched upon a key issue hotly debated during the strategy's creation: whether an adjacent landowner can have veto power over the move.

"This situation definitely calls to mind the extensive discussions we had when contemplating the bighorn sheep strategic plan over one word," said Commissioner Ron Moody, who on Friday explained that the word had to do whether FWP "should" or "will" consult neighboring landowners. The final adopted version says that before initiating a transplant, Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks "will coordinate and cooperate with local landowners" before moving the wild sheep.

But Terry Murphy, a state senator from Cardwell who represents part of Lewis and Clark County and Jefferson County, also happens to own a large ranch near the caverns, and said he only found out about the proposed move at the last minute."I literally never heard of the proposal until Dec. 16 and found my land was listed as a passageway for sheep to move from one side of the highway to the other," Murphy told the FWP Commission at its meeting on Thursday. "The same kind of proposal came up 15 years ago. We opposed it and it wasn't done. We are there using the land and trying to make a living on it, not making it a tourist attraction. There is absolute opposition to it on my part."

FWP originally came to the commissioners in the spring of 2011 with a list of sites that possibly were good bighorn sheep habitat, and in November released a draft Environmental Assessment. The document looked at reintroducing the sheep on 139,373 acres in three adjacent areas in south-central Montana -- the Bull Mountains, Doherty Mountain and Lewis and Clark Caverns State Park.

One of the statewide objectives in Montana's bighorn sheep strategy is to "establish five new viable and huntable populations over the course of the next 10 years and augment existing populations where appropriate." Relocations typically consist of 20 to 40 bighorns being released for two consecutive winters.
In this case, the sheep possibly would either come from Flathead Lake's Wild Horse Island or the Upper Madison drainage, where populations have steadily increased. The EA noted that their presence in the area would have multiple benefits, including wildlife viewing and eventual hunting.

"Increased recreational opportunity, both consumptive and non-consumptive, would result in additional economic benefits to local merchants by hunters and wildlife watchers," the assessment said.
A meeting was held in the fall in Whitehall, and Kujala said there seemed to be tolerance for the sheep by areas residents.

Murphy didn't see it the same way. He said he never heard about the meeting, nor had some of hisneighbors, and they were angry to learn of the proposal."I'm here to plead with you," he said. "Please do not force this down our throats."

Based upon that opposition, Kujala recommended that the move not be made and the commission agreed.
"The (FWP) department is working hard to live up to this plan, which was the consensus of a lot of groups," said Commissioner Dan Vermillion. "But the department, in this case has — no question — there were some things they could have done better with public outreach. But I think the department did a good job making sure the plan was known to a broad swath of the community."

Vermillion added that FWP has "struck out" with every attempt at sheep relocation during the past six years, and if that continues, Montanans will have to reconsider how to move forward. Some large landowners fear bighorns interfere with ranching operations. Others worry that the public will disregard private property to view or hunt the sheep

"If the sheep plan doesn't allow us to translocate sheep, then that's a problem," Vermillion said. "We shouldn't find ourselves at the 12th hour stepping back from something we thought everyone supported."

Chris Spatz of COUGAR REWILDING clued me in on this MSNBC article on the proliferation of alleged Puma sightings taking place all across the Eastern half of the USA since this past Spring when a Dakota Puma wandered into Connectitcut and was killed in a vehicle collision.........Our friend Mark McCollough up at the USFW office in Maine once again reaffirming his belief that there is not a breeding population in the East outside of Florida.........Mark Dowling of THE COUGAR NETWORK reaffirms McCollough's findings stating "Cougars couldn't go undetected",,,, "They betray their presence readily by becoming road kill or chasing people's pets".............Spatz and Helen Mcginnis of COUGAR REWILDING have told me previously that they agree with this assessment,,,,,but Spatz and colleagues are in favor of rewilding our Eastern forests saying "Cougars' presence would change the way deer browse"........ "They would keep moving; you would see regeneration of your understory"....." Cougars are not a threat to people, pets and livestock".... "California, where there are an estimated 5,000 to 6,000 cougars and no hunting allowed, proves "we can coexist."........

2012-01-21T19:56:00.000-08:00

Cougars extinct in East? No way, say those who claim sightings

Department of Energy and Environmental Protection

This June 2011 photo by the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection shows a worker examining a dead mountain lion, or cougar, at the Sessions Woods Wildlife Center in Burlington, Conn. Tests determined that the cat, which was struck by a car, had traveled all the way from South Dakota.

By Jim Gold, msnbc.com

Cougar sightings persist in the East nearly a year after the big predators were declared extinct in the region, a determination that some don't believe. Others want to make cougars' presence a big reality.
Just this month Gary Sanderson, sports editor at the Greenfield, Mass.-based Recorder newspaper, reported cougar sightings on a farm near the Vermont border, by an Amtrak engineer who claimed his train's video captured images of the creatures near Leverett, and from readers in the region who claim to have pictures of cougars.

"I've been besieged" with sightings ever since writing a column 10 years ago about hunting with a trapper who became a believer in cougars' presence after finding a footprint way too large to be a bobcat in Conway, along the Deerfield River, Sanderson told msnbc.com. Sanderson said he has since written 50 columns devoted to cougar sightings and has been told by wildlife officials he was irresponsible to promote the notion of their presence.
With rare exception, there is no credible evidence of cougars living in the wild east of the Mississippi River, government and private researchers told msnbc.com.

In Connecticut this week, a CBS radio report and a Greenwich Time newspaper story both cited the growth of cougar sightings since last spring. That's when a cougar first spotted in Greenwich on June 5 was killed by a car six days later in nearby Milford. NBC Connecticut reported at the time that scientists studying the 140-pound animal's DNA concluded the cougar had wandered about 1,800 miles east, all the way from the Black Hills of South Dakota through Minnesota and Wisconsin before finding its way to Greenwich, about 70 miles outside New York City.

Even though he is a state away, Sanderson said, "I felt vindicated" when the news emerged about the cougar in Milford. "I didn't think they would admit that it was wild."

A Connecticut group called Cougars of the Valley has an online petition with about 250 signatures asking the state General Assembly to hold a hearing on cougars, also known as mountain lions, pumas and panthers. The group's website also hosts a map of Connecticut cougar sightings and comments from readers claiming authorities disparaged their reports about seeing cougars.

No evidence?
Mark McCollough, an endangered species specialist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in the Orono, Maine, field office, was the lead scientist in the agency's study declaring the Eastern cougar extinct. (See full study report here.)

McCollough told msnbc.com that there is no scientific evidence that Eastern cougars have somehow survived 150 years after being driven from the region. The last known real Eastern cougar was shot dead in 1938 in Maine, he said.

....

"That's not to say they don't show up from time to time," McCollough said of cougars, but most reports of sightings are misidentfications, such as coyotes or bobcats, which are about one-fourth the size of cougars.
Officials have documented 110 cougars loose in the Eastern United States and Canada since 1900, he said. They come from two main sources:

Escaped pets: At least 1,000 cougars are known to be held in captivity in the East, he said, and many that have turned up loose have been genetically traced to South American ancestry, indicating they were part of the exotic pet trade. "They didn't walk here," McCollough said.
Dispersers: Like the wandering cougar killed in Connecticut, some head east from the West and north from Florida, home to about 150 panthers. Cougars regularly show up on trail cameras set up privately across the country, McCollough said, but they're not on cameras in the East.

One cougar from Florida, where about 150 panthers live in the wild, was killed in Georgia in 2008. That same year, police shot a cougar that wandered into Chicago's North Side.

But there is no scientific evidence, no scat (droppings), no confirmed sightings that cougars are establishing homes and breeding east of the Mississippi and north of Florida, McCollough said.

Courtesy of The Cougar Network

Green: established populations
Blue = Class I Confirmation
Red = Class II Confirmation

A map by The Cougar Network, a non-profit research group, shows only a few confirmed sightings of cougars in the East since 1990.

"We just don't take those kinds of sightings seriously anymore," said Mark Dowling, a leader of the network. Pictures turn out to be house cats or even golden retrievers. Cougars couldn't go undetected, he said. "They betray their presence readily," he said, by becoming road kill or chasing people's pets.

The Midwest is seeing a resurgence, he said, including new populations in South Dakota, North Dakota and Nebraska. Individual dispersing animals have been seen in Wisconsin, Minnesota, Michigan and Louisiana.

Christopher Spatz, a southern New York resident who is president of the Cougar Rewilding Foundation, told msnbc.com that wandering cougars are young males looking for females and needing to get away from their fathers' territories before their fathers kill them."Young cats out on their own are troublemakers," said Spatz, an advocate for reintroducing cougars into the wilds of the East.

"We need them everywhere. Big predators help regulate ecosystems,"Spatz said.After wolves were reintroduced at Yellowstone National Park in 1995, elk stopped eating cottonwoods and aspens, Spatz said. Vegetation came back, and biodiversity, including beavers, birds and fish, expanded. Without cougars and other predators, there is an overabundance of whitetail deer in the East, resulting in lack of understory.

"Cougars' presence would change the way deer browse," Spatz said. "They would keep moving; you would see regeneration of your understory." Cougars are not a threat to people, pets and livestock, he said. California, where there are an estimated 5,000 to 6,000 cougars and no hunting allowed, proves "we can coexist."

McCollough, the wildlife biologist, and Dowling, from the Cougar Network, which doesn't take a stand on repopulation, said chances of recolonization efforts in the East are remote, as people likely won't want large predators living near them.

Cougars, which can leap 30 feet and reach speeds of 50 mph, are carnivores whose usual diet consists mainly of deer, elk, turkey rabbits porcupine, coyote and other small mammals, according to The Cougar Fund, a non-profit trying to protect cougars. But the animals do prey on people, pets and livestock. Since 1890, "only 20 people" have been killed by cougar attacks, says the group, which also offers tips on how to fight off cougars and guidelines to keep children and pets safe. Several non-fatal mauling attacks on people are reported yearly.

'They are here'
But one cougar advocate, Bill Betty of Matunuck, R.I., said people in the Northeast already coexist with cougars, because, he said, they are present and breeding. "Every state in the East will eventually acknowledge they are here," Betty told msnbc.com. He said he has had 14 daytime encounters as close as 10 feet with cougars -- and nine family members have had 30 encounters."I've chased mountain lions away from kids," he said.

Betty lectures all over the country about mountain lions and has a 90-minute slideshow and other show-and-tell items such as a skull, scat samples and photos. He said he knows what a cougar looks like.
At a lecture in Somers, Conn., he said, 37 people raised their hands when asked if they'd seen a cougar.
"They are here," he said. "Those who say they are not are lying.""Mature, responsible adults and schoolchildren can tell the difference between a cougar and a big yellow dog," he said.
Officials say they still don't believe Betty and that he does not use scientific data in his presentations.

So few Political leaders and Clergy are willing to speak out about our massive and unsutainable 7 billion human population that is headed to 10 billion by 2050....... As the utlimate trophic predator, we humans are at the heart of every environmental problem we face from animal extinction to pollution.....There are only a handful of notable folks like Thomas Friedman(NY Times columnist) and Dave Foreman(Rewilding Institute) who are willing to take on our archaic age old concepts about procreation and "growth",,,,, telling l it like it is and letting the chips fall where they might....... Friedman titled one of his recent books HOT FLAT AND CROWDED where he discussed how impossible it is for all 7 to 10 billion humans to carve out a USA middle class existance..............It would take 3 planet earths worth of resources for this to happen and that just "ain't" in the cards...........As Harvard University biologist Dr. E.O. Wilson said, "The worst thing that will probably happen—in fact is already well underway—is not energy depletion, economic collapse, conventional war, or the expansion of totalitarian governments. As terrible as these catastrophes would be for us, they can be repaired in a few generations. The one process now going on that will take millions of years to correct is loss of genetic and species diversity by the destruction of natural habitats. This is the folly our descendants are least likely to forgive us".............Dave Foreman writes, "We have come on like a swarm of locusts: a wide, thick, darkling cloud settling down like living snowflakes, smothering every stalk, every leaf, eating away every scrap of green down to raw, bare wasting earth. It's painfully straightforward. There are too many men for Earth to harbor…we are crippling Earth's life support system by such a flood of upright apes is bad news for us"

2012-01-20T19:18:00.000-08:00

By Frosty Wooldridge
The Rewilding News

A book review: Man Swarm and the Killing of Wildlife by Dave Foreman

The Bible said, "Be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth and subdue it and take dominion over all living things on land and in the seas."At the time of the Bible's inception by a desert tribe known as the Jews in the Middle East, less than 100 million human beings walked the planet, give or take a few. Humans used nets and spears to subdue fish, fowl and beasts.

In 40 more years, we grow to 10 billion humans on Planet Earth

In 2012, as the human race thunders toward adding another three billion of its already prolific numbers to reach 10 billion by mid century—38 scant years from now, thousands of scientists have warned of our impending predicament. Nonetheless, we human earthlings plunder oceans, seas, air, land and water.
At the same time, starvation stalks humans in Somalia, Bangladesh, Mexico, Congo, Sudan and India. Over 18 million human beings die of starvation annually around the globe. (Source: World Health Organization, UN Population stats)

But what about the other "earthlings" numbering perhaps 30 million separate species around the globe? What about their plight as humans maraud this planet by mercilessly killing habitat and poisoning the oceans? How many species suffer extinction daily around the planet? Dr. Norman Myers, Oxford University, United Kingdom, substantiates 80 to 100 species end their time on this planet every day via human habitat encroachment. Humans kill species at such a prolific rate that it is deemed the "Sixth Extinction Session." The first five sessions arrived as ice ages, meteors and other deadly events.
Harvard University biologist Dr. E.O. Wilson said, "The worst thing that will probably happen—in fact is already well underway—is not energy depletion, economic collapse, conventional war, or the expansion of totalitarian governments. As terrible as these catastrophes would be for us, they can be repaired in a few generations. The one process now going on that will take millions of years to correct is loss of genetic and species diversity by the destruction of natural habitats. This is the folly our descendants are least likely to forgive us."

Long time conservationist Dave Foreman wrote a penetrating and compelling book: Man Swarm and the Killing of Wildlife. This book cannot be dismissed. It cannot be ignored. It cannot be put down once started. Foreman shows the unraveling the wild world at the hands of humanity. For anyone that thinks unlimited human growth can continue, this book knocks out all the myths perpetrated by economists, religious leaders and pro-growth advocates.

Foreman dedicates his book to his friend Hugh Iltis, "Whose stout heart and sharp mind has always seen that the population explosion leads to the death of wild things and the loss of wilderness."

In my own media battles on the population/immigration/environmental front, I have had to contend with big time radio talk show hosts who support unlimited growth, i.e., Ernest Hancock of http://www.freedomphoenix.com/ . Top television news personalities such as Diane Sawyer and Charlie Rose will not touch the subject, but report about the consequences—never making the connection. Newspapers like the Denver Post's Vince Carroll remain convinced that unlimited growth is beneficial. The Los Angeles Times encourages as much growth as possible even as California chokes on its toxic air, gridlocked highways and crumbling infrastructure. It adds 1,700 people daily and 400 vehicles.

Humans are causing the 6th extinction of species that the world has known

Even small town newspaper editors like Jonathan Thompson of the High Country News advocate for unlimited growth. Bob Shieffer of "Face the Nation" and David Gregory of "Meet the Press" scamper away from the topic like gazelles. Every National Public Radio host avoids the topic at all costs. Only last year did Thomas Friedman finally write, "The Earth is full."

Friedman's commentary didn't make a dent. I've written 100 similar commentaries. The USA adds 8,100 people net gain daily while the planet hosts another 240,000 new babies 24/7. Result: an added 78 million humans annually on an already environmentally devastated planet in 2012.

From my own work, I unequivocally state that human overpopulation in America and around the world is the most evaded, avoided, ignored and suppressed issue of our time. It's also the most dangerous predicament of our time, but don't let that stop us from increasing our numbers at breakneck speed.

"We must alert and organize the world's people to pressure world leaders to take specific steps to solve the two root causes of our environmental crises - exploding population growth and wasteful consumption of irreplaceable resources. Over-consumption and overpopulation underlie every environmental problem we face today." Jacques-Yves Cousteau, Oceanographer While you may hear a lot about "carrying capacity", you never hear about carrying capacity for all the other creatures on our planet. It's like they don't exist or are unimportant. Foreman loves wild things and I love them, too.

Dave Foreman's book will rock your senses. It will affect your children. It will change all life on this planet if humans continue their endless onslaught around the globe.

Frosty Wooldridge has bicycled across six continents – from the Arctic to the South Pole – as well as six times across the USA, coast to coast and border to border. In 2005, he bicycled from the Arctic Circle, Norway to Athens, Greece. He presents "The Coming Population Crisis in America: and what you can do about it" to civic clubs, church groups, high schools and colleges. He works to bring about sensible world population balance at http://www.frostywooldridge.com/ He is the author of: America on the Brink: The Next Added 100 Million Americans. Copies available: 1 888 280 7715

The Catalina Fox that inhabits the Catalina Islands off the Coast of California has stepped back from extinction and now stand strong at over 1500 animals.........Great steps have been taken to keep the Foxes free from rabies, a key killing agent of this tiny carnivore.........Innoculating the foxes as well as educational programs alerting people to get their dogs rabies and distemper shots have led the foxes to the point where they one day soon might be removed from the Endangererd Species List

2012-01-20T19:05:00.000-08:00

Catalina Island fox makes astounding comeback

Los Angeles Times

Since falling to a low of 100 in 1999, the Catalina Island fox has rebounded to a number — 1,542 — above its previous level, thanks to conservationists' efforts.

A Catalina Island fox awaits the attentions of biologists who trap the animals in order to inspect them for illnesses, vaccinate them, outfit them with telemetry collars and monitor their behavior. (B

The Catalina Island fox has made one of the most remarkable recoveries known for an endangered species, rebounding in just 13 years from near extinction brought on by a distemper epidemic, wildlife biologists announced Wednesday.

The number of foxes has reached 1,542, surpassing the population of about 1,300 seen before the animals were ravaged by the disease that scientists believe was introduced by a pet dog or a raccoon from the mainland that hitched a ride on a boat or a barge.

"We're beyond proud," said Ann Muscat, president and chief executive of the Santa Catalina Island Conservancy. "It's a testament to what hard work, passion, money and the resiliency of nature can accomplish."

The animals' growing presence is evident across the island in "scent advertisements" — clumps of telltale scat — left on boulders, retainer walls, barbecues and picnic tables. But despite their growing number, Muscat said, "we can't relax. These furry treasures are still just one infected dog or raccoon away from extinction."

The fox — a subspecies found only on the 76-square-mile island — has become this resort destination's emblematic endangered species in part because of its fierce appeal.

The omnivorous 5-pound animals are gray with pointed noses, reddish ears and feet and black-tipped tails. They live about 10 years, pair for life and, with no natural predators on the island, generally enjoy a relatively laid-back existence.

But the population crashed to roughly 100 in 1999, prompting the conservancy and the Institute for Wildlife Studies to launch a $2-million recovery program that included vaccinations and a captive breeding facility. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service listed the fox as endangered in 2004.

The rebound has federal wildlife authorities elated. "It is one of the great recovery efforts — up to this point," said Stephanie Weagley, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. "We still have a lot of management and fieldwork to do."

The agency is conducting a five-year status review of the fox, an effort that could lead to eventual removal from the endangered species list. The review takes into account factors such as fluctuations in population and continuing threats.

On an island shared by 3,200 humans, and visited by more than 1 million tourists a year, the leading causes of death for foxes include pet dogs, feral cats and "road kill." The cat-sized foxes are fearless and frequently wander out to sniff at passing vehicles.

Managing the animals now includes trapping foxes, inspecting them for illnesses, vaccinating them against distemper and rabies, outfitting them with telemetry collars and monitoring their behavior.

At daybreak Wednesday, conservancy senior wildlife biologist Julie King and wildlife technician Tyler Dvorak strode through waist-high brush, inspecting the contents of 12 wire box traps baited the night before with kibble and cat food to attract customers. They found four tenants, which growled nervously as King and Dvorak lifted them out to record their vital statistics in a log that chronicles more than a decade of fox research on the island.

Wearing leather gloves, King cradled one of the foxes in her lap and injected a microchip the size of a grain of rice just under the skin between its shoulder blades. Fox No. 57410 was about a year old and somewhat pudgy.

"These are not lean, mean killing machines like wolves," King said. "There's plenty here for them to eat — cactus pears, Catalina cherries, mice — and they can get downright obese."

News of the robust fox population was a main topic of conversation on the island. At the conservancy's nature center a mile south of town, school and youth program specialist Rich Zanelli said, "I'm going to put up a big sign that says, 'Ask me about 1,542.'"

By Louis Sahagun, Los Angeles Times

January 19, 2012

While rabies outbreaks among foxes is a cyclical and reoccurring phenomena, Coyotes are much less prone to harbor the disease..............Interesting that Southwestern Texas seems to have experienced periodic epidemics in both canine groups over the past 20 years............Airplane drops of bait laden rabies vaccine have been successful in breaking the cycle and reducing new outbreaks to virtually zero............

2012-01-20T18:56:00.000-08:00

Texas nearly ends rabies with aerial vaccine drops

Reuters

Three King Air planes are lined up on a small runway in the town of Del Rio preparing to bomb south Texas—not with explosives, but with hundreds of thousands of packets of rabies vaccine.
The packets, each about the size of fast food ketchup, contain enough vaccine to inoculate the coyotes that roam the southwest Texas brush country against rabies, which until the last two decades was threatening livestock and humans alike.

"We had two outbreaks of rabies in coyotes and in foxes," recalls Dr. Ernest Oertli, a veterinarian who works with ranchers in this area. "There were a couple of human deaths from rabies, and it was spreading northward and eastward into the populated parts of the state, and was on the outskirts of San Antonio, Austin, Waco and Ft. Worth."

Oertli said that at the time, animal and human health experts were worried about an urban rabies epidemic, and were urgently telling residents to vaccinate their pets against rabies. Rabies in humans is almost always fatal unless the patient receives immediate and lengthy treatment.

gray fox

A handful of human rabies cases are reported in the United States every year. A woman in South Carolina died from the disease in December and a case was recently reported in Massachusetts, both believed to be infected from bats.

Researchers with the Texas Department of State Health Services learned of an aerial vaccination program underway in Canada, and decided to try it in the equally vast south and west regions of Texas. The results over the past 18 years have been dramatic, according to department spokesman Chris Van Deusen.
"Animal cases of the canine strain of rabies in southern Texas fell from 122 the year before the program began, to zero in 2000," Van Deusen said. "There have only been two cases since then, and both of them were within a mile of the Rio Grande."

He said the program is also concentrated against the fox strain of rabies, and those cases have been reduced from 244 animal cases in 1995, to zero cases in the past two years."We have effectively eliminated these two strains of rabies from Texas," Van Deusen said, adding that there have been no human cases of rabies in the region since the airdrop began.

"This is the same idea of the airborne attack against the Mediterranean Fruit Fly in California," Oertli said as he supervised the launch of the planes on one of the 12 flights they will make each day. Flying at 500 to 1,000 feet elevation, they will drop a total of 1.8 million packets over about 7,700 square miles of rural south and west Texas before the program comes to an end later this month. The packets are dipped in fish oil and coated with fish meal to make them attractive to coyotes and foxes, which eat them and are automatically vaccinated. "Now our goal is to put into place and maintain a barrier zone to prevent rabies from being reintroduced from Mexico," he said.

Over the 18 years of the program, a total of 36.7 million bait packets have been dropped. In the early years of the program, local media were asked to urge people in urban areas to watch out for falling bait and asked them not to touch the packets on the ground because animals could smell humans on the bait and would not eat it. Van Deusen said, as the rabies has been pushed back toward the Rio Grande and the operations now are taking place over largely rural stretches of west Texas, those warnings are less necessary.

Oertli said the idea of an aerial assault on rabies is spreading across the country. Health officials in several northeastern states are now using the same practice to fight against the spread of rabies in raccoons.
He noted that January is the best time to drop the bait in Texas for several reasons. Coyotes and foxes are short of food this time of year and are more likely to eat the bait, and spreading the baits makes them less susceptible to the roaming fire ants which crawl over everything in their path during hot weather.
"As a citizen, I am thrilled at what we have been able to accomplish with this program," Oertli said.
Now that fox and coyote rabies are nearly eradicated, crews are now planning a similar aerial assault against skunk rabies. He said a special bait packet has been developed for skunks.

western coyote

Van Deusen stressed that the program is only successful because of laws requiring people who live in cities to vaccinate their pets against rabies. "Vaccinating domestic animals is essential to stopping the spread of rabies," he said

Black bear harvests in Tennessee have increased on average by 21% annually since 1977. Prior to 1980, the annual harvest in the state was usually less than 20 bears. Today the picture could not be more astounding. Since 2004, Tennessee’s annual bear harvest has exceeded 300 animals! In 2009, a harvest of 571 bears in Tennessee set a new state record. These harvests are indicative of a growing bear population that is possibly higher today than it has been in the last 150 years........2011 hunter numbers just coming in with a new record of 581 Black bears taken.............Let me reiterate that the number of animals killed in a hunting season is just one barometer of the population status of that particular animal.........Does not take into account age classifications or the disruption of social bonds of the animals..........does not take into account that many biologists feel that there should be no hunting of carnivores based on their trophic funtction in keeping the land healthy............At least, Tennessee Wildlife Officials have moved the hunting season to December allowing prenant females to den,,,,however in this mideastern State, warming temps might begin to disrupt historical denning dates and it might be necessary to push hunting back into January to ensure least disruption to the female bear population

2012-01-19T19:58:00.000-08:00

New Era in Black Bear Management in Tennessee

By David M. Brandenburg, Wildlife Biologist, Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency

.The growth of Tennessee’s bear population has certainly surpassed TWRA expectations and owes much of its success to the long-term vision and foresight of state and federal managers, scientists, and administrators. A key step was to establish national forests and parks that would shelter and protect the sparse bear population, and continue to provide quality bear habitat as the population grew and spread. Bear sanctuaries were established and laws against illegal harvests and the hunting of adult females were strictly enforced. In addition to these important management steps, bear populations benefited from the maturation and increased productivity of key oak forest species in protected areas. Black bears are intrinsically a tough, resilient, and adaptable species. With careful management and ecological conditions in their favor, their populations have responded dramatically.

A crucial management decision was made in 1981 to protect female bears from excessive hunting mortality by moving the hunting season to December, after reproductive females had moved into dens. This simple change in hunting schedule reduced the percentage of females in the harvest from nearly 60% before 1981 to about 35-40% today.

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A record black bear harvest was established during the 2011 hunting seasons, the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency reports

by: The Elizabethan Star paper

Hunters harvested a total of 581 bears, surpassing the previous record of 573 set in 2009. The third all-time high for a year was 446 in 2008.

This year's record harvest is up from the 301 bears harvested in 2010. Hunters have harvested at least 300 bears in the state for the past seven years.

Black bears were harvested in 12 East Tennessee counties in 2011. There were 49 harvested bears in Carter County. Sevier County was the top county for harvest with 126, after having 41 harvested in 2010. Monroe County was second with 90, followed by Cocke 87, Polk 58, Carter, Sullivan 26, Johnson 24, Greene 21, Unicoi 20, Washington 16 and one in Jefferson County.

Tennessee black bear harvest reports started in 1951. That year, there were a total of 29 bears harvested.

Tennessee's black bear population has been steadily increasing over the past 40 years due to several management practices put in place by TWRA. These practices include establishment of a series of bear reserves throughout the bear habitat, protection of females and cubs, and setting the majority of the bear hunting season later in the year when most females have gone to the den.

Our friend Norm Bishop shedding a spotlight on how wrong it is to artificially feed wild animals like deer and elk..........Feeding Stations like the kind at play on The National Elk Refuge in Jackson Hole, Wyoming congregate Elk in finite areas............Like in crowded human cities where illnesses can spread rapidly because of proximity of people, so does chronic wasting disease(CWD) and Brucellosis explode exponentially in Bison, Deer, Elk and other browsers in artificial feeding areas............Norm shares portions of biologist Bruce L. Smith's excellent peer reviewed paper, WHERE ELK ROAM-CONSERVATION AND BIOPOLITICS OF OUR NATIONAL ELK HERD which reinforces how aberrant and harmful artificial feeding stations are to both wild and domestic animals and uses it as a "point/counterpoint" to suggest how off-base Idaho Senator Monty Pearce is in calling for perpetual winter feeding of Elk in Jackson Hole

2012-01-19T19:37:00.000-08:00

From: Norman Bishop <nabishop@q.com>
Date: Thu, Jan 19, 2012 at 2:37 PM
Subject: Re: Urgent Idaho Legislative update! Feeding elk - a recipe for disaster
To: Jim & Barb Hagedorn <jhag1@frontier.com>

Where Elk Roam - Conservation and Biopolitics of our National Elk Herd.
In his Where Elk Roam, biologist Bruce L. Smith, PhD, shares a labor of love and discovery (not to mention a sense of urgency) after 22 years of field research on the National Elk Refuge in Jackson Hole, Wyoming.

Since its establishment in 1912, the National Elk Refuge has increasingly concentrated wild elk, excluded by human activities from their 200-mile historic migration southward to winter on Wyoming's Red Desert. Smith documents the effects of that concentration, that, with twenty-two Wyoming State feedgrounds feeding 23,000 elk, adds up to 31,000 elk in five western states - about 3 percent of North America's million elk.

And what are the effects of this concentration of elk? Brucellosis, a bacterial disease brought from Britain with cattle, was identified in bison in neighboring Yellowstone National Park in 1917, and in Jackson Hole elk in 1930. Both bison and elk have a higher seroprevalence of Brucella when concentrated than when they are free-ranging (In Jackson Hole, 80 percent of adult female bison were seropositive, as were 39 percent of female elk). The disease has minor population effects on wild elk and bison, but when brucellosis infects domestic livestock, it causes unacceptable abortions of calves. In recent years, livestock in northwest Wyoming and southeast Idaho have been infected with brucellosis from elk. Vaccination of elk doesn't work. The obvious solution to lowering the risk of transmission is to quit concentrating elk and bison on feedgrounds. But habit and tradition die hard, so winter feeding continues, in spite of its devastating effect on the vegetation and biodiversity of the area.

Now, if brucellosis sounds like a ticking time bomb, read Smith's Chapter 7, Train Wreck. Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) is caused by a prion, a protein that attacks brain tissue, as does mad cow disease. There is no known way to prevent it or cure it, and it persists in soil for decades. CWD has been marching inexorably northward across Wyoming for 30 years, and was found in a moose near Bedford, Wyoming, in 2008. Like brucellosis, CWD thrives among concentrated members of the deer family - deer, elk, and moose. On an elk farm in South Dakota, 59 percent tested positive for CWD. Wyoming's 2005 draft CWD plan stated that prevalence of CWD in free-ranging elk is only 2 to 3 percent (1/10 that of deer), the prevalence of CWD in captive elk can exceed 50 percent. This level... suggests the possibility of much higher prevalence in feedground elk...

A report from a CWD workshop in Wisconsin noted that animals debilitated by CWD would quickly be culled by large carnivores. Recent modeling suggests wolf predation may suppress CWD emergence in deer, but on the feedgrounds, there may be too few wolves to keep pace with disease epizootics. Ironically, although wolves so far are taking about 0.3 percent of refuge elk, the State of Wyoming is looking to greatly reduce their numbers the moment their wolf management plan is accepted by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

But, "ranchers seem to prefer feed grounds with brucellosis [not to mention CWD] to no feedgrounds at all as a means of reducing elk competition with livestock on both private and public lands." Finally Smith writes, "better a smaller elk herd than an overgrazed range riddled with disease."
Lions Press, 2012. 266 pages, 37 photographs, 2 appendices, 226 references cited.

Norman A. Bishop
On Jan 19, 2012, at 1:55 PM, Jim & Barb Hagedorn wrote:

Idaho Senator Monty Pearce is requesting a special hearing with both the house and the senate regarding the administration of Idaho's winter feeding program for our ailing big game herds. He is proposing legislation that will ensure winter feeding dollars are solely used for preserving our big game and cannot be funneled back to the general fund.·

The hearing date has been set for Friday, February 3rd at 1:00 PM in Boise. We need every Idaho concerned Sportsman, hunter, huntress, rancher, Outfitter and concerned citizens to attend this hearing.
More details to follow but please make every attempt to attend this hearing!

Joe Carnahan, Director of the new movie, THE GREY claims he was not intending to show Wolves as man eaters,,,,,,,,I have to shout out to Joe: "WAKE UP MAN,,,,,,,YOU AND YOUR EDITORS ARE NOT NAIVE CHILDREN,,,,,,YOU HAD TO KNOW THAT THE DEPICTION OF WOLVES SEEKING TO KILL PEOPLE WOULD ENGENDER AGE OLD "LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD" FEARS IN THE AVERAGE FILM VIEWER",,,,,,,,,,,,SO DISAPPOINTING THAT YOU ACT NAIVE AND ACTUALLY EXPECT US TO BELIEVE THAT YOUR FILM IS ENVIRONMENTALLY FRIENDLY AND POSITIVELY PORTRAYING WOLVES IN THE WILD........JEEZ LOUISE, THIS IS AN EXPLOITATION MOVIE PLAIN AND SIMPLE..........JUST OWN UP TO IT AND SAY YOU WANTED TO PROVOKE PRIMAL FEAR IN PEOPLE,,,,,,,DON'T BE A COWARD AND ACT ALL INNOCENT

2012-01-19T19:28:00.000-08:00

'The Grey' director Joe Carnahan: wolves win

The alpha wolf challenges the Liam Neeson character, Ottway, and other plane crash survivors in the Joe Carnahan thriller "The Grey." (Kimberley French/Open Road Films)

Los Angeles Times

Dean Kuipers

Just as California gets its first wild wolf in almost 80 years, along comes "The Grey," the new thriller opening Jan. 27 in which Liam Neeson leads a bunch of very out-of-place oilfield dudes in Alaska who are hunted and killed by wolves.

Upside: Nature wins. Downside: Wild wolves are portrayed as cunning man-eaters. Maybe bad timing for our new wolf, known by the designation OR-7.

"It's fictional. That kind of movie is completely designed for thrill and does not reflect reality," says Kim Delfino, California program director at Defenders of Wildlife, whose group has taken a keen interest in OR-7. "It's highly, highly unusual for wolves to ever attack people."

Carnahan himself wants the wolves to be seen in the right light. Talking by phone and email from Toronto, he says: "I never intended [the wolves] to be the aggressor; I look at them as the defenders. I think these guys are in a very territorially sensitive place. [The humans] were trespassing and intruders."

Aggressors or defenders, these wolves are taking no shorts. A few minutes into the movie we see why Neeson's character, Ottway, is there: As men work on a pipeline in a rugged snowy landscape, a big gray wolf comes streaking in out of the storm at astonishing speed to attack the men, and Ottway guns it down. The threat is established: These wolves are on the offensive.

"I am absolutely an animal activist and have a dog and three horses, and this was never in any way to suggest that wolves are vicious animals," said Carnahan. "But they are part of nature, but they're not different in the movie from the blizzard, from the river, from the cliffside. For all its beauty, it's also very hostile and unforgiving."

Indeed, from the very first scene, the Alaskan sky is always dark, the snow is howling, a river half-frozen and opaque. Carnahan, who also co-wrote the movie with Ian Mackenzie Jeffers, makes the environment into a character ruthlessly hostile to humans.

On a flight home, the snow takes down a plane full of the oilfield roughnecks. All but seven are killed. The very first night, the wolves appear, and, one by one, the men are picked off. Ottway, who is a wildlife biologist stationed with the men for their protection, has a special relationship with the pack, especially the alpha, and the ensuing hunt is clearly personal for both man and wolf.

Carnahan says he learned a lot about wolves from the books of Shaun Ellis, who lived as a low-ranking member of a Rocky Mountain wolf pack for 18 months, eating off their kills and studying their behavior. He also spent a considerable amount of the time with the real wolves used in the film, which were trained by legendary animal wrangler Gerry Therrien. That pack was dominated by an alpha female who, Carnahan says, was fierce about keeping the others in line.

These oilfield characters are not men we like. That was deliberate, Carnahan says, as he meant to point out that industries like petroleum extraction are often interlopers in pristine — if hostile — environments. Very quickly, the behavior of the survivors devolves into a snarling pack, with the men fighting for dominance. The wolves are imbued with more dignity.

In one key scene, the men manage to kill a wolf, and one of the least-likable characters, Diaz, mutilates it and throws out a challenge to the wolves, saying, "You're not the animals, we're the animals!" This elicits a chilling response from the wolves, who send up a rising howl from the dark in which all we see is their breath illuminated by moonlight.

Which is an indication of how it's going to go. The wolves are better adapted. Carnahan says to anyone who thinks he has demonized the wolves: "Look, the wolves do OK in the movie. If it was a football game it would be like 41 to 3! [laughs] They do all right."

Defenders of Wildlife and many other animal advocates hope that California will celebrate having a wild wolf. Carnahan feels his film also has an environmental message.

"I don't think the film will make people fear wolves, but I'd like to make them respect wolves and by extension, nature itself more," he says. "I'd like the movie to remind people that we're just visitors here, and the defiling and destruction of the natural world puts us at odds with our environment and we're ultimately provoking a power that is supreme, overwhelming and merciless. Look no further than the tsunami that struck Japan for an example of exactly how ferocious nature can be."

Look for an interview with Carnahan and Neeson in the Los Angeles Times Calendar section next week.

Yes, you can temporarily increase Moose numbers in the Kenai Peninsula section of Alaska by shooting Wolves from airplanes,,,,,,,,,,, but it is not the long term solution to Moose sustainability...........Habitat protection as discussed weekly on this blog is always the key to optimum predator and prey occupancy on the land.............The Moose in what is known as Units 15A and 15C have been on the decline for 30 years and Alaska Fish & Game acknowledge that "the main problem in 15A has been identified as a lack of quality habitat for moose"......... "Nutritious moose browse is most effectively produced by fire, and 15A hasn't seen a big wildfire in 40 years"......... "The Kenai National Wildlife Refuge, which covers about 80 percent of the land in 15A, hasn't conducted any large-scale controlled burns"........ "Doing so is challenging, what with oil and gas development, a busy airspace, expanding human development and a lack of a defensible firebreak between civilization and wilderness".............."To add another wrinkle, the refuge has said it does not support aerial wolf control and will not allow it on the refuge, leaving Fish and Game only a small chunk of state and privately owned land in 15A to possibly conduct an aerial wolf-control program on if private landowners give their approval now that the board has".......With the limitation of available land on which to conduct aerial wolf kills, and the evidence that poor habitat is the biggest hindrance to a robust moose population in 15A, Fish and Game has been reluctant to pursue wolf predator control in the past............. But declining moose harvest numbers has prompted the department to proceed, with the idea that killing wolves will free up moose for human hunters..........Talk about hypocrisy, polititical "b.s" and utter wildlife mismanagement policy that is resulting once again with wolves wrongly in the crosshairs

2012-01-18T20:47:00.000-08:00

Aerial wolf killing set for March

• Kenai Peninsula units unanimously approved for game management units 15A and 15C

By Jenny Neyman
Redoubt Reporter

Starting as early as March of this year, wolves theKenai Peninsula will be subject to extermination from above, as the Alaska Board of Game on Monday voted unanimously to approve predator control measures authorizing the aerial killing of wolves in Game Management Units 15A and 15C.
The measures are presented to help boost declining numbers, low bull-to-cow ratios and calf survivability rates in a moose population that has seen better days.

"To me, this is a very clear-cut case. We can either sit, wait and hope, or we can be proactive and try to do something for our moose population," said Ted Spraker, vice chair of the Board of Game and a retired Kenai-area wildlife biologist for the Alaska Department of Fish and Game.
On Monday, Gino Del Frate, Fish and Game management coordinator for Region 2, gave a presentation to the board outlining the proposals and the department's reasons for recommending their passage — a change in position for Fish and Game, which didn't used to support aerial wolf control on the peninsula.
Evidence of a struggling moose population has been predicted and noted for decades, particularly in 15A where the population is estimated at about half what it was 30 years ago. The board enacted intensive management plans for both 15A and 15C in 2000. Since then, 15A hasn't once met the population target, and only one year met the harvest target.

The main problem in 15A has been identified as a lack of quality habitat for moose. Nutritious moose browse is most effectively produced by fire, and 15A hasn't seen a big wildfire in 40 years.............. The Kenai National Wildlife Refuge, which covers about 80 percent of the land in 15A, hasn't conducted any large-scale controlled burns. Doing so is challenging, what with oil and gas development, a busy airspace, expanding human development and a lack of a defensible firebreak between civilization and wilderness.
To add another wrinkle, the refuge has said it does not support aerial wolf control and will not allow it on the refuge, leaving Fish and Game only a small chunk of state- and privately owned land in 15A to possibly conduct an aerial wolf-control program on, if private landowners give their approval now that the board has.
With the limitation of available land on which to conduct aerial wolf kills, and the evidence that poor habitat is the biggest hindrance to a robust moose population in 15A, Fish and Game has been reluctant to pursue wolf predator control in the past. But declining moose harvest numbers has prompted the department to proceed, with the idea that killing wolves will free up moose for human hunters.

"In the past we have elected not to go ahead with an intensive management program up until about four years ago, and four years ago we started saying, 'Well, let's put it on the books, let's talk about habitat, let's talk about intensive management. That's kind of where we are today. Successful wolf control alone is not going to increase the moose populations to objective levels. There's going to need to be some habitat enhancement, and we are hopeful that that will happen," Del Frate said. "However, wolf removal may allow for the reallocation of some moose to harvest by humans."

In the three days of public comment preceding Monday's deliberations, speakers argued against aerial wolf control, using much the same information pointed out in Fish and Game's own feasibility reports on the proposed programs — that habitat, not wolves, is the primary problem of the peninsula moose population, and that killing wolves, especially in the limited area available to aerial shooting, wasn't going to solve what most ails the moose population.

Board members didn't disagree, exactly, but came to a different conclusion — that addressing predation is doing something, which is better than nothing."There are certainly habitat issues and predation issues happening simultaneously. There's only one of them that we can really deal with through this board. However, our measure of success would be limited by our ability to access land, but I think we have responsibility to do what we can, where we can," said board member Nate Turner.

Predation may not be the biggest hurdle facing the Kenai's moose population, but it is a contributing factor that should be addressed, Spraker said."You have this combination. You have a couple really bad winters, you have a population that's declining because of habitat quality, you have restricted trapping (on the refuge), and then when you have these really bad winters, I think that was the final straw. Around 2000, 2001 the population was low enough where the predator impact really became important. And that's what helped this population go down, and that's why calf survival and so forth was poor during those years," Spraker said.
"We have very little land that's state land or private land that we could possibly impact the number of wolves (though aerial wolf kills), but I think it's well worth the try because if we're able to adopt a plan that removes at least some of the impact that's caused by wolves on our moose population, I think what it will do is buy us some time. That's what's important at this stage of the game — we need to buy ourselves some time and not let this moose population decline any further," he said.

Spraker referenced research done in the early 1980s to assess moose calf mortality. Of the 46 percent calf mortality noted in the study, 34 percent was attributed to black bears, 6 percent to brown bears, 6 percent to wolves and 2 percent to undetermined predation. And that was within the first six or so weeks of the calves' lives. Spraker said that, to his knowledge, wolves kill a more significant amount of calves in the winter, while bears are denned up, and can kill older moose and occasionally prime adults, as well.
The board already increased the harvest limit of black bears from two to three. Fish and Game regularly hears assessments from peninsula residents and hunters that the brown bear population has increased, but until the results of a brown bear census conducted by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is released, expected later this year, it is difficult for Fish and Game to substantially increase the allowable hunt of brown bears. The board also enacted moose hunting restrictions in 2011 to boost bull-to-cow ratios, which had a dramatic effect of reducing the peninsula's moose hunting harvest from recent years' average of 400 a year to 35.

Short of habitat enhancement, which is largely up to federal refuge managers, since the state owns little land with potential for a controlled burn in 15A, wolf control is the only cog left to tweak in the moose population puzzle, according to Spraker."This board has absolutely no choice. We have a clear mandate that when we reduce the (hunting) season — and we have reduced the season until we practically closed the moose season — we have to make some sort of effort to correct things or at least authorize the department to try to correct things," he said. "I'm very hopeful that the refuge will do habitat enhancement, but we haven't seen it for 40 years. … When it comes to that option of just waiting until the habitat improves, which is the long-term fix, it's really not an option for this board at all. We have no choice in that matter."

Fish and Game commissioned a study on the peninsula's wolf population in November. It estimated 60 to 62 wolves in eight packs in 15A and 44 to 52 wolves in six packs in 15C. Hunting and trapping is currently allowed on both state-managed land and the refuge, which covers about 30 percent of 15C, compared to 80 percent of 15A, and has averaged a harvest of about 40 wolves a year peninsulawide in recent years.
Wolf harvest used to be higher, but several factors have lessened trapper interest, including an outbreak of a wolf lice infestation in the 1980s, and the enactment of regulations on the refuge that make trapping more difficult than on state land — including that traps must be checked every four days and be set at least a mile away from roads.
While the aerial kill program is not expected to result in a huge impact to the wolf population — and the proposals include population thresholds that say the program will be curtailed if wolf numbers get too low — board members said they expect it to be successful enough to be worth doing.
Even in 15A, where only two packs were tracked as being outside the refuge boundary —thus available for aerial hunting — Spraker said he still thinks it will be a boon for moose."Removal of at least these two packs will be huge as far as benefiting the moose population because that's part of the old 1969 burn. That's where the majority of the moose are distributed across 15A, so although the department's efforts may not seem like a lot … the department will have an opportunity to make the most impact by removing wolves in the most-dense area of moose," he said.
In this case, what benefits moose will benefit hunters, since Fish and Game doesn't want to dramatically grow the moose population without habitat enhancement, since moose in areas of 15A are already showing signs of nutritional stress, and moose in the intensive management area of 15C are already at a fairly robust, 2.5-moose-per-square-mile estimated density. Increasing the population without increasing available browse could just further exacerbate nutritional problems.

So Fish and Game is proposing to monitor the progress of the wolf kill program, and if extra moose result from fewer wolves, Del Frate said the department intends to pursue more hunting opportunities. Since a concurrent goal is to increase bull-to-cow ratios, increased hunting opportunities may initially be for cow moose, rather than bulls, as the bull harvest was already restricted in 2011.
"We're operating under the premise that we're really going to do no harm to the moose population. We want to be able to see that there is a detectible difference to the calf-cow ratios, that we're seeing some response from our intensive management program," Del Frate said. "… We're trying to make it very clear that we don't want the moose population to grow outside of its habitat, and the initial intent of this program is to reallocate those animals from wolves to harvest directly, and that may include antlerless harvests (in permit hunts)."

That may be good news to peninsula hunters, many of whom didn't even attempt to moose hunt on the peninsula this year. Ultimately, that's for whom these predator control measures are meant, Turner said.
"I know there's been a lot of discussion around the state and especially the Anchorage area about whether we should be doing it, considering other factors, and we have considered them. We listened. We've had a lot of public testimony and, personally, when it comes to the rubber meets the road, it's the local people that are immediately affected that I really feel the need to pay special attention to in this situation," Turner said.
"I think we've put it very clear on the record that we don't believe that we're going to solve the problem all the way across the Kenai refuge by doing this. We're making the attempt to fix what we believe based on the data that we have that we can affect the areas that are within our reach. And I think we'll be affective in those areas. I have little doubt of that," he said.

Southern area looking up

In the southern Kenai Peninsula's Game Management Unit 15C, moose numbers have fared better than in 15A. The most-recent population estimate pegged the moose population there at about 2,900 animals, at a density of about 2.5 moose per square mile, which is within the area's intensive management objective.
Habitat in 15C is in better shape, considering that more than 170,000 acres have burned in wildfires in 15C in recent decades. Of more concern to Fish and Game than moose numbers in 15C is calf survivability and declining bull-to-cow ratios in the intensive management area — north of Kachemak Bay, the Fox River Flats and west of the flats.
Similar to 15A, black bears, brown bears and wolves are active predators on moose in 15C, and hunters have had limited success in controlling predator populations in the intensive management area of 15C. The hunting restrictions put in place by the board in 2011 have had a quick impact in boosting the slipping bull-to-cow ratio, though it plunged moose harvest numbers below the range laid out in the intensive management plan for the area.

"We do believe that part of our bull-cow ratio issues is that the previous bull harvest of the last few years has been unsustainable, which has caused the bull-cow ratio to decline. With the new harvest numbers we may or may not be within our harvest objectives for intensive management," Del Frate said.The refuge only covers about 30 percent of the land in 15C, leaving open a much larger area to conduct aerial wolf kills. That, coupled with the generally healthier state of moose in 15C than 15A, should mean that a wolf kill program will be more effective, more quickly, than in 15A, Spraker said.

"It is very different from 15A in that I think in a very short period of time, permittees can be very successful given the land status, and I think that 15C can be turned around in a short period of time," he said.
Spraker noted his intention to suggest stopping the permit hunts for cow moose in 15C when the hunt comes up for re-authorization at a future Board of Game meeting.

"We've already adjusted the hunting season for residents, eliminated nonresident hunting for 15A and C. We've taken those steps and I think it would be prudent for this board to eliminate the cow hunt in 15C if we adopt aerial shooting of wolves in 15C," he said.

Del Frate cautioned against doing so, suggesting that the 2012 permits already issued for the 15C antlerless hunt continue, and that the board consider leaving Fish and Game the option to issue more permits in 2013 if it finds that aerial wolf kills do result in extra moose.

"We might need to harvest more antlerless moose in future years because we're taking away from the wolves," he said. "… Considering the high moose densities (in 15C), we're not necessarily interested in increasing the moose population at this time. However, the goal is to reallocate moose from wolves to human harvest."

Who will shoot?

A significant difference between the aerial wolf kill proposals is who will be allowed to do the shooting. The wording before the board started out the same for the proposals in 15A and 15C, but the final intention is that only Fish and Game personnel conduct aerial wolf kills in 15A, while permits will be given to the public to do work in 15C.
The difference is the land ownership. Since there is so little area outside the refuge that's available for aerial wolf kills in 15A, the board said it didn't want the public trying to decipher where those boundaries were.
"I would not like to see this open to the general public for the fear of just the difficulty of individuals knowing where these land boundaries are," Spraker said, in proposing an amendment to that effect.
In 15C, however, only about 30 percent of the land is covered by the refuge.

"It's different from 15A that the intent of the board is that the department issue aerial wolf-shooting permits to the public and that the department may get involved if the public is not successful, but the primary operations should be conducted by the public," Spraker said.
Spraker requested that both programs be expedited in processing to get started as early as March 1, while snowcover lasts, with 15C being the priority to get started first.The proposals in both 15A and 15C are written to last five years, but with required re-evaluation after three years to suspend or curtail the wolf kills if certain factors are met — such as the wolf population getting down to 15 animals, or the moose population showing increased nutritional stress.

"The threshold that we described is if after three consecutive years we could see issues, we'll either come back to the board or we'll suspend the program," Del Frate said. "… What we didn't want to do is have a knee-jerk reaction to a one-year change in population parameters and be sure that it's more than just some environmental factor that one year."

An extensive two-year moose research program is slated to begin in the spring, and will help track the impact of the wolf-kill program, producing information to help Fish and Game evaluate whether it should continue the full five-year duration.

The program will involve collaring, tracking and testing 50 moose in 15A and 50 in 15C, which could result in a wide range of information, including rump fat (which indicates health), moose movements, bull-to-cow and cow-to-calf ratios, age structures, pregnancy and twinning rates, calf numbers and calf mortalities. There isn't enough money and resources to find out everything Fish and Game would like to know, and Del Frate said that the final details and priorities of the research will be left for the not-yet-hired biologist who will be in charge of the research. Determining predation rates of calf mortalities, for example, likely won't be feasible. Wolf population numbers will also be estimated during the research period.

"We do want to stop and evaluate whether or not we're doing any harm to our moose population, so we would plan to suspend (aerial wolf kills) and look at our nutritional indices, and see what our moose population is doing. If it warrants different objects from here on out we'll come back to the board with new numbers. If we see any signs of nutritional stress we will want to re-evaluate the program to make sure we have a highly productive population of moose. And if (the wolf population falls below 15 in 15A or 15C), we will immediately suspend the program and ensure we have a sustainable wolf population," Del Frate said.

Connecticut resident Peter Alexander is asking State Officials to hold public meetings to determine whether there is a resident breeding Puma population here...... He also seeks Officials to discuss additional steps needed to restore Pumas and Wolves to the Nutmeg State.........Bo Ottmann who heads up the advocacy group, COUGARS OF THE VALLEY feels that there is enough evidence to suggest that the Pumas have found a way to stay out of harms way and truly avoid human encounters in heavily wooded Connecticut...........State officials counter that there is no native mountain lion population.........."We have not seen any credible evidence to back up reports of mountain lions," said DEEP spokesman Dennis Schain, referring to reported sightings other than the one in Greenwich".......Ottmann said the department is too quick to dismiss the reports......"Every time a person calls them, they are being told they are not seeing what they are seeing," .......Please read my next Posting to hear from USFW lead Puma biologist Mark MCollough and his reverification that there are no breeding Puma populations anywhere in the East save the 50 to 100 Cats occupying southern Florida...........Recently published THE QUEST FOR THE EASTERN COUGAR(author Robert Tougias) states that "there may be a breeding population of cougars in the East,,,,,,,, they would be in isolated areas of northern Maine, or in the Canadian provinces of New Brunswick and Quebec".,,,,,,,,,Tougias goes onto say: "there is no evidence to support any breeding population in Connecticut and southern New England, even if it seems plausible"........"Some people just flat out believe there is an established cougar population living in southern New England and wildlife officials are covering it up and don't want to acknowledge it"....."But when you look at the evidence, the cover-up theory doesn't hold up very well

2012-01-18T20:29:00.000-08:00

Mountain lion fever has some in Conn. calling for answers

Frank MacEachern, Greenwich Time

When a possible mountain lion sighting in Greenwich was reported in early June of last year, many in town took the news with trepidation. Peter Alexander was excited."I think it's fabulous that mountain lions would return here," the Pemberwick resident said. Alexander lives along the Byram River, whose watershed provides a natural superhighway for wildlife that has slowed in recent decades, he said. Alexander wants to see that traffic rev up once again, and one of the creatures he'd like to see make the trip more often is the mountain lion.

Not only does Alexander believe mountain lions are present in New England, he wants to see them re-established in the state."I would encourage the concept of bringing back more species, including mountain lions and wolves," he said. "They do get bad press, including eating children sometimes, which is pretty bad. I am not trying to downplay the tragedy, but they are part of the natural environment."

Continued reports of mountain lion sightings across the state have sparked massive interest in the animals, long thought to be extinct in New England. A dedicated group of big-cat enthusiasts is pushing for the state's legislators to investigate the reports.

Alexander is one of hundreds of people to have signed an online petition asking the state legislature to hold a public hearing on mountain lions -- also known as cougars -- in Connecticut following a 2011 filled with reported sightings in the state, including one in which a mountain lion was seen stalking the grounds of Brunswick School's King Street campus last June.

Some of the signers, like Alexander, welcome the presence of the animals, while others dread the stealthy predators' place among us.Debate continues to rage between state officials, who maintain that there are no native-bred mountain lions in Connecticut, and those who claim the opposite, pointing to numerous sightings over many years.

BELIEVERS AND SKEPTICS
Bo Ottmann, a Canton resident and founder of Cougars of the Valley, a group dedicated to tracking mountain lion sightings, is a true believer."People need to be aware we have a top predator living amongst us," Ottmann said. "Mountain lions are being habituated. They are feeling comfortable living in our communities."As of this week, 220 people had signed the petition on the Cougars of the Valley website, ctmountainlion.org. Some signatures include reports of sightings. Others offer opinions on the pros and cons of mountain lions in the state.

The website includes a map of the state showing dozens of reported sightings, from the Gold Coast to the Quiet Corner in the northeast. And that doesn't count the hundreds of mountain lion reports the state receives every year.State officials believe the mountain lion seen in Greenwich on June 5 is the same one that was struck and killed on Route 15 in Milford on June 11. Following tests on the dead mountain lion, the Department of Energy and Environmental Protection said the animal likely originated from South Dakota.
Ottmann is skeptical that the mountain lion made the voyage from the upper Midwest to the East Coast."Did it come directly from South Dakota? We will never know," Ottmann said. "Its bloodline came from South Dakota, that's all I know."Ottmann is confident mountain lions are breeding in New England, possibly through a mixture of western mountain lions and a native eastern population that somehow survived even after they were declared extinct.

Alexander said he could see that scenario, or simply that mountain lions are traveling through the area after making their way from Canada or the Midwest. Either way he's thrilled about the prospect."The fact that we may have a population and may have always had a population, I am totally pumped up about that," he said.

State officials counter that there is no native mountain lion population."We have not seen any credible evidence to back up reports of mountain lions," said DEEP spokesman Dennis Schain, referring to reported sightings other than the one in Greenwich.Ottmann said the department is too quick to dismiss the reports."Every time a person calls them, they are being told they are not seeing what they are seeing," he said.

COUGAR MOVEMENT
The author of a book on mountain lions admits there may be a breeding population of cougars in this part of the continent, but said they would be in isolated areas of northern Maine, or in the Canadian provinces of New Brunswick and Quebec. Robert Tougias, whose book "The Quest for the Eastern Cougar" was published last September, said there is no evidence to support any breeding population in Connecticut and southern New England, even if it seems plausible."Some people just flat out believe there is an established cougar population living in southern New England and wildlife officials are covering it up and don't want to acknowledge it," Tougias said. "It kind of makes sense, but when you look into it, it kind of doesn't hold up too well."

Tougias, who lives in Colchester, said he first became intrigued by mountain lions while growing up in Massachusetts. That interest was heightened when, while living in Vermont, he discovered large paw prints near his cabin that he believed could have been made by mountain lions.While he discounts a native population in southern New England, Tougias believes there could be some breeding occurring between either escaped or released mountain lions of South American origin and those that have traveled here from the Midwest.

DNA recovered from mountain lion hair snares in eastern Canada has shown the animals are genetically linked to western or South American mountain lions, he said. The South American creatures have either been released or escaped into the wild, Tougias said.Any male mountain lions passing through Connecticut are looking to find a mate and establish a territory, Tougias said. Such animals are usually from the South Dakota area, he said.

A burgeoning population in the Midwest is forcing males to move farther away from their original regions, Tougias said. But while the males will travel great distances, females don't, leaving the lovelorn male mountain lion searching farther and farther afield.Tougias was surprised when the mountain lion appeared in Connecticut last year. He and others in the mountain lion field believed they would eventually make their way to the East Coast, but not so quickly.He, like Alexander, supports the idea of reintroducing mountain lions, in part to act as a brake on the increasing population of deer, which mountain lions hunt.

Ottmann is opposed, contending that a few mountain lions would have little impact on the deer population. There is also the concern about public safety.Reported sightings often spike after initial news reports when people who see something unusual believe it is a mountain lion, Tougias said."The animal is automatically going to be assumed to be the most wild and the most rare and what they have read about, and that is the cougar," he said.

SUPPORT FOR A HEARING?
The four members of Greenwich's state delegation have mixed feelings about the idea of a committee hearing on mountain lions."I don't think there is enough evidence of mountain lions that demands the need for a hearing," Rep. Lile Gibbons, R-150th District, said. Sen. L. Scott Frantz, R-36th District, is also cool to the idea of legislative hearings."I think to jump right in and have a hearing may be an inefficient use of our time," he said. "What would be the point of the hearing? We can't legislate the cats out of the state."

Cougars of the Valley members could meet with co-chairs of the public safety committee to present their evidence, Frantz said. He also suggested that DEEP could write a short report on the topic to be made available to the public and to legislators. Rep. Livvy Floren, R-149th District, said that holding a committee hearing is expensive and time consuming."I would have to see if it is a cost-effective measure," she said. The issue of mountain lions is best left to the professionals in DEEP, Floren said.

The most receptive of the group is Rep. Alfred Camillo, R-151st District, who said he is open to a committee hearing on the matter."I would certainly keep an open mind to it because I am fascinated by it," said Camillo, who doubts that a hearing would occur anytime soon."I think as far as having hearings right now, if I am the only legislator who is interested in it, that answers your question," he said with a laugh. "But I think there is something out there."Schain said DEEP would be open to a legislative hearing."We welcome full discussion of the subject of mountain lions, whether or not they are present in Connecticut," he said.

THE CHASE CONTINUES
Following the June 5 sighting in Greenwich and another reported sighting on June 12 on North Street, Audubon Greenwich closed its sanctuary as a precaution. No evidence, such as droppings called scat, or photographs established whether a mountain lion had been on John Street, authorities said.Audubon Greenwich spokesman Jeff Cordulack said there is little talk about mountain lions by visitors who stop in at the center."It has largely been forgotten, but every so often we are asked if we have seen any more mountain lions," he said.Ottmann, who operates a landscaping business, said he became interested in mountain lions after hearing a talk four years ago by William Betty, a Rhode Island resident who researches mountain lion sightings.

Now the two mountain lion enthusiasts team up for lectures. They will speak at Audubon Greenwich on March 24.Ottman said his mountain lion quest is exciting."It's the chase," he said. "It is kind of like gold fever. It's a lot of fun."We have not seen any credible evidence to back up reports of mountain lions," said DEEP spokesman Dennis Schain, referring to reported sightings other than the one in Greenwich.Ottmann said the department is too quick to dismiss the reports."Every time a person calls them, they are being told they are not seeing what they are seeing," he said.

Our friend at the USFW Office in Maine, Endangered Species Specialist Mark McCollough(lead author of the paper finding the Cougar to be extinct in the East) checked in with me on Wolf and Puma activity East of the Mississippi:..... "Not much new to report on wolves"......... "No rumors of wolf-like animals in Maine to follow up on (for quite some time now)"...... "The Service recently delisted wolves in the Great Lakes only, leaving wolves listed in the Northeast",,,,,,,,,,,," No good leads on cougars in the East that I am aware of since the Milford, CT animal was killed"...... "Alleged cougar shot by a hunter in VA this fall. State fish and wildlife investigated and collected blood samples"..... "Turned out to be a bobcat"............So at this point, the "Crone Puma video" we commented on yesterday falls under "alleged Puma sightings",,,,,far from confirmed...........Good news is that Coiugar Rewilding's Chris Spatz, Helen McGinnis and colleagues want to organize a Puma restoration conference discussing habitat suitability in the East for our "ghost cats".........We, like Mark, hope that this conference becomes a reality

2012-01-18T20:13:00.000-08:00

From: Meril, Rick

To: 'mark_mccollough@fws.gov'
Sent: Wed Jan 18 06:04:42 2012
Subject: Re: updates on wolves and pumas in the Eastern States

Thnks for the update Mark

I hope Spatz and crew get such a conference set up,,,,,,with the ongoing Eastern wolf versus western wolf question,,,,,,,,and being suitable habitat in new england ny and possibbly southern appalachians for large carnivore rewilding

A good rest of week to you

Rick

---------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Mark_McCollough@fws.gov
To: Meril, Rick
Sent: Tue Jan 17 16:44:35 2012

Subject: Re: Saying hi

Not much new to report on wolves. No rumors of wolf-like animals in Maine to follow up on (for quite some time now). The Service recently delisted wolves in the Great Lakes only, leaving wolves listed in the Northeast.

No good leads on cougars in the East that I am aware of since the Milford, CT animal was killed. Alleged cougar shot by a hunter in VA this fall. State fish and wildlife investigated and collected blood samples. Turned out to be a bobcat.

Chris Spatz and the Cougar Rewilding group is talking about organizing a conference (possibly in VT) to discuss the possibility of restoring cougars to the East - habitat suitability, etc. This would be interesting as I doubt the USFWS or state agencies would host such a meeting. As you are aware, others have talked about large carnivore reintroduction in the Northeast in the past, but little has happened.

Hope all is well with you. Mark

Mark McCollough, Ph.D. Endangered Species Specialist
U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service
Maine Field Office
17 Godfrey Drive, Suite #2
Orono, ME 04473
Phone: (207) 866-3344 x115
Fax: (207) 866-3351

Email: mark_mccollough@fws.gov

Virginia Farmer Bob Crone has submitted trailcam video of what he claims are Pumas crossing through his property in Halifax,County............The video captures threes separate occurences dating back to 2009 and has been referred to by THE EASTERN PUMA RESEARCH FOUNDATION, COUGAR QUEST VIRGINIA as two "definite felines of undetermined or unknown species"...(Note that THE COUGAR REWILDING ORGANIZATION HAS NOT AT THIS POINT FOUND THE VIDEO TO BE CONCLUSIVE IN ANY WAY--THE JURY IS OUT AS TO WHAT THE VIDEO PORTRAYS)

2012-01-17T20:15:00.000-08:00

Video of Pumas in Virginia,,,,,,,,,,,,,or something else?

The Gazette Virginian

Staff writers

Are mountain lions, declared extinct in Virginia, making a comeback of sorts in Halifax County?

One Vernon Hill landowner has no doubts they are, and he claims he has captured two of the elusive cats chasing a smaller prey animal that appears to be an unlucky raccoon on a game camera video.

Since Aug. 7, 2009, Bob Crone claims there have been three separate instances of mountain lions or cougars crossing his Oak Level farm. The six-second video was taken Nov. 4 on his property with a game camera he has dubbed "Cougar Cam."

Fearful that large dangerous cats may be roaming the woods of Halifax County, the avid outdoorsman and lifelong county hunter took his video to Halifax County Chief Animal Control Officer Todd Moser who recently viewed the low resolution video.

His response was "they are large cats with long tails, and they could possibly be cats of unknown origin."

Moser, recognized last year as the "State Animal Control Officer of the Year" and a former law enforcement officer having 16 years experience with the South Boston Police Department and Halifax County Sheriff's Office, said he worked with Crone to find someone to enhance the images on the video.

"Unfortunately the video, which was taken at night with infrared lighting, is only so good," Crone admitted.

But to the trained eye and with repeated viewings, to Crone it becomes obvious that indeed there are two large cats with long tails, and the list of possibilities is quite short, he said.

"Todd stepped up to the plate and took charge in helping to try and confirm what was being seen on the video," Crone said. "He did take this seriously and did not try to wave it off as some others have done. Bringing public awareness to the fact that large cats of unknown origin are indeed living among us here in Halifax and in the state would be at the top of our priorities list concerning wildlife in the commonwealth."

Crone said he also has shared the video with Barbara J. Chaplin, executive director of CougarQuest-Virginia based in Winchester.

CougarQuest, a volunteer citizen science organization founded in 2005, acts as a sounding board for credible sightings and other evidence concerning cougars in the state and surrounding areas.After viewing the game camera footage, Chaplin said she concluded, "The predators are large felines with long tails, and the physical characteristics are consistent with probable cougars."

Although their sizes were not as big as would be expected with a full-grown adult cougar, Chaplin said theyare too large to be bobcats or domestic cats."I believe it is possible that the video shows two juvenile cougars chasing their prey," she added."This is the first time since we organized our group that we've had consistent answers," Chaplin said of her colleagues who viewed the video.

According to Chaplin, her "big cat" contacts in Wyoming along with Eastern Puma Research Foundation and the Cougar Rewilding Foundation have determined the video to be that of two "definite" felines of undetermined or unknown species.

Crone maintains the video is clear enough to show two juvenile cougars chasing their prey, and he thinks it is a young mother cougar teaching her juvenile cub how to hunt."Whichever it is, it certainly appears to be two cougars with another animal," he said. Crone's frame captures measurements from nose to tail base of a little over 47 inches; from underbelly to back, 13.72 inches; and from ground to back 28 to 30 inches.

Further reports are pending from reviewers, and the search for evidence and snow tracks will continue, Chaplin said.

"But it is apparent that two large felines with long tails, believed by many to be cougars, are making themselves comfortable under Bob's protection on this property in Halifax County, Virginia," Chaplin added.

This video is only the latest part of a cougar search Crone has been on since the evening of Aug. 7, 2009 when he walked out his front door and saw what he said was a full-grown cougar walking to his barn.

He estimated the cougar's weight at around 125 pounds.

"I saw his muscles rippling through its shoulders as it walked," a convinced Crone said. "Also noticed was the very long tail with the characteristic black tip at its curled end."After it entered the nearby woods, Crone said he could hear deer snorting and blowing at the intruder.The next day while working on a muddy road about 300 or 400 yards from his house, Crone said he found a large number of animal tracks.

"Those who reviewed the tracks found several that were feline in nature and a couple that were big enough to have been made by the cougar the day before," he said.

After this encounter with a big cat, Crone said things were quiet for about two years with no other reported sightings.Then on Oct. 21 last year at around 8 p.m. Crone said he went on his back porch to get his dinner off the grill."That's when nearby, as in 75 yards close, a cougar let out an extremely loud and convoluted scream. Not just once, but two times in about 12 seconds," he said. "There was no doubt as to what made that scream. Apparently the big cat felt his territory had been invaded," Crone surmised.

Other odd occurrences between Dec. 1 and 15 lead the Oak Level landowner to believe he has feline visitors joining coyotes and other predators on his property.

• One of six pet geese disappeared with no carcass ever found, just feathers found at what is believed to be the "kill site."

• A new beaver at the pond disappeared with no carcass ever found.

• A 25-pound half-consumed catfish was discovered against a pond bank, an occurrence Crone said "has never happened before."

• A "button buck" deer was found completely consumed within a 24-hour period with much hair removed from the carcass, which Crone said is a typical sign a large cat was involved. Also the ribcage of the deer was pulled free of the carcass and found several feet away. The deer also had been dragged 200 feet from what is believed to be the "kill site."

• A dead coyote carcass that had its neck bitten and broken at the third or fourth vertebrae and completely consumed was found in the same vicinity as the other casualties.

• And all of the above occurred within a 100-yard radius.

The Eastern Mountain Lion, correctly known as "Puma Concolor Couguar," was declared extinct by the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service in March 2011. After an extensive five-year research and review program, the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service and also the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries determined any reported sightings by local citizens of the commonwealth to be considered as mistaken identity of a dog, deer or coyote, Crone said.

Why?

"Because the official position is that they no longer exist," he said. "There is absolutely no way to convince them otherwise because they believe them to be extinct. That is, of course, until someone comes up with a photo, video or carcass of these elusive cats."

For whatever reason, Crone said it seems no one has captured a cougar on a game camera or cell phone. Those who have sent in photos have either been declared hoaxes, or the photograph was too blurred to make a positive identification.

Now when someone —like Crone — believes they have seen a cougar, the cat is regulated to be either an "escaped" or "released" animal and not of the original species of "Puma Concolor Couguar," Crone said.

Whether released, escaped or a real Eastern "Puma Concolor Couguar," Crone said he is looking forward to purchasing more game cameras, and this spring he is confident he will record more sightings of better video quality that "will remove the doubt from non-believers.

Bob Crone, a Vernon Hill landowner who believes at least two large cats call his property home, offers the following tips to persons who may come into contact with a cougar.

• Stop. Stand tall. Pick up small children and do not run because a cougar's instinct is to chase.

• Do not approach the animal.

• Try to appear larger than the cougar. Never take your eyes off the animal or turn your back. Do not drop down or try to hide.

• If the animal displays aggressive behavior, shout, wave your arms and throw rocks or sticks. The idea is to convince the cougar you are not prey, but a potential danger.

• If the cougar attacks, fight back aggressively and try to stay on your feet. Do not play dead. Cougars have been drawn away by people who have fought back.

• Contact your nearest public authority and report the occurrence as soon as possible

Montana is about to extend their Wolf hunting season a 2nd time in the Bitteroot Valley through April 1 or until all 18 wolves targeted fro removal have been shot and killed.............In essence, an open season on Wolves in Big Sky Country.........Truly outrageous that during birthing season and pup raising(Feb through the Summer), Wolf packs can be destroyed without regard for their social bonding and fate of pups of the year

2012-01-17T20:02:00.000-08:00

Mont. Considers Extending Wolf Hunt In Bitterroot

By Associated Press

BILLINGS, Mont. -- Montana officials are proposing another extension of the state's gray wolf hunt as harvest numbers continue to lag original expectations. Hunting in a portion of the Bitterroot Valley along the Idaho border would be allowed through April 1 or until hunters meet the area's quota of 18 wolves, whichever is first.

Through Thursday, only three wolves had been killed in the area this season. An initial vote on the extension is scheduled for Jan. 19 by Montana's Fish, Widlife and Parks Commission.

Statewide, 133 wolves have been killed this season out of a 220-wolf quota. Officials are aiming to reduce the state's wolf population from at least 566 animals to about 425. The wolf season originally was scheduled to end Dec. 31 but has been extended statewide.

Our good friend, Biologist Jon Way of Massachusetts posted this revealing and disturbing article in THE WILDLIFE NEWS about his experience with "slob hunting" in his home State, where it is legal to put out bait piles in your yards and shoot Coyotes from your home windows.....Jon cites the following statute allowing the farthest hunting paradigm from"fair chase" imaginable: "Massachusetts General Laws Chapter 269 SECTION 12E, and Chapter 131 SECTION 58 – I detail those below. Because baiting of these animals is legal (Massachusetts Hunting Abstracts) in Massachusetts and night hunting is legal, that means that someone can bait these animals in at night and shoot them from an open window within their house. Believe it or not, I am learning that this is not all uncommon and probably results in over half of the coywolves shot in Massachusetts every year. The only requirements are that: (1) the person has a $30 hunting license (no tag required to shoot them), (2) the person lives in a rural area where they are at least 500 feet from another house – 500 feet is not that far by the way, (3) or they live within 500 feet of a house but the neighbor(s) allows such activity"

2012-01-17T19:56:00.000-08:00

You can shoot eastern coyotes/coywolves from inside your home in Massachusetts

By Jon Way ;Eastern Coywolf Biologist

Ethics, safety, and fair chase hunting demands people should not be able to bait coyotes and engage in "recreational" hunting from their easy chair next to their window-

On this blog we have often talked about the disproportionate favoritism that hunters generally receive over other users of wildlife. Well, recently one of my radio-collared eastern coyotes/coywolves (a 41 pound adult female) was shot and killed on Cape Cod, Massachusetts. Suffice it to say, evidence pointed toward her getting shot on a bait pile within about 100 feet of a house. And it seemed pretty clear that she was shot from within a house. Naturally, I was furious and frustrated by this event having radio-tracked her for four years. However, what amazed me most was when I did some digging (with the help of others), I found that two laws actually allow this type of unethical hunting practice. They are

Northeastern coywolves. Copyright Jon Way

Massachusetts General Laws Chapter 269 SECTION 12E, and Chapter 131 SECTION 58 – I detail those below. Because baiting of these animals is legal (Massachusetts Hunting Abstracts) in Massachusetts and night hunting is legal, that means that someone can bait these animals in at night and shoot them from an open window within their house. Believe it or not, I am learning that this is not all uncommon and probably results in over half of the coywolves shot in Massachusetts every year. The only requirements are that: (1) the person has a $30 hunting license (no tag required to shoot them), (2) the person lives in a rural area where they are at least 500 feet from another house – 500 feet is not that far by the way, (3) or they live within 500 feet of a house but the neighbor(s) allows such activity.

In my opinion, this is a perfect example of how and why hunting laws are antiquated and not within favor of the vast majority of the public, let alone most of the hunting community that probably wouldn't think this is fair chase or ethical. So, when we read about snaring of bears in Alaska, it is important to recognize that there are lax (for lack of a better word) game laws throughout the country. Hopefully a new and revitalized wildlife management agency, eventually with input from non-consumptive users (e.g., scientists, wildlife watchers) will change these laws to make such practices illegal. However, as most of us know, just about all state wildlife agencies are ultra-conservative so change is difficult, unless they want it. So, for example, it would take about 2 minutes to write a law stating: "It is illegal to bait an animal within 500 feet of a house for purpose of shooting animals/coyotes for recreational purposes."

However, for all intents and purposes, the only laws the wildlife commission in Massachusetts seems to change are ones designed to increase hunting seasons (recently on deer, bear, and coyotes/coywolves) to support the one percent that participate in hunting. While this post is not intended as an anti-hunting rant, it is nonetheless significant that the state of Massachusetts permits gang hunting and driving deer where people section off large patches of pitch pine and scrub oak woods and blast whatever deer runs by (a practice known as "if it is brown, it is down"). There is also the property manager of Great Island, Yarmouth (a rich gated community) that shoots dozens of "coyotes" a year by house hunting and baiting them; the person actually killed over 50 in one year. My guess is that this is not the vision that most people get when they think of Massachusetts and wildlife. And, furthermore, you can probably guess my predicament, since these are the same people that issue research permits to simply study them. It would be cool, in my opinion, if we could generate a list on this blog of these type of hunting practices in each state or region of the country.
—–
Legal citation
Massachusetts General Laws Chapter 269 SECTION 12E, and Chapter 131 SECTION 58:
Chapter 269, Section 12E. Discharge of a firearm within 500 feet of a dwelling or other building in use; exceptions
Whoever discharges a firearm as defined in section one hundred and twenty-one of chapter one hundred and forty, a rifle or shotgun within five hundred feet of a dwelling or other building in use, except with the consent of the owner or legal occupant thereof, shall be punished by a fine of not less than fifty nor more than one hundred dollars or by imprisonment in a jail or house of correction for not more than three months, or both. The provisions of this section shall not apply to (a) the lawful defense of life and property; (b) any law enforcement officer acting in the discharge of his duties; (c) persons using underground or indoor target or test ranges with the consent of the owner or legal occupant thereof; (d) persons using outdoor skeet, trap, target or test ranges with the consent of the owner or legal occupant of the land on which the range is established; (e) persons using shooting galleries, licensed and defined under the provisions of section fifty-six A of chapter one hundred and forty; and (f) the discharge of blank cartridges for theatrical, athletic, ceremonial, firing squad, or other purposes in accordance with section thirty-nine of chapter one hundred and forty-eight.

Chapter 131, Section 58. Shooting upon or across highway; hunting near dwelling
A person shall not discharge any firearm or release any arrow upon or across any state or hard surfaced highway, or within one hundred and fifty feet, of any such highway, or possess a loaded firearm or hunt by any means on the land of another within five hundred feet of any dwelling in use, except as authorized by the owner or occupant thereof.

Jon Way

Jonathan Way is the author of Suburban Howls, an account of his experiences studying eastern coyotes/coywolves in eastern Massachusetts. He also has a business Eastern Coyote Research (http://www.easterncoyoteresearch.com/) and is currently seeking an institution that will support him and his research. He currently works seasonally for Cape Cod National Seashore, is a part time post-doctoral researcher with the Yellowstone Ecological Research Center, and is a frequent traveler to the Yellowstone area. He is currently seeking a publisher for 2 different book projects: "My Yellowstone Experience" and "Coywolf", both of which are nearly completed including with pictures.

Visit Authors Website →

Wyoming is utilizing a wildlife highway underpass north of the town of Baggs to assess the size of the Mule deer population there..........Do the deer use the underpass multiple times during the year or just during migration?...... How many animals survive the winters?.........All of the data will be used to make decisions about herd capacity and resulting hunting season guidelines

2012-01-16T16:10:00.000-08:00

Wyoming biologist studies deer migration, underpass use

By KELSEY DAYTON Star-Tribune

WYOMING GAME AND FISH DEPARTMENT
Paul Atwood, from left, Sam Lockwood, Matt Halzenga,
Kevin Spence and Zach Gregory assist with untangling a deer from
a drop net so it can be released.

LANDER — Biologist Tony Mong intends to find out how mule deer use a highway underpass north of Baggs.He also hopes to gain deer population estimates and survival rates from a recently started study relying on the animals' use of the underpass.

About 6,000 deer used the underpass during the fall and spring migrations of 2010 and 2011, according to a media release from the Wyoming Game and Fish said. The underpass was built in 2009 to help diminish wildlife and car collisions in the area.

Mong is a wildlife biologist for the department. He saw an additional benefit to the underpass — a way to easily monitor the area's deer population.In late December, Mong, along with local sportsmen, game wardens and Game and Fish biologists and Bureau of Land Management and U.S. Forest Service personnel, started a long-term project to monitor the animals.

He caught about 20 deer, a mix of does, fawns and mature bucks, luring them to a net with apple pulp, said Lucy Diggins-Wold, an information specialist with the department.Biologists then outfitted the deer with yellow ear tags that included identification numbers. They also took a blood sample from each animal. Mong hopes to eventually trap and tag about 100 deer a year.

Mong wants to see if the deer use the underpass multiple times during the year or just during migration. He also wants to see how many animals survive the winters. "That helps me make decisions on hunting seasons," he said.

Cameras, including a live video feed, in the underpass will help Mong visually track the deer. But he also hopes the public will call and report sightings of the tagged animals, which will give him a sense of where some travel.The animals will mainly be seen south of the Rawlins areas, Mong said.The deer tagged this year are just a start and won't be able to provide any conclusive data next year, Mong said.
"The more animals we have tagged, the better."

Controvesy swirled this past year about whether Utah's Black Bear population was recovered enough to warrant a hunt........There will be a sactioned hunt in 2012 with baiting and hunting with hounds banned(good thing),,,,,,,,,,,and quotas put on how many male and female bears can be killed.............In addition to population information guesstimated from the number of beasr killed, a hair snag study and winter den visits by biologist are both underway, and they too, will help determine the condition and quantity of the Bruins

2012-01-16T15:47:00.000-08:00

New plan provides hunters with new opportunities.

Utah Division of Natural Resources

Salt Lake City, Utah --(Ammoland.com- Starting this spring, bear hunters will have opportunities they've never had before in Utah. The new opportunities have been made possible through a new bear management plan the Utah Wildlife Board approved in 2011.

John Shivik, mammals coordinator for the Division of Wildlife Resources, says the plan is giving more people a chance to hunt bears in Utah. "At the same time," Shivik says, "the plan provides some important safeguards to keep the state's bear populations healthy and safe."

Board approves hunting rules
At their Jan. 12 meeting, members of the Wildlife Board approved black bear hunting and pursuit rules for Utah's 2012 seasons.
All of the rules the board approved will be available in the 2012 Utah Black Bear Guidebook.
The guidebook should be available at wildlife.utah.gov/guidebooks by Jan. 31.

The following are some highlights:

In the past, most of the bears that were hunted in Utah were tracked with hounds and ran up trees. A few hunters have also used bait to lure bears in so the hunters could make a clean and effective shot with a bow and arrow.
But starting this spring, more spot-and-stalk-only hunts will be offered in Utah.
Hunters may not use hounds or bait during spot-and-stalk hunts. Instead, they must spot the bear and stalk it.
In the past, all of Utah's bear hunting areas were limited-entry areas. Only those who draw a permit for a limited-entry area can hunt on it.
Starting this spring, though, the state will offer some harvest-objective hunts.
The number of hunters who can hunt on a harvest-objective area isn't limited, so switching a limited-entry area to a harvest-objective area gives more people a chance to hunt the area.
To protect bears on harvest-objective areas, the number of bears that can be taken on each area is limited. Once that limit—also known as the area's quota—is reached, the hunt on the area ends for the season.
Harvest-objective hunts will be offered on three areas: The Wasatch Mountains, Currant Creek, Avintaquin unit in north central Utah, the Beaver unit in southwestern Utah and the Nine Mile unit in southeastern Utah.
The spring hunts on some of Utah's bear hunting units will run a little longer this year. The longer spring seasons will allow biologists to put more pressure on bears in areas where livestock are often killed and campgrounds raided by bears.

More hunters can hunt black bears in Utah this year. Photo by Lynn Chamberlain

Protecting the bears
In addition to providing some new hunting opportunities, the new plan provides bears with some important safeguards:
In the past, Shivik says three hunting-related factors have been used to determine the health of Utah's bear population—the percentage of bears taken that are female, the average age of the bears taken and the number of adult bears that survive each hunting season.

You won't find those three factors in the new plan. Instead, biologists are focusing on two key factors: the number of female bears and the number of adult male bears that hunters take.
(An adult male bear is a bear that's five years of age or older.)

Shivik says the number of females and the number of adult males hunters take gives important information about how a bear population is doing: The number of females hunters take is important because females give birth to cubs and then care for the cubs after they're born.

"But the best early indicator we have about the health of a bear population is the number of adult males hunters take in relation to the number of females," Shivik says.

Shivik says adult males wander more than other bears. The wandering adult males do helps bear populations expand.Because they wander more, adult males are also the bears hunters usually encounter first.

If biologists see that the number of adult males hunters are taking is going down—and the number of females is going up—they know the bear population in the area is declining.

"Once hunters start finding more females," Shivik says, "we know the population is declining in number."

In addition to the number of female bears and adult male bears hunters take, biologists are also using two important bear studies to monitor the health of Utah's bear population:

One study involves snagging hair from bears at sites across Utah. After the hair is snagged, DNA tests are used to determine how often the bears that left the snagged hair visited the sites. This study is helping biologists measure how fast or slow the state's bear populations are growing.

In the second study, biologists visit bear dens in the winter to see how many cubs are in the dens. The biologists also assess the health of the cubs and their mothers. This study is giving biologists important information about the number of new bears that are being brought into Utah's population each year

We have heard from our friend and eminent wolf biologist Rolf Peterson from time to time about the long running(54 years) Isle Royale(Michigan)Wolf/Moose study and the insights and revelations that have emerged from this intimate study of predator and prey.........Today we hear from Rolf's co-director, John A. Vucetich, himself a veteran of this endeavor(a dozen years or more).............John reinforces the great fascination and passion that he, Rolf and pilot Don Glaser share as they observe the dance of predator and prey, now at a precarious moment with both the moose and wolf population at lowest levels recorded(500 moose and 15 wolves).........With only two female wolves on the Island, John and Jim are anxious to see if any female pups were sired this past Spring and if so, what implications this might have for the potential of "wolf populationrebound"..........John pens his thoughts first hand below

2012-01-16T15:19:00.000-08:00

Preparing to Live With Wolves

By JOHN VUCETICH

John Vucetich, a wildlife ecologist from Michigan Technological University, leads the wolf-moose Winter Study at Isle Royale National Park.

It’s January. In my house, that means it’s time to pack our warmest winter undies and leave to live with the wolves and moose on Isle Royale. Isle Royale is a remote wilderness island, isolated by the frigid waters of Lake Superior and home to a population of wolves and moose. As predator and prey, their lives and deaths are linked in a drama as timeless as it is historic. The struggle is historic because we have been documenting their lives for decades.

In a few days, we head to Isle Royale for the 54th consecutive winter observing these wolves and moose. This research is the longest continuous study of any predator-prey system in the world.

Rolf Peterson – a blond, bearded Norwegian, as fit as he is observant – has been there every winter for more than four decades. A retired professor at Michigan Technological University, Rolf is the go-to expert on wolves and moose for scientists, conservation organizations and governments around the world. Don Glaser, our pilot, with more than 40,000 hours at the control stick, has also been to Isle Royale every winter for more than four decades. It really is all about the pilot, but more on that later. I’m the young fellow in the crowd. I began working on the project in my late teens as a field technician. After a decade of schooling, I began leading the project with Rolf at the turn of the century.

John A. Vucetich

Tracks of a lone wolf catching up with his pack.For seven weeks we’ll live on Isle Royale, following the lives of wolves and moose in this remote wilderness. Sometimes is it cold enough to cause living tree trunks to split in the night. The snow can top the hip of a human, up to the chest on a wolf. Several times each winter the winds roar across the open waters of Lake Superior and strike the island in excess of 50 miles per hour. Moose are forced to bed down while snow drifts on their windward backsides.

But we’re prepared for the weather – a cabin heated by wood stove, stock-piled dry goods, water drawn from a hole in the ice of the protected harbor next to our cabin and a fire-stoked sauna where we bathe every few nights. Even the outhouse is equipped with a portable wooden toilet seat that lives next to the wood stove in the cabin, except when in use. And a small diesel generator permits some civilities, like satellite Internet, allowing us to share our adventures in learning.

From the Flagship, piloted by Don Glaser, we make our observations of wolves and moose on Isle Royale.Every day, weather permitting, we prepare the Flagship for work – check and warm her engine, load her with research equipment, untie her from the ice and take off over the trees. The Flagship is a tiny plane, more like a kite, with a fabric fuselage no wider than a yardstick. Don flies her from the front seat. Rolf and I switch each flight, taking a turn in the observer’s seat behind Don.

From the Flagship, we observe wolf packs chasing moose, defending their territories from each other, competing with pack mates to feed on their kills. After the two or three days it takes for wolves for finish feeding on each moose carcass, we land the Flagship on the nearest frozen lake, strap on snow shoes and hike in to perform a necropsy. From these bits of information, we piece together a picture of the wolves’ lives.

For the past decade, the moose population has steadily slid to its lowest level. They’ve suffered hot summers and winter ticks. Wolves took advantage of struggling moose, fueling high rates of predation. The wolves had been thriving until 2009. Then one wolf pack failed after another. Twenty-four wolves living in four packs had been reduced by the end of last year’s Winter Study to nine wolves living in one pack, and another half-dozen wolves, the socially disorganized remnants of another pack. DNA analysis of wolf scats we collect at kill sites indicate no more than two adult females in the population. If they die before giving birth to new females, the wolves will be headed for extinction.

Fluctuations in the abundance of wolves and moose on Isle Royale, 1959-2011. These fluctuations are documented during winter study.So this winter we’re anxious for evidence that pups have survived the summer and fall, and we’re watching for behaviors indicative of courtship and mating. But with nature, it’s always the unexpected that is most important. From the privileged perspective of the Flagship, we’ll be hoping we’re observant enough to recognize it when it happens.

I’m not ready to leave for Isle Royale. My room is a collection of vague piles. Long underwear is separated by camera equipment from a collection of my best wool socks, next to an assortment of hats and mitts. My mind is equally disorganized, pulled in different directions by meetings to review outreach to raise awareness of wolves, conference calls to discuss the recovery of Mexican wolves, preparing manuscripts on the inbred wolves of Scandinavia. It’s time to get focused and get ready for Winter Study

Ken Allen reporting in the Maine Telegram intelligently points out the folly of trapping coyotes as the answer for a shrinking Northern Maine deer herd...........While not mentioning the fact that deer were historically never a factor in upstate Maine(Moose/Caribou/Wolf paradigm at the time of the Mayflower), he does poignantly expound on habitat/habitat/habitat being the key to a sound deer herd........Without enough Eastern Pine/Hemlock/ Balsam Fir/Spruce woodlands to act as natural deeryards during snowy winters, deer are going to find it hard to make a living this far North............Even when snaring of coyotes was allowed(prior to the ban that exists now to protect lynx/bobcats), deer in Northern Maine were on the decline..........The Coyotes are going to bounce back(no matter how much we shoot them) as we discuss everyday on this blog..........."Deer without proper conifer stands in winter are like humans spending an arctic winter in a roofless supermarket......... Lack of shelter would doom folks, despite all the food.......... In northern Maine, deer with no roof are ultra-vulnerable, despite abundant forage from regenerating cutting"--Ken Allen...........Here is a quote from Gerald Lavigne, IFW deer biologist who wrote in a 1995 paper on coyotes and deer - "Long-term suppression of coyote populations over large areas is not biologically achievable using traditional hunting and trapping techniques".........This sentence from an IFW biologist proves that it's useless to attempt statewide coyote reduction, and folks who disapprove of killing one species to save another spout it off at every opportunity as a reason not to snare. One page later in the coyote study, though, Lavigne wrote, "It may be feasible to intensely remove enough coyotes from small areas to temporarily reduce their impact on deer".....According to Lavigne, snaring in winter deeryards does save deer, but is it too little, too late after woodcutters have removed the roof?

2012-01-15T20:02:00.000-08:00

By KEN ALLEN

Maine Sun Telegram

Not long ago, an article about northern Maine's deer woes caught my eye, and according to the writer, a hard-core conservative, the federal government's listing of the Canada lynx as an endangered species is destroying our North Country whitetail herd.

Coyote snaring could be a short-term solution toward replenishing deer in northern Maine if not for the fact that there are other factors causing harm to the deer herd. According to this guy, the listing has stopped trappers from snaring coyotes near deeryards, so these wild canines camp out around wintering whitetails and decimate them with impunity.

Viewing snaring as a savior of the overall northern Maine deer herd offers serious flaws, though, beginning with this one: When coyote snaring was legal, deer populations up north were still plummeting, and astute observers knew that the dwindling herd wouldn't change until laws or goodwill forced landowners to stop cutting conifer stands that provided winter habitat for deeryards.

And good luck with forced laws or regs. Our political system protects landowner rights -- one integral foundation of democracy. So, incentives for property owners rather than bullwhips are crucial for them to go along with protecting winter habitat.

Deer cannot survive without dense evergreen groves for shelter from December through April, particularly in severe winters. However, in proper habitat, deer can survive coyotes and better withstand deep snow and cold.

Here's another problem:
The whitetail herd in the North Country is dangerously close to extirpation. For at least 20 years, the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife has claimed that the deer-population density in northern Maine averages two per square mile. Lately, that figure has dropped to one deer per square mile in places. The solution to that low density requires more management tools than snaring.

Admittedly, saying one to two deer per square mile is misleading, because whitetails in that vast region live in pockets with fairly high population figures, but no matter how someone plays with statistics, one to two deer per square mile is still one to two, despite how deer spread out.

In a nutshell, the North Country coyote problem is a symptom rather than a cause of deer woes there, woes aggravated by poor habitat and bad winters on the northern extreme of whitetail range. Deer without proper conifer stands in winter are like humans spending an arctic winter in a roofless supermarket. Lack of shelter would doom folks, despite all the food. In northern Maine, deer with no roof are ultra-vulnerable, despite abundant forage from regenerating cuttings.

I'm not taking political sides here, either, because conservatives and liberals alike have aggravated deer problems up north. For instance, conservatives may dwell on the need for snaring, but in 1995, environmental organizations embraced a claim that they had plucked from

"A Study of Eastern Coyotes and Their Impact on White-tailed Deer in Maine," a well-researched summary written by Gerald Lavigne, an IFW deer biologist. Nearly two decades later, folks still quote this selectively chosen sentence from page 17 of the 22-page report: "Long-term suppression of coyote populations over large areas is not biologically achievable using traditional hunting and trapping techniques."This sentence from an IFW biologist proves that it's useless to attempt statewide coyote reduction, and folks who disapprove of killing one species to save another spout it off at every opportunity as a reason not to snare. One page later in the coyote study, though, Lavigne wrote, "It may be feasible to intensely remove enough coyotes from small areas to temporarily reduce their impact on deer."According to Lavigne, snaring in winter deeryards does save deer, but is it too little, too late after woodcutters have removed the roof?

If the herd were larger, snaring could be a temporary tool to save deer until wintering habitat grew back in 20 or more years, depending on the condition of each deeryard.I read a book 30 or so years ago that referred to coyotes as "God's dog," a wonderful image of a species native to this continent.

Coyote evolved in the Southwest 10 million years ago. Long after that, when oceans receded, wolves arrived via the land bridge between Asia and North America -- a Johnny-come-lately.
Until 12,000 years ago, coyotes survived the continent's mega-predators, including 600-pound cave lions, 800- to 1,000-pound saber-toothed tigers and 14-foot tall, 2-ton short-faced bear. When these three carnivorous predators disappeared, coyotes flourished and spread from the Pacific to the Atlantic and to the far north and south.

I recently read an article that mentioned coyotes have even established a population in New York City. Yeah, Big Apple coyotes -- impressive. Many 21st century Americans fear entering that city -- but not Wily Coyote.

And coyotes are survivors. In Maine, folks can hunt them 12 months a year with calls, bait, and trailing dogs, shoot them after dark from Dec. 16 to Aug. 31, trap them, and maybe in the near future snare these canines around deeryards, but I'll believe the latter when it passes all the hurdles.

And no matter what we do to coyotes, northern Maine deer will still be in trouble because they need a roof in winter, despite the bountiful cornucopia resulting from cutting practices. That's just simple logic.

Ken Allen of Belgrade Lakes is a writer, editor and photographer.

A new friend of the blog(we will call "W") sent me this accounting of what he thinks was a juvenile Puma hit by a car off of hwy 181 near Whitney Point NY(between Syracuse and Binghamton)............And lo and behold he then came across another persons sighting of an alleged Puma that was very much alive in that same area in December..........Mirages or P.concolor??????

2012-01-15T19:47:00.000-08:00

:Rick

Hello. Thanks for your blog and your reply. I think it is notable that there were 2 sightings in exactly the same place-by Whitney point, NY. I 'd love to hear from hunters from Whitney Point but then I would hate for them to find one. Thanks again, cheers

On Jan 15, 2012, at 9:58 PM, Rick Meril wrote:

..thanks fior checking in..........You know that a South Dakota Puma(Mountain lion,cougar Puma all the same animal) took a 3 year journey and ended up being hit on the highway this Fall in Connecticut.............All kinds of Puma sightings in the northeast over the years..............at this point, no one can confirm a breeding population..............could folks who keep PUmas as pets release them periodically?..........Pumas and Wolves along with black bears were the trophic predators occupying all of Eastern North America at the time of colonization,,,,,,,,,,,,,we wiped the pumas and wolves out by the early 1900's.............a few bears hung on................coyotes took advantage of wolves being absent(wolves will kill coyotes as they do out west in yellowstone) and now occupy all of the usa...........I hope what you saw was a puma and that a remnant population exists........keep me posted and enjoy the blog..........

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Rick
Hello. I got your email address from a blog. I am trying to interest people to explore what I saw between Whitney Point and Castle Creek-off I81 in NY. I have posted this places hoping to hear from others who saw what I did.

1 huge red fox, moutain lion or lynx on I-81 (S) near Castle Creek

Nov 9, 2011
Did any see a dead huge cat like animal on the southbound side of I-81 about a mile closer to Syracuse then the exit for Castle Creek. It was on the left lying an its side, obviously dead and huge. If you did see it, or heard someone else talking about it, what was it? It looked like it had a body like a mountain lion, a long tail with long fur-not bushy and a face that was rounder like a lynx.Its color was pretty uniformly red-not mixed or strips or anything like that. I was moving too fast and, once I had processed what I saw, I had gone too far to see it. Apparently someone picked it up, probably for its fur, because it was gone soon thereafter. I saw it at around 10:40am Tuesday morning. If you did not see it but are familiar with the wild life around there, any ideas? Any information would be appreciated.

In November I was driving from Syracuse to Binghamton. It was around 10:30 am. Soon after I passed the Whitney Point exit, but well before Castle Creek, I saw a dead cat on the left shoulder of the road. This was a huge red cat. It was obviously dead but its face and body were intact. The face was rounded-a cross between a raccoon kind of face and a domestic cat.-sweet and round. It had a very long tail that had fur that was straight (not fuzzy or curly) and the tail was rope-like. The legs were long. The color was very close to the red you would see on a domestic red cat-solid color not spotted and not merely tan with redish tint-clearly orange red. I would say its back would have been about 2-3 feet off the ground had it been standing. It was thin and the fur on it was not fuzzy but short. I was traveling at 65mph and by the time I had processed what I saw it was too late to easily pull over. I was late too. I called the police (I think Castle Creek but can't recall-maybe Broome county sheriff- not sure.) and the dispatcher showed interest. She said she would have someone check it out. I called her later that day. She said she was so curious about it that she went herself during her lunch hour but by then it was gone. She said someone probably took it for the fur. Then she started listing the kind of animal it could have been.

Now, I know nothing about wild animals but was surprised by the animals she listed because they were the sort of animal I assumed existed only in places like africa (I've got the suburban NY-view of the world) or the zoo. I began to google the various animals she suggested to compare to what I saw. What I saw was clearly most similar to a mountain lion. But, the face was round and did not have the long muzzle that the pictures show. So, I think it was probably young-although the pictures of the young mountain lions suggest that they are not solid in color. Maybe there is an adolescent period when the body becomes solid color and the face is still round?

It was only after I looked at pictures of all kinds of animals that I started to read about Mountain lions in NY. I had no idea there was any controversy about whether they exist or not. (I add this because I have no vested interested in proving that they do or do not exist) I did not know they ever existed in NY. In fact, I would have been quite surprised to hear that they existed in this country at all..anywhere. So, when the dispatcher mentioned things like mountain lions and panthers I was very surprised. I posted a description of what I had seen on Topix in the hope someone else had seen it and could let me know what it was. All I got was a few snide comments. Then I started to google more seriously because it began to bother me that I could not figure this out. At that point I found this post

"05-05-2011, 06:48 PM #1
Crokit
crokit

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Join Date: Dec 2010
Posts: 158
Mountain lion sighting
First, let me state that I have all my faculties, excellent eye sight, and am not given to exaggerations.

Today, while traveling south on Interstate 81, between Syracuse and Binghamton, I saw a Mountain Lion / Cougar/Panther, pick your noun. !! 100% positive, absolutely no doubt. There is ZERO chance that it was anything else. The only other thing it could have possibly been { other than a live mountain lion/cougar/panther } is a full body mount of a mountain lion/cougar/panther and someone pulling a prank. It was less than 100yds off the West side of the road, sitting on top of a section of rock/cliff that the highway had been cut through. It was sitting on it's haunches, leaning forward, ears forward, looking down onto/across the highway. It was about 30-40 feet above the highway. Just before the " Castle creek 1 mile " highway sign.
When I screamed " holy F%^K, a mountain lion, scaring the S#$T out my buddy who was driving almost lost control at 75 mph.

An absolutely beautiful animal, well muscled, excellent specimen. Up until now, when ever I've seen reports of sightings, I've taken them with a grain of salt. No more!

Anyone know of any other recent reported sightings in that area?

Wldnerness: Can you put me in touch with any of the state Dec/Rangers/etc from that area?"

And my post on Topix was as follows:

Justwondering
East Syracuse, NY

What do you think? These two sightings are at identical places. I do not believe that they are both mirages. Also, if the one I saw was young(I'dsay it was the size of a great dane-maybe a little shorter but thin like a dane rather than like a , say, St. Bernard) , it would not have been as visible to a driver on I-81 6 months earlier. The one I saw was not so big that it would have been very visible to drivers if it were on the top of a hill. That means that the one I saw could have been the adolescent offspring of the one seen by the earlier poster. If so, maybe there is a den nearby. I know exactly where I saw the dead animal so a wildlife person or ranger could easily investigate. If the other poster saw the parent in May and I saw a dead adolescent one in November I bet that there is one that has set up a resident in the area. I would love to hear back from you. Thanks

15 Elk from Kentucky are going to be "transplanted" into Southwest Virginia come this Spring........As they say in baseball,,,,,,,,"Pumas and Wolves, start swinging a bat",,,,,,,,Elk and deer merit being chased by those 4-legged hunters as well as us two legged beasts,,,,,, keeping the balance in the woods and meadows

2012-01-15T19:38:00.000-08:00

ELK BEING REINTROUDCED INTO SOUTHERN VIRGINIA

GREG JORDAN Bluefield Daily Telegraph The Bluefield Daily TelegraphVANSANT, Va.

— For nature enthusiasts, it's a majestic sight that's
been missing from Virginia for too long. If plans proceed smoothly, 15 elk now living in Kentucky will arrive next May in Buchanan County, Va.

Volunteers met this last week with other supporters and Virginia wildlife specialists to discuss re-establishing an elk population in Southwest Virginia. In August 2010, the Virginia Board of Game and Inland Fisheries approved an elk management plan for the county.

Support for the project has been strong, said Leon Boyd, a volunteer and chairperson of the Southwestern Virginia Coalfield Chapter of the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation. The chapter hosted a meeting at its Vansant, Va., office Jan. 11 to thank local individuals and businesses for their support.

"Later on, we will have a public meeting. We wanted to thank the folks who contributed and got the project up and going," Boyd said.

The current plan is to trap elk from a herd in neighboring Kentucky and bring them to Virginia; however, this will be done in stages. The elk will not simply be caught, then brought to Virginia and released, Boyd said.

"We're trying to get at least 15 this year from Kentucky," he said. "What's going on is that Virginia and Missouri are under a restoration program. Missouri got some elk last year."

This winter's weather has not been bad, but it may make catching elk more difficult since they will be more energetic, he said. Once the elk are caught, they will be kept in quarantine before being shipped to Virginia.

After arriving in Buchanan County, the elk will be held for two to three weeks.

"This is to get them acclimated and settled down so they won't run off," Boyd said.

If any of the females are pregnant, the new arrivals could have 10 to 15 calves before being released in May, he said. The current plan is to keep them in the southwestern end of the county in the South Gap area.

Boyd said the hope is that reestablishing an elk population will help bring more tourists into Buchanan County.

"It's been a dream of mine to seek elk in Virginia," Boyd said. "They're magnificent animals to view and watch."

If the elk become well established and the herd becomes large enough, hunting could be a possibility, too, he said. The goal is to raise a herd of 75 animals.

Farmers in neighboring Tazewell County, Va., have voiced concerns about elk wandering across the county line and infecting their livestock with chronic wasting disease; potential crop damage has been a concern, too. This has not been a concern in Kentucky, Boyd said.

"There hasn't been a problem in Kentucky, and their herd is over 11,000," he said.

Companies such as Range Resources, Consol Energy, and the Ultra Group have contributed funds to the project, he said. The local chapter plans to have fundraisers including a banquet to raise additional money for the project.

Elk were once found throughout the eastern United States, but loss of habitat and unregulated hunting drove them out of the region by the late 1800s, according to officials with the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries.

Previous attempts to bring elk back to Virginia were unsuccessful.

In 1926, there were two small elk herds; one in Giles and Bland counties and another in Botetourt County near Buchanan County.

Elk hunting seasons were held from 1922 to 1960, but elk were again gone from Virginia by 1970.

15-20,000 bobcats are killed annually by Oklahoma hunters and trappers................Based on a 2010 Cornell University Bobcat survey of all of the contiguous USA, it seems on average bobcat density comes in around 1 per every 2.5 square miles...........With Oklahoma's land area occupying 68,594 sq miles, it is likely that there are at least 27,000 Bobs in the State..............That would mean hunters are taking 55 to 74% of the population yearly....UNSUSTAINABLE!..............If Oklahoma is truly a fertile region for bobs and there is 1 bob for every 1.5 sq mile, then the State has 45 to 46,000 Cats and the annual take is 33 to 46% of total population.........I know some biologists feel that Wolves can withstand a 33% cull annually and not see a drop in population,,,,,,,,,,,,but geez, seems like an awful disruption to any carnivore popuaton whether they be social(canines) or solitary(felines) in nature..... Carnivores require an extensive learningperiod from their mothers on how to navigate and survive in their territory...........The type of intensive Bobcat hunting taking place in Oklahoma would seem to create a very youthful and anything but "job-mature" Bobcat population

2012-01-14T23:22:00.000-08:00

Bobcats are plentiful in Oklahoma but not often seen

BY ED GODFREY, Staff Writer Oklahoman

Anywhere there is water and woods in Oklahoma, there are likely bobcats. Which means bobcats are almost everywhere.

Bryce Everett of Cashion holds two bobcats that he and Tyler Beaty of Edmond shot last month while deer hunting in Blaine County. Oklahoma's bobcat season runs through Feb. 29.

"There are lots and lots of bobcats," said Micah Holmes, spokesman for the Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation. "They are a common animal that is not commonly seen. They are very secretive."

Bobcats can be found in every county in Oklahoma, but despite their healthy population, they are one of the toughest animals to hunt and trap."They are a master of stealth," said Bryce Everett of Cashion, who has been hunting Oklahoma bobcats for 15 years. "I don't know anything sneakier in the woods than a bobcat."

Oklahoma is in the midst of bobcat season, which opened Dec. 1 and runs through the end of February. Hunters need a state hunting license and a state furbearing license.

About 15,000 to 20,000 bobcats are harvested each year by Oklahoma hunters, according to game surveys taken by the Wildlife Department.

Everyone has probably either had a housecat, or at least known someone who does. When people think of the wild relatives of the neighborhood today, many probably think of cheetahs, lions, tigers and other big cats in Africa. But we have our own wild feline right here in Oklahoma – the bobcat.

Lynx rufus is a small cat with slight ear tufts. Its back, sides and upper tail is pale to reddish brown with black spots, while the lower part of its body is white with dark spots.

Bobcats have a range that stretches from southern Canada to northern Mexico, and are found throughout the continental United States except in the upper Midwest and parts of New England. Bobcats frequent habitat types ranging from coniferous and mixed forests to desert scrublands to Cypress swamps.

Just like their larger African cousins, bobcats mark their territory with urine. A male’s home range is generally two to three times larger than that of the female’s, and it includes the ranges of several females while partially overlapping the ranges of other males. Females are much more exclusive about their territory, and their ranges do not overlap.

Bobcats generally breed in January or February, but have been known to reproduce year-round, especially when food is plentiful. Once the female has mated, she will seek out a fallen log or a rock overhang for a den. She will give birth two months later to two to five kittens. However, younger females generally produce smaller litters than older, maturer females. The kittens are weaned after two months but stay with their mother until they are around a year old and are about half-grown.

Bobcats are thought to live for around 12 years in the wild and can weigh more than 25 pounds as mature adults. Cats in the North and animals in more open areas are usually larger than those that live in the forests or in the southern reaches of their range.

While bobcats can be active throughout the day or night, they are primarily crepuscular, meaning their peak hours of activity are around dusk and dawn. Although small in stature, bobcats are very effective predators, even of large ungulates such as deer, especially fawns or yearlings. More often, though, bobcats prey on rabbits and other rodents, as well as wild turkeys and other ground-nesting birds. Male bobcats are generally larger than females, and are more likely to take down larger prey.

Bobcats have been the most heavily harvested and traded cat species in the past two decades, and interest in bobcat pelts has increased in recent years due to increased demand from furriers in China and Russia. Through effective management and responsible harvesting, the bobcat population is very healthy in Oklahoma, and sportsmen have ample opportunities to hunt or trap cats.

For those who are fortunate enough to have seen one of Oklahoma’s wild felines, it is a special occurrence. These cats are very elusive and hard to spot, but they are spectacular to watch when you are lucky enough to catch a glimpse of one!
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Bobcat Population Status and Management in North America: Evidence of Large-Scale Population Increase

Nathan M. Roberts and Shawn M. Crimmins

N.M. Roberts
Department of Natural Resources, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York 14853

S.M. Crimmins
Department of Forest Management, University of Montana, Missoula, Montana 59812

Abstract

Bobcat Lynx rufus populations are thought to be increasing in North America; however, little information exists on their current population status. In the United States, management and monitoring of bobcat populations is the responsibility of state wildlife management agencies. We surveyed state wildlife management agencies in each of the 48 contiguous states regarding the current population status, distribution, and monitoring protocols of bobcats within each respective jurisdiction. We also surveyed the governments of Mexico and Canada regarding bobcat population status within their jurisdictions. We received responses from 47 U.S. states, Mexico, and 7 Canadian provinces.

Responses indicate that bobcats occur in each of the contiguous states except for Delaware. Populations were reported to be stable or increasing in 40 states, with 6 states unable to report population trends and only 1 state (Florida) reporting decreases in bobcat populations. Of the 47 states in which bobcats occur, 41 employ some form of population monitoring.

Population density estimates were available for 2,011,518 km² (33.6%) of the estimated bobcat range in the United States, with population estimates between 1,419,333 and 2,638,738 individuals for this portion of their range and an estimated 2,352,276 to 3,571,681 individuals for the entire United States. These results indicate that bobcat populations have increased throughout the majority of their range in North America since the late 1990s and that populations within the United States are much higher than previously suggested.

Keywords: bobcat, Lynx rufus, monitoring, North America, population status

Received: December 13, 2009; Accepted: June 10, 2010 ;Published Online: November 30, 2010

Nathan M. Roberts,* Shawn M. Crimmins

Roberts NM, Crimmins SM. 2010. Bobcat population status and management in North America: evidence of large-scale population increase. Journal of Fish and Wildlife Management 1(2):169–174; e1944-687X. doi: 10.3996/122009-JFWM-026

*Corresponding author: nmr25@cornell.edu

Federal lawyers have backed away from fighting a federal judge's ruling that favors lynx, clearing the way for possible broader protection of the quick-pawed predators in Colorado and other Western states......"They have to look at everywhere there are lynx as possible 'critical habitat.' That includes a big part of southwestern Colorado," said Michael Garrity, director of the Alliance for the Wild Rockies, lauding this week's ruling by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals...............We need the same type action taken for the Jaguar across its historic southern USA habitat

2012-01-14T22:32:00.000-08:00

"Critical habitat" recalculated for reintroduced lynx

The Denver Post; Bruce Finley

A lynx in the San Juan Mountains south of Creede, Colo.

Colorado wildlife officials are declaring victory in their 11-year effort to reintroduce lynx to the state. The Division of Wildlife said Friday Sept. 17, 2010 that the cats are reproducing faster than they're dying, a sign of a self-sustaining population.

Federal lawyers have backed away from fighting a federal judge's ruling that favors lynx, clearing the way for possible broader protection of the quick-pawed predators in Colorado and other Western states.

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologists are now required to recalculate how much "critical habitat" they have designated to ensure long-term survival of the Canada lynx, a threatened species. Previously, federal biologists called all of Colorado, and parts of Montana and Idaho, nonessential habitat.

"They have to look at everywhere there are lynx as possible 'critical habitat.' That includes a big part of southwestern Colorado," said Michael Garrity, director of the Alliance for the Wild Rockies, lauding this week's ruling by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.

"You cannot have a species survive over the long run if you don't have connected habitat that is protected," Garrity said.