Moravian zealot, Nicholas Ludwig, Count Zinzendorf' first hand accounts of wolves in the Iroquois lands of Pennslvania and New York in 1745.........145 years after Jamestown, New Amsterdam and Plymouth foundings

MORAVIAN JOURNALS RELATING TO CENTRAL
NEW YORK

  Count Zinzendorf was thinking of the Five Nations, with many odd conceits. In an address in London, March 7, 1743, he said: "" The Second Nation, and which properly governs the rest, is the Nation of the Onondagoes. Those are Philosophers and such as among us are called Deists. They are brave honest People who keep their world; and their general weakness is that they delight in Heroick'Deeds; and this will be the main Difficulty in the way of their Conversion, to make them forget these their heroick Notions; for they have the Principles of the old Romans, that they look upon every one as a miserable Creature, scarce worth a Thought, who will -not, submit himself to them. . . .

"The Two other Nations which, are stiled Children, are the Cajugas and Oneydoes, who regulate themselves after these Two Nations.""

 Friday, lOth.-"We made an early start. As we were scant of provisions we did not take a meal until noon, when we felt very much exhausted and weary because of our heavy packs. The noise of howling wolves had greatly disturbed us during the night, and they kept it up in the morning. We then crossed Lake Sganiatarees and rested at noon at John's Beach "

May 16, "there was ice, with a strong northwest wind. "" We passed two huts inhabited by Indians. At night we encamped on the Shomoko road, which comes from the great desert and here touches the Susquehanna. Br. Joseph and party had taken this route when he went to Onondago. The wolves made a terrific noise around us during the night.""

October 17." We passed Oweke and two wolves chased' a deer toward us, which we shot. They, however, escaped."

In this volume are given all the Moravian journals relating to Central New York, beginning with 1745, when the first visit was made to Onondaga. This concerned the removal of the Shekomeko converts from Dutchess County. The mission there, commenced in 1740, was legally closed in 1745, and the converts went first to Bethlehem, Pa., and then to Gnadenhutten.

Nicholas Ludwig, Count Zinzendorf, was born in Dresden in 1700. He was very much a part of the Pietist movement in Germany, which emphasized personal piety and an emotional component to the religious life. This was in contrast to the state Lutheran Church of the day, which had grown to symbolize a largely intellectual faith centered on belief in specific doctrines. He believed in "heart religion," a personal salvation built on the individual's spiritual relationship with Christ.

 There followed an intense and powerful experience of renewal, often described as the "Moravian Pentecost." During a communion service at Berthelsdorf, the entire congregation felt a powerful presence of the Holy Spirit, and felt their previous differences swept away. This experience began the Moravian renewal, and led to the beginning of the Protestant World Mission movement. 

Zinzendorf himself visited St. Thomas, and later visited America. There he sought to unify the German Protestants of Pennsylvania, even proposing a sort of "council of churches" where all would preserve their unique denominational practices, but would work in cooperation rather than competition. He founded the town of Bethlehem, where his daughter Benigna organized the school which would become Moravian College.

 His overwhelming interest in the colonies involved evangelising the native Americans, and he travelled into the wilderness with Indian agent Conrad Weiser to meet with the chieftains of several tribes and clans. As far as we have been able to identify, he is the only European noble to have gone out to meet the native American leaders in this manner.

The coyote in Texas..............the one canid to persist in Texas despite European decimation of Gray and Eastern(Red) wolves

 Any outdoorsman who has spent a generous portion in the field has probably heard at one time or the other the eerie call of an animal synonymous with the great Southwest, the hard-luck loser and mortal enemy of the cartoon Roadrunner — the coyote.

The coyote (Canis latrans) is the most common of the six species of the family Canidae that have called Texas home at one time or another. Other members of this family include foxes and wolves, though the two species of wolf that once occurred in this state can no longer been seen here.

Coyotes are habitat generalists and can be observed in just about every county of the state. They are quite common in the Trans-Pecos eco-region, thriving in the creosote flatlands that separate the mountainous sky islands.

At first glance, adult coyotes closely resemble the red wolf, only they are much smaller and thinner than their exterminated cousin. In size, they are somewhat comparable to a medium-sized dog, with a total length (snout to end of tail) of 48 inches. The tail is proportionately long and is approximately 15 inches in length. The legs are disproportionately long, giving the animal an almost gangly appearance. Adults typically weigh anywhere from 30 to 40 pounds.

The coloration of the coyote is grayish brown with an obscured undertone of black along the upper parts, while the underside is white. The face, including the slender muzzle and broad ears, is more tan in coloration, as are the outside of their legs. The tail coloration is similar to the upper parts, ending in a black tip.

Contrary to the cartoon version from Warner Bros., coyotes are just as varied in their diets as they are in their habitat. Based on the stomach contents of one study in particular, birds made up nearly 35 percent of their diet. Insects made up almost 11 percent, while rabbits, mice and other small mammals combined for 20 percent.

Other interesting portions of their diet include cattle at 7 percent, goats at 4 percent and deer at 5 percent. Most of these larger animals are infrequently subdued by single coyotes, and rarely are these prey items healthy, robust adults.

During the winter, females come into heat and attract a suitable male to mate with. The pair will designate a territory in which to rear their young. This territory will typically include a secure den and available water and prey. A litter can range from two to 12 pups, but the average litter is six. Pups are usually born after two months of gestation and start helpless but grow rapidly.

They feed on milk from their mother for about two weeks, then begin to feed on food regurgitated by the parents for another two weeks. By three weeks, pups are feeding on small rodents and insects. They are trained to hunt and fend for themselves by their parents during the summer months. They generally leave the family unit at about 1 year of age.

Non-breeding coyotes will often group together to hunt in small packs, usually limited to half a dozen. It is for these packs that the coyote calling card of vocalization becomes an important way to communicate. Coyotes are among the most vocal of all mammals in North America, and the howling of an entire pack can be intimidating to even the most avid outdoorsman.

.Michael Price is the director of the San Angelo Nature Center.

South Dakota fish and Wildlife protesting Legislatures attempt to institute a coyote bounty...........While their motive might be that this law would reduce the $$ level that the Feds put into South Dakota for predator control, they do cite the proven fact that bounties do not reduce coyote populations and that hunters have been responsible for downward deer counts over the last number of years

North Dakota takes aim with bounty on coyotes

 

By BRAD DOKKEN

 

GRAND FORKS, N.D. -- Not a day goes by, Gerald Berthold says, when he doesn't hear coyotes howling nearby on his farm west of Arvilla, N.D.
"You can be out in the evening, and you can hear them just about in every direction howling," Berthold said.
Coyotes have killed at least two of his calves in recent years, Berthold said. And last summer, he said two calves simply disappeared from a pasture near Emerado, N.D.
Berthold can't say for sure it was coyotes, but he has his suspicions.
"I don't know where else they would have went," he said. "They were too young to take off on their own. They were still nursing. They were month-old calves."
Coyotes have become an increasingly hot topic in North Dakota in recent years. As the population grows, so, too, have the reports of coyotes causing problems. Berthold said the increase in coyote numbers has been especially apparent the past 10 to 15 years."They're definitely on the increase," he said. "There's no doubt about that."
Prompted largely by hunters who believe coyotes are hurting deer populations, a couple of bills have surfaced this winter in the North Dakota Legislature taking aim at reducing coyote numbers. House Bill 1454 and Senate Bill 2224 each would establish a $100 bounty on coyotes until 2,000 are taken.
Legislators haven't yet acted on the bills.
NDGF opposes
Among the bills' detractors is the North Dakota Game and Fish Department, the agency charged with managing the state's fish and wildlife resources. Roger Rostvet, deputy Game and Fish director, recently testified against the Senate version of the bounty bill.
The department's rationale: Bounties don't reduce populations, and spending up to $200,000 for coyotes that hunters or trappers probably would kill anyway could further detract from the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Wildlife Services program. Funded by a mix of federal and state dollars, USDA Wildlife Services controls coyotes and other pests for ag producers and is facing financial shortfalls in North Dakota.
"It's been shown time and time again that bounties don't reduce predator populations," Rostvet said Jan. 27 in testifying before the Senate Natural Resources Committee. "In order to be effective, the annual surplus of the targeted predator must be harvested over a large geographic area and for an extended period of time."Experts have stated that between 50 percent and 75 percent of the population must be removed every year for a long time before any effect would be realized."
Despite the claims by some hunters, the Game and Fish Department also downplays the impact coyotes have on deer populations. Rostvet in his testimony before the Senate committee said it's hunters - not coyotes - that have reduced deer numbers.
"There's no doubt that some deer are taken by coyotes, but it's not the primary causative factor of lower deer numbers in North Dakota," Rostvet said. "The facts are that over the past five years, the department has actively managed for a lower number of deer in many parts of the state. The public felt that there were too many deer in areas and that the number of deer needed to be reduced."
Upward trend
According to Stephanie Tucker, furbearer biologist for Game and Fish, coyote populations in North Dakota have shown a definite upward trend in the past 20 years.

U.S. Fish and Wildlife proposing an addition to Everglades Ntl Park---Everglades Headwaters National Wildlife Refuge would be the most Northern segment of the Everglades and would help restore and protect the headwaters of "The Sea of Grass"

New Refuge Proposed in Everglades

Credit: U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service

On 7 January 2011, the Obama administration announced plans for the Everglades Headwaters National Wildlife Refuge and Conservation Area that would protect, restore, and conserve more than 150,000 acres of key habitat south of Orlando, Florida, largely through partnerships. As the name suggests, the area would play a key role in the protection of the headwaters of the imperiled Everglades. Specifically, the proposed refuge would improve water quality north of Lake Okeechobee, restore wetlands, and increase connections between conservation lands and wildlife corridors.

The refuge will be established through efforts of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and partners to work with interested and willing landowners. A variety of methods are expected to be utilized to establish the refuge, such as conservation lands that have already been established, fee simple purchase, conservation easements, leases, lands set aside through habitat conservation plans, conservation and mitigation banks, and cooperative agreements with landowners. The refuge would represent the northernmost part of a 4.5 million acre region for which increasing efforts are being made to protect lands for the preservation of both the Everglades and habitat for the Florida panther and other threatened and endangered species.

The proposal is in its early stages and public scoping meetings are being planned for January and February 2011. Development of a Draft Land Protection Plan and NEPA Document is planned for March-May 2011.

 For more information, visit the project website.
Sources: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, E&E News, LLC (E&E PM).

A Texas primer on the Gray wolf(C. lupus) that graced the Western 2/3 of the State up until 1970................Gray Wolves, Eastern(Red) wolves and coyotes all once graced the land we call Texas.

SAN ANGELO, Texas — The main purpose of this column is to educate readers about the marvelous world of nature that can be observed around them. But occasionally it is appropriate to learn about animals that cannot currently be seen in their natural settings due to human interference. One such animal from West Texas is the gray wolf.

The gray wolf (Canis lupus) is a large carnivore that is one of six species of the family Canidae that have at one time called this great state home. Other members of this family include the coyote and foxes.
Gray wolves have been eliminated from the wilds in this state, with the last confirmed sightings occurring in the early 1970s near the West Texas town of Alpine(The red wolf was also extirpated from the State in the mid 20th Century)

During the time before man settled into this land, the gray wolf inhabited the western two-thirds of the state, roughly west of an imaginary line from Wichita Falls to Laredo. It preferred to live in the open country of the brushlands and grasslands, choosing the broken areas to provide cover and suitable denning sites.

Gray wolves were large predators, with adult males attaining lengths of nearly 5½ feet from the end of the snout to the tip of the tail. Females were smaller, reaching lengths of a foot less than the males. The males also were heavier, tipping the scales at almost 180 pounds; females topped out at 130.(a bit exaggerated........140 pound wolf of either sex a big speciman)

Gray wolves were very doglike in appearance, with broad shoulders and a wide skull structure. The front legs were longer than the back legs, which gave the animal a hunched appearance. The coloration was similar to that of the coyote — grayish brown with an obscure undertone of black along the upper parts, while the underside was off-white. The face, including the thick muzzle and broad ears, were more brownish, occasionally with a cinnamon tone. The black-tipped tail was proportionately short, only about a quarter of the canine's total length and colored like the body.

This species of canine would mate for life, and the pups generally were born during the spring.
Both parents played a vital role in raising the young. The pups were taught how to chase prey when they were only a few weeks old, and most achieved adult size by their 11th month.

Females attained sexual maturity at about 2 years, while it took males about one additional year.
Unlike the much-maligned coyote, which is a true dietary generalist, the gray wolf was much more prone to attacking and eating larger prey.Before man moved into the territory, the wolves fed primarily on the herbivorous Bison, deer and pronghorn antelope, occasionally taking rabbits, rats and ground squirrels. When the ranching industry began its boom in this region, the wolves often would turn their attention to the livestock that was introduced, viewing such new prey as manna from heaven.(due to us humans wiping out the Buffalo and reducing deer and pronghorn to minescule levels)--blogger Rick

Herein began the struggle between man and predator in West Texas.
Gray wolves were not solitary hunters, instead traveling and hunting in large packs of up to 20 animals. This pack was dominated by only a couple of individuals. The stamina and endurance of the wolf is well documented. Packs could travel for hours without rest, and their main hunting technique was not to ambush their prey, but rather to pursue it until it dropped from fatigue. Once worn down, the prey was no match for the sheer numbers of the pack.

With the removal of this large carnivore from the wild, predatory pressure on big-game animals such as deer dropped. With no major predator other than man, the deer population in the state has become a serious problem, with many counties reporting severe overcrowding.--only the mountain knows the fate of a land with no wolves and too many deer--blogger Rick paraphrasing Leopold                                          

Gray wolves have been reintroduced successfully into the bootheel region of southwestern New Mexico, and there has been persistent talk for the past decade of re-establishing a population in Big Bend National Park.This act, however, seems unlikely ever to take place due to intense political pressure from several prominent industries. For now, it appears the gray wolf simply will remain an item of legends and folklore.

With all of the hostile anti environmental propositions coming out of the recently elected US House of Reps..................It is Nice to finally see a pro Arctic Wilderness bill come forward that would ban oil drilling in this most sensitive of regions....It would also finally designate a large section of the unprotected Arctic Coastal Plain as off-limits to oil extraction...............So critical for this to be passed so as to ensure the Porcupine Caribou herd a pristine home into the forever

Arctic National Wildlife Refuge Reintroduced

On 5 January 2011, House Natural Resources ranking member Ed Markey (D-MA) reintroduced the "Arctic Wilderness Act (H.R. 139)," a bill that would protect Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge from oil and gas drilling. The same bill was introduced by Markey in the previous Congress and proposes approximately 1.5 million acres of wilderness on the coastal plain, a region of the refuge not yet designated as wilderness and of interest for oil development.

Markey encouraged support for the bill and noted concerns about the devastating impacts of oil spills and the ability of authorities to respond to such spills, particularly in cold climates. The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is the largest of all of the nation's refuges and recently celebrated its 50th anniversary. The refuge is best known for "wilderness, undisturbed wildlife and ecological processes, and unique recreational and scientific opportunities."

The bill has been referred to the House Committee on Natural Resources. On 25 January 2011, Joe Lieberman (D-CT) introduced to the Senate a partner bill (S.33) that designates 1.5 million acres of wilderness along the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Similar to the Arctic Wilderness Act, this bill strengthens protections from oil and gas development on the refuge. The bill has been referred to the Committee on Environmental and Public Works.

Sources: The Library of Congress THOMAS, E&E News, LLC (E&E Daily), U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Brent Patterson's 1998 study on the impact of Eastern Coyotes on Cape Breton deer............20% wolf genes in Eastern Coyotes puts group hunting into the equation.........something that Western Coyotes usually do not partake in..........While coyote impacts on deer populations can be additive when deer exist in low densities, in 1998 during this study, the coyotes were not significantly dampening the herd.............As rabbit populations increase, coyotes pressure on deer tends to lessen although in cold and snowy winters, coyotes will switch to deer predation even if hare populations are robust.............the larger body size of the eastern coyote likely drives them to pick up a bucket full of calories in a single deer kill rather than expending a lot of energy picking off random rabbits

Deer-Coyote Study

by: Brent Patterson, Biologist
WINTER 1998

When coyotes made their first appearance in Nova Scotia in 1977, many people were concerned about the potential impact this predator would have on the province's ecological balance and, more specifically, its white-tailed deer population. Passions about coyotes have since cooler somewhat, though not the need to find out more about them and their effects on Nova Scotia wildlife. The spring of 1997 marked the end of five years of field work for the Department of Natural Resources' deer-coyote-habitat ecological study. This study was designed to examine the relationship between deer, coyotes, and their habitat especially under different winter weather conditions such as deep snow or cold.

The study was conducted in two areas. The first contained the Eden Deer Wintering Area (DWA) near River Denys on Cape Breton Island. Winters there are relatively severe and the Eden DWA has historically contained a large number of deer during periods of heavy snow cover. The second study area was located in Queens County, partly within Kejimkujik National Park and extending to the east of the Park. Winters are typically less severe in the area and deer do not normally congregate in the DWA.

The study showed that the winder density of coyotes was approximately 6/100². Many people probably think coyotes are more numerous than this. However, it is important to remember that two sets of tracks observed six to seven kilometers apart on the same day could easily have been left by the same animal(s). We believe that our estimates accurately reflect coyote densities in forested areas, however we suspect that densities may be considerably higher in agricultural areas.

Two methods were used to gauge minimum annual deer losses to coyotes. The first involved estimating how many deer each pack killed per year using intensive snow-tracking in winter and scat analysis during the rest of the year. The second method was to monitor collared deer. During the course of the study, 124 deer and 50 coyotes were captured and radio-collared. On average, about 10 per cent of the collared deer were predated each year. Interestingly, one deer was killed by either bobcat or lynx for every two killed by coyotes. In the Cape Breton study area, human harvest (registered, illegal, and native harvest combined) took about the same proportion of deer as predation, though many of the deer in that area were protected within the National Park. Winter kill was only a minor factor, however the last few winters have been fairly mild.

To properly assess the significance of coyote predation on a deer population, consideration must be given to the sex, age, and physical condition of deer killed by coyotes. During this study coyotes did not show a preference based on these factors, but rather appeared to kill deer in proportion to their occurrence in the local populations. This is often the case when prey populations exist at relatively low densities. Given the mild winters and low deer numbers in Nova Scotia recently, most deer killed by coyotes during the study likely would have survived and reproduced in the absence of coyotes.

Overall, it was estimated that coyotes were removing 4 to 18 per cent (depending on the year/area) of the postnatal deer population (the total population immediately following the birth of the current years fawns). We believe that during recent years in the Eden area, deer and hare numbers have been high enough (and the winters mild enough) to make the effects of coyote predation on deer population dynamics relatively minor

Deer numbers in this area should continue to increase during the next few years barring one or more severe winters. In the Queens County study area, predation on deer has decreased in recent years as coyotes have switched to the slowly increasing hare population. However, deer population growth is still quite low. Extensive predation on fawns in summer may be a major factor in this lack of growth. Eventually, hare numbers should become high enough to cause coyotes (and bobcats) to switch most of their feeding activities from deer, to hare.

From a scientific point of view, this study has given a variety of information that helps better understand deer-coyote-habitat relations in Nova Scotia. This improved knowledge will allow the Department of Natural Resources to continue to improve its management of Nova Scotia's wildlife resources.

Some of the factors which strongly influence coyote predation rates on deer are as follows:

Snowshoe hare density - More hare generally means less deer killed by each pack. Winter severity - In a more severe winter, coyotes will switch from hare to deer if they are vulnerable. Deer Density - Deer density is very important in determining the outcome of coyote-deer relations. Although coyote numbers will generally increase when there is more food available, the changes do not come close to matching potential changes in both deer and hare numbers over the span of several years. Farm Carrion - In the Queens County area, the study showed that coyotes living in areas with relatively few deer and hare can still thrive if they have access to domestic carrion. In areas such as the Annapolis Valley, where carrion is readily available, coyotes exists at high densities and yet prey on relatively fewer deer than coyote populations living in "wilderness

Like in other Northeastern States, Massachusetts is seeing a rise in it's Black Bear population....Our putting out bird feeders is a big source of easy fat for the bears....Food habituation in and around our communities is something we must work very hard at to prevent...........Remember that a human fed bear often ends up being a dead bear...........Something, that we do not want to see occur

By Charlie Breitrose

Hide your birdfeeders, lock down your trash cans and keep an eye on your yard - bears are on the roam.
Black bear sightings have been reported in Bellingham, Blackstone, Hopedale, Upton, Franklin and elsewhere in the region. One even found its way into the city of Worcester in late May.

Laura Hajduk, leader of the state Division of Fisheries & Wildlife's furbearer and black bear project, said she is not surprised to hear the reports. "It has a lot to do with the time of year. This time of year is the mating season and adult males are roaming great distances looking for females," Hajduk said. "Also, this time of year, yearling bears have been with mothers for the last 16 or 17 months, have been pushed out and are out on their own."

Black bears were rare in Massachusetts in the 1970s, but now their numbers are on the rise. According to MassWildlife, the bear population has grown from about 100 in the early 1970s to about 3,000 in 2005.Hajduk said bears are being seen more in the eastern part of the state.She said she is not surprised bears are showing up in Blackstone, Bellingham, Upton and Hopedale. "West of there, there are a lot of wooded area, chunks of forest," Hajduk saiid.

Bears have been seen in Groton this year, and last year there were sightings in Plymouth and Attleboro. Bears looking for a snack will go into people's yards, she said. One of their favorites is bird food. "They are very, very attracted to birdfeeders. It is their candy," Hajduk said. "They will take a lot of time to get into their birdfeeders. We have seen pictures of bent-down poles to get the feeders."

Hajduk recommends taking down bird feeders after winter, because come spring bears will be hungry and searching for an easy meal.  "Bears go into their winter dens, depending on year and conditions, from November to the beginning of December," Hajduk said. "People can have their birdfeeders out during winter months - from the end of December to February or early March, when bears are less likely to be active."

Bears may have a fearsome reputation, but the black bears in Massachusetts rarely harm humans.
"If you see one, enjoy the fact that you've seen a black bear," Hajduk said. "As with any wildlife, enjoy them from a distance, and if in your house, make noise. As big as bears are, they are typically scared of people."Making a loud noise, such as clapping your hands or banging on a pot or pan, will drive them off, she said. "Bears have good memories, and if they find food in one spot, they might come back again," she said. They may also go after trash, Hajduk said, so lids should be kept tightly on garbage cans.

Obama doing what he believes is politically pragmatic in not raising grazing fees on public land........Not a postive as it relates to the health of the land.........My recommendation to the President is to require certain grazing rotations and critical habitat designations on Ranching lands in exchange for the lower fees..............a win/win scenario for wildlife and ranching families

Obama Admin Denies Petition to Raise Grazing Fees on Public Lands

By PHIL TAYLOR Greenwire

 

The Obama administration yesterday rejected a proposal to raise grazing fees on public lands, a decision that suggests ranchers will continue to be charged below-market prices to graze cattle on federal range land

The Bureau of Land Management and Forest Service in separate letters yesterday to environmental groups said other priorities prevent them from pursuing new rules to revise the current grazing fee.
Both agencies also said they disagreed with the groups' legal arguments in a 2005 petition (pdf) challenging the legality of the current fee structure.

Joel Holtrop, deputy chief of the National Forest System, said the agency is pursuing separate rulemakings to revise its forest planning rule and respond to Colorado's roadless proposal, each of which have drained agency resources.

Moreover, roughly 4,000 grazing allotments on Forest Service property are in need of environmental analyses that will help determine the best management of rangeland resources, Holtrop said in the letter (pdf).

"This major effort will require focused agency range management technical expertise and funding and is not expected to be completed for several years," he said.

A recent order from a U.S. District Court in Montana also requires the Forest Service to prepare an environmental impact statement in order to continue applying aerial chemical fire retardants to fight wildfires, Holtrop said.

"Given these and other significant agency priorities, I am reluctant to burden the agency's limited resources by initiating an additional major rulemaking endeavor at the present time," he said.
BLM Director Bob Abbey in his letter (pdf) to the groups said his agency was working to implement proposed orders aimed at reducing the venting of natural gas, revising coal management regulations, updating standards for oil and gas measurement and securing oil and gas production facilities.
"These initiatives represent major undertakings for the BLM and involve significant investments of limited agency resources and staff time," Abbey wrote.

Abbey added that he had discussed the fee structure with "numerous" lawmakers on Capitol Hill and that none of them had requested a change to the grazing fees.

Unwelcome news for enviros
The government's response was prompted by a lawsuit filed last summer by the Center for Biological Diversity, Western Watersheds Project, WildEarth Guardians, Great Old Broads for Wilderness and Oregon Natural Desert Association seeking to raise grazing fees and require agencies to re-evaluate the effects of grazing on public lands.

Ranchers currently pay the federal government $1.35 a month to graze one cow and her calf -- several times lower than the cost of grazing on private lands.

The federal government's grazing program cost taxpayers $115 million in fiscal 2004, according to a Government Accountability Office report. The report also found that BLM's and Forest Service's fees decreased by 40 percent from 1980 to 2004, while grazing fees charged by private ranchers increased by 78 percent for the same period.

Conservationists also contend that grazing damages wildlife habitats, water quality, scenic views and native vegetation. "Subsidizing the livestock industry at the cost of species, ecosystems and taxpayers is plainly bad public-lands policy," said Taylor McKinnon, public lands campaigns director for CBD. "Today's choice to continue that policy is both a disappointment and a blight on the Obama administration's environmental record."

The GAO report found that if the purpose of the grazing fee were to recover expenditures, BLM and the Forest Service would have to charge $7.64 and $12.26 per "animal unit month," several times higher than the current $1.35.  "Given the massive budget shortfalls our country faces, we can no longer afford to subsidize a small group of ranchers to graze public lands at public expense," said Mark Salvo, director of the Sagebrush Sea Campaign for WildEarth Guardians. "As long as grazing is permitted on public lands, it's only fair that public lands ranchers pay for the cost of their activity."
The groups said they will consider additional litigation in response to the agencies' decision not to increase the fees.

The groups recently reached a "tentative settlement" with the Interior and Agriculture departments that awaits final approval by Justice Department officials, according to the filing in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia (E&ENews PM, Jan. 5). Greta Anderson, Arizona director for Western Watersheds Project, said the settlement will likely still be filed but that the government's response was less than they had hoped. The government's 2011 fee is expected to be announced at the end of the month.

The ABC Nightline report and National Geographic Special this past Wednesday and Friday(Feb 16 and 18 respectively) aroused strong feelings in both those who advocate for and against peaceful co-existance and tolerance with Coyotes(and all Carnivores).............Our good friends Dr. Stan Gehrt and Professor Brent Patterson were the experts that ABC and Ntl Geo turned to in seeking explanations for the fatal Coyote attack on Folk Singer Taylor Mitchell that occurred in Nova Scotia's Cape Breton Highlands National Park in Oct 2009.......................An apparent predatory attack, the first Coyote induced fatality of an adult human does not seem to have been caused by food induced habituation(as many other non fatal attacks have been due to food habituation)..............Stan has actually been to the Park and done an investigation himself...............Brent was called on to run tests on the coyotes alleged to have been the attackers.........Corresspondence below with both men as well as noted animal Ethologist Marc Beckoff makes for informed and provocative reading.....................Brent has told me he will check back in with me upon seeing the full Ntl Geo Special(he was not able to watch the other night) and we will continue to report on all facts, theories and speculations on whether coyotes(like wolves) can decide to prey on people...................Note that there are 20,000 hikers each year in Cape Breton Park and the number of negative encounters with coyotes are minimal(although they do occur) whereas there were 34 recorded fatal domestic dog attacks on people last year in the USA, 50,000 auto caused fatalites and hundreds of gun induced deaths................Should we kill all domestic dogs? Should be scrap all automobiles? Should we ban all guns?...............Learning and obeying the rules of the road...........taking the proper precaution with domestic dogs............not letting guns get into the hands of mentally challenged and criminal elements......... and taking the proper precautions when in locales(suburban, urban and rural) where wildlife does exist...................That is the path this reporter advocates----Respect and co-existance with wildlife, dogs, automobiles and guns!

Who's afraid of the coyote? Not many of us. But as last fall's fatal attack showed, we should be more concerned about these animals. For our sake and theirs.


Ian Merringer

It was getting late in the season when Taylor Mitchell decided to go for a hike in Nova Scotia's Cape Breton Highlands National Park last October 27. But the 19-year-old musician was determined to explore some classic East Coast wilderness. Two nights earlier, when she'd played a concert in Lucasville, near Halifax, she'd mentioned to the host how happy she was to have two days off to do some hiking.

Mitchell chose the Skyline Trail, a 9.2-kilometre route that starts at the Cabot Trail and leads to a dramatic viewpoint over the Gulf of St. Lawrence before returning to the road. She was hiking alone, and—it being a Tuesday—there were few other people on the trail. That night Mitchell would be heading to Sydney, where she had a concert scheduled for the next day, but she was apparently not in any rush. On her way back to her car, she was overtaken on the trail by a pair of middle-aged hikers from the United States.

Not long afterwards, shortly past 3 p.m., the Americans were about 800 metres from the trailhead when two coyotes trotted down the path toward them. To the surprise of the two Americans, the coyotes didn't shy away but walked boldy past them as the hikers stepped to the side of the three-metre-wide trail. The hikers snapped a few pictures of the animals as they passed before resuming their hike.


A few minutes later, the two Americans heard the first screams.  Aware that there was a phone at the trailhead, they hurried out to the end of the trail to call 911. On their way they passed an incoming group of four hikers, from Europe and Australia, who ran in to investigate.

When the four hikers were almost a kilometre in, they passed some keys and a small knife on the trail. A little farther along, almost 20 minutes after the screams had started, they came to a clearing where a toilet building stood. There they found Taylor Mitchell on the ground, being attacked by two coyotes. (Apparently Mitchell had first attempted to defend herself with her keys and knife and had then retreated to this spot, hoping to get into the building.)


Shouting and hurling rocks, the four hikers scared the coyotes away from Mitchell, but the animals, probably sensing how close they had come to their objective, wouldn't leave the scene. They were highly agitated, and the larger of the two—a 42-pound male—continued to circle the group, growling.

Mitchell was in bad shape, barely conscious, lying just a few feet away from the unlocked building where she had sought refuge. When RCMP constable Pierre Rompré drove into the clearing five minutes later, he thought she was already dead. "Her wounds were very, very serious," said Rompré.
It took a round of buckshot to convince the larger coyote to slink into the woods, and Mitchell was bundled into an ambulance and eventually airlifted to Halifax.  She died of blood loss early the next morning with her mother at her side. For Mitchell's family, friends and musical community, the challenge of understanding her death would be enormous, but they weren't the only ones at a loss.

 As headline writers across the continent tried to marry some unfamiliar words—fatal, coyote, mauling—most people who spend time outdoors found it hard to believe that coyotes had actually killed a human. There's one group of individuals, though, who were less inclined toward total disbelief: wildlife biologists. Their expert opinions didn't figure in many of the news stories that week—possibly because they weren't inclined to try to sum up the issue of whether coyotes were dangerous to humans in daily-news-sized pieces. But if they'd had the chance, they would have explained that the tale of the coyote's relationship to man is a tricky narrative, and it's one that is still being written.

Brent Patterson, a research scientist for Ontario's Ministry of Natural Resources, has studied coyotes in Southern Ontario and on Cape Breton Island. He also sees coyote fearlessness toward humans as an increasing problem, for the coyotes as much as for us. "It's tempting to have this romantic view that we can be kin to these predators, but we'll all get along better if we keep these animals fearful of us," says Patterson. Otherwise, we may end up with people demanding a return to mass and indiscriminate killings of coyote populations, as happened recently in Osgoode, on the southern outskirts of Ottawa.

 A few weeks after the attack in Cape Breton, a coyote lunged at 16-year-old Joey Schulz while he was picking apples in an orchard. The encounter spurred city councillor Doug Thompson to call for a widespread cull, and the Osgoode Township Fish, Game and Conservation Club launched the Great Coyote Cull Contest, in which successful hunters were to bring in proof of a dead coyote to enter a draw for a new shotgun.

The fatal attack on Taylor Mitchell was only the second documented human death attributed to coyotes. (In 1981, a coyote killed a three-year-old girl in Glendale, California.) And though it's true that the vast majority of coyotes remain fearful of humans and pose no threat to human safety, the number of attacks is growing markedly.

According to researchers Lynsey White and Stanley Gehrt from Ohio State University, coyotes bit 159 North Americans between 1960 and 2006, and the frequency of these encounters has been increasing steadily since 1985. Shelley Alexander and Michael Quinn from the University of Calgary report that from the 1970s to today, there have been 17 attacks in Alberta, 12 in B.C., 10 in Ontario, three in Nova Scotia and one in Saskatchewan, with adults accounting for more than half of those who suffered injuries. A Parks Canada database shows more than 60 "unacceptable encounters" since 2003 in seven national parks in Alberta, B.C., Nova Scotia and Manitoba.

Robert Timm, a wildlife specialist at the University of California, suggests that to maintain a healthy relationship with coyotes as a species we need to be able to recognize problems before individual animals lose their fear of humans. Timm and his colleague Rex Baker have developed a seven-point scale to measure a coyote's transition from being naturally fearful toward humans to being a safety threat. The progression starts with increases in nighttime sightings of coyotes, then nighttime approaches by coyotes, then daytime sightings, then daytime attacks on unleashed pets, and then instances of coyotes following people. The progression continues with coyotes hanging around children's areas during the day, which leads, finally, to coyotes acting aggressively toward adults during the day. Timm says this progression will likely occur with all habituated coyotes if they do not receive any negative consequences as a result of being near humans (hazing measures include shouting, pepper spray and rubber bullets).

Valerius Geist, who has identified a similar pattern in deteriorating wolf-human relationships, explains that a predator that is considering taking on a new prey species usually follows a drawn-out process of learning through careful observation and timid exploratory attacks. "The first indication of a coyote targeting humans as alternative prey is that the coyote is interested in and watching people," says Geist. "In the next weeks or months, these coyotes will come closer and closer to humans." If Geist and Timm are right, it would seem the attack on Taylor Mitchell did not happen out of the blue, but was the culmination of a prolonged process of coyote habituation to humans. The Skyline Trail, after all, is the park's busiest, seeing 25,000 hikers a year. So, were coyotes watching visitors to Cape Breton Highlands National Park?

Derek Quann, a park manager, says that Cape Breton Highlands' history of coyote encounters started only about 10 years ago. He notes the park has responded to reports of "unacceptable" coyote behaviour on an annual basis since then, sometimes up to five a year. Park staff were forced to destroy three animals prior to last year, but Quann stresses the Skyline Trail area was not a trouble spot before the attack. "People have reported being followed in the park," Quann confirms. "The fatality was an extreme extension of existing behaviour. In a national park the tendency has been to give the animals what we consider a fair shake. We may have been too tolerant. We didn't see these animals as the threat they can be."

The park responded to the attack on Mitchell swiftly, shooting a female coyote that returned to the scene shortly afterwards. A necropsy confirmed that the animal had been involved in the attack. Four other animals were caught in leg traps and shot within a kilometre of the site over the next few days and on November 4, five kilometres away, a large male was trapped and shot. Shotgun pellets found in the animal confirmed this was the coyote wounded by RCMP constable Rompré at the scene. Perhaps to the dismay of some looking for tidy answers, the necropsy table revealed that both the female and male were healthy, not driven to attack by rabies or hunger.



The investigation also raised a new question. While the photographs of the two coyotes taken by the American hikers showed that one of them had distinctive markings, neither the female killed the day of the attack nor the male killed on November 4 had similar markings. Is it possible Mitchell was being stalked by a lone coyote and that when the two approaching coyotes came on to the scene the three set upon her, with the distinctively marked animal fleeing as the four hikers arrived? It's likely nobody will ever know.

Meanwhile, in mid-November, a couple walking on the Cabot Trail just seven kilometres from the Skyline Trail was being followed by a coyote so closely that one hiker hit it on the head with his walking stick. "We need to find out how coyotes learn, how they pass on knowledge, what role people can play. And what tipped the balance in this case," says Quann. "After all, coyote sightings are common in the park." Perhaps too common.

Brent Patterson says that anytime you see a coyote, it should be at a distance, and preferably showing you its tail. If you are confronted by an unusually bold coyote, you should pose as a formidable opponent by making noise and acting assertive. Give the coyote space and retreat slowly if you can, but don't turn your back, run or do anything to trigger the animal's chase reflex. Patterson encourages hikers to report fearless or curious coyotes to the appropriate authorities, saying that reinvigorating a coyote's fear of people can be simple, if done early. He suggests dog owners keep pets on a leash, even if the dog is bigger than a coyote. Admitting he ignored his own advice with his retriever, he recalls watching his dog chase a smaller coyote into some brush near Peterborough, Ontario, only to have both animals charge out in reverse order shortly afterward, with a puncture wound in his dog's shoulder.


_______________________________________________________________________________

From: Meril, Rick
To: 'gehrt.1@osu.edu' <gehrt.1@osu.edu>
Sent: Fri Feb 18 16:13:38 2011
Subject: Re: RE: Fw: Nightline's "Coyote" airing last night.....

Thanks for your time and expertise on this discussion Stan
Happy weekend

One shoukd not hike alone is morale of story.....in bear, wolf, cougar or coyote country
_______________________________________________________________________________

From: STANLEY GEHRT <gehrt.1@osu.edu>
To: Meril, Rick
Sent: Fri Feb 18 15:59:32 2011
Subject: Re: RE: Fw: Nightline's "Coyote" airing last night.....

Are you referring to Cape Breton  or everywhere else?  Food or habituation has always been the case for coyote attacks, except for the Taylor Mitchell case and possibly some more recent cases in Cape Breton.  I can't make something up to fit the mold when there is no evidence for it.   I'm not in the camp that says that the animals had to have been habituated to attack her, when there is no evidence to support it.  I went up there expecting to find that evidence, and it wasn't there.  There were many other things that I didn't expect to find, however.  Even habituated coyotes will give ground when the numbers are not in their favor, but these didn't.  Four adults had to do everything they could to get the coyotes off her, and then had to constantly defend themselves from the alpha female. 
You are correct, humans have never been a target food for coyotes (but they have been for wolves in Europe or Asia).  That is what makes the Taylor Mitchell incident so unbelievable. 
________________________________________________________________________________

----- Original Message -----
From: "Meril, Rick" <Rick.Meril@warnerbros.com>
Date: Friday, February 18, 2011 6:33 pm
Subject: RE: Fw: Nightline's "Coyote" airing last night.....
To: 'STANLEY GEHRT' <gehrt.1@osu.edu>

 Understood………………..from what I have read, humans are not a historical target food for coyotes or wolves…………but as they get comfortable around us, they begin to observe and evaluate us a possible prey item……………does the "getting comfortable around us" just occur or is it because we make it too easy for them because of our garbage disposal habits, pets left unattended, bird baths and feeders, etc etc?_________________________________________________________________________________
-----Original Message-----
 From: STANLEY GEHRT [mailto:gehrt.1@osu.edu] ; Sent: Friday, February 18, 2011 3:30 PM
 To: Meril, Rick
 Subject: Re: Fw: Nightline's "Coyote" airing last night.....

There was no evidence of habituation by the coyotes.  Suddenly viewing humans as prey is not habituation.  Also, no evidence of food provision by humans, although this might explain some subsequent attacks.
________________________________________________________________________
 ----- Original Message -----
 From: "Meril, Rick" <Rick.Meril@warnerbros.com>
 Date: Friday, February 18, 2011 11:31 am
 Subject: Re: Fw: Nightline's "Coyote" airing last night..... To: "'gehrt.1@osu.edu'" lt;gehrt.1@osu.edu

 Stan

 As always, many thanks for your full disclosure and information
 Let us hope that over time, the media can be less sensational and more science oriented in their reports  I am guessing that errant human foodstuffs(or direct human feeding) have a good bit t do with the habituation of the cape breton coyotes

 Always like to learn and whenever u have the time or inclination, would enjoy hearing from you on all topics coyote.

A good weekend to you

Rick
________________________________________________________________________


> > From: STANLEY GEHRT <gehrt.1@osu.edu>
> > To: Meril, Rick
> > Sent: Fri Feb 18 07:50:16 2011
> > Subject: Re: Fw: Nightline's "Coyote" airing last night.....

 Rick,

Thanks for sharing although I'm getting the hatemail directly.  That is nothing new, everytime an article comes out on my research that is favorable to coyotes, get the same stuff from anti-coyote people.  Been that way for the past 10 years, so this is the same stuff but from the other side.
 I don't control how the piece is edited, either Nightline or NG.  I gave a 30 minute interview and they picked out what they wanted, but I stand by my comments anyway.  The NG story changed from the original plan back when we were filming last summer, so there are some aspects I'm not comfortable with (such as the title, which was changed), and I'm sure some people will not like it.  Again, I don't control it.  However, NG used considerable restraint when editing the material, and it could be much worse, but thankfully they did not use some of the more dramatic footage from my interviews.  I asked them not to, they agreed, and they kept their promise.  If people are upset by what I said on Nightline, they clearly aren't ready to handle the full details. 
I spent 10 days last summer with exclusive access to eveyone involved, some of whom have never spoken publicly about what they saw or experienced, most of which is not in the film.  I would argue that I probably know more about all aspects of the incident than anyone else (in fact, most of the people involved had not spoken to each other, and that was/is the main reason a final report has not come out).   In fact, I just recently came back from another trip to Cape Breton last week, at the invitation of Parks Canada staff.
This whole experience was made possible through Taylor's mother, Emily, who personally contacted many of the people involved to give them permission to give me the full details without editing.  Again, some of them had never spoken about it, or provided the full details, out of respect for her.  I also had an emotional, private meeting with Emily, and we still keep in touch.  She is an amazing person that I care about very much.  I promote her Foundation whenever I can.  I made a promise to her that I would take the experience that she provided me and simply lay out the facts as they are, and to do what I can to make sure it never happens again.   As for my 'agenda' and why I 'decided to come out now', comments like that are not productive for me.   
 I've got to run,
Stan
___________________________________________________________________________

 ----- Original Message -----
> > From: "Meril, Rick" <Rick.Meril@warnerbros.com>
> > Date: Thursday, February 17, 2011 1:59 am
> > Subject: Fw: Nightline's "Coyote" airing last night.....
> > To: "'gehrt.1@osu.edu'" <gehrt.1@osu.edu>

 Stan; I enjoyed seeing you Nightline interview.........but the piece does end up causing the average person to be scared of coyotes. Does the ntl geo special provide a less harsh picture of what happened in cape breton to the folk singer?
_________________________________________________________________________

A BLOGGER RESPONDING TO DR. MARC BEKOFF'S PERSPECTIVE(SEE ARTICLE DIRECTLY BELOW THIS ONE) ON HUMANS PEACEFUL CO-EXISTANCE WITH COYOTES 

 I believe that Dr.Bekoff makes some valid points especially regarding media

hype. Also I respect his research and knowledge of coyotes, but I feel I need
to provide information which he seems to be unaware of.

I have spent summers in Cape Breton where the fatal attack occurred, for 30
years, and I think its fair to say that the animals in that region are
different then those in most of continental USA.

 In a relatively small area,there have been over  40 attacks/aggressive encounters with people in the
last 10 years. I have personally witnessed coyotes "testing" people. These
were not food habituated animals but wild animals 10 miles from the nearest
road. They (three animals)approached closely (10 yards)and stared at me. I
shouted at them and one animal yielded, the other two came closer. I picked
up a rock and threw it at the animals which they easily dodged. I then
shouted and charged at them. They backed off but circled and came at me from
behind, but when I charged they yielded. After two minutes of this I slowly
backed my way down the trail and I was followed, by not attacked. In my mind
I was being tested. Two years after this incident happened Taylor Mitchell
was killed 10 miles from where I had my encounter.
____________________________________________________________________

Do animals think and feel?

by Marc Bekoff

Coyotes: Victims of their own success and sensationalist media

Coyote attacks on humans are incredibly rare, so why the media hype?

Published on February 17, 2011

Coyotes are once again in the news, portrayed as vicious predators. A forthcoming National Geographic Special titled "Killed by coyotes?" will air February 18.

 As a researcher who has studied coyotes for decades and a board member of Project Coyote I feel it essential to set the record straight about these amazing survivors so that media hype doesn't taint the picture of who these wonderful carnivores truly are.

In an earlier essay I wrote about the incredible adaptability of coyotes despite a century or more of extreme and reprehensible persecution by government agencies and others because of their supposed rampant predation on livestock. However, scientific research shows over and over again that coyotes actually do very little damage to livestock.

 Coyotes are adaptable, intelligent, socially complex, and sentient beings who deserve respect. An extraordinary amount of time, energy, and money has gone into coyote control. Nonetheless, it hasn't worked, lest coyotes would be controlled and the controllers could move on to other programs, hopefully less pernicious and more successful and economically worthwhile activities. I expect that if any of us were as unsuccessful and wasteful in our jobs as Wildlife Services and animal "controllers" have been in theirs we'd be looking elsewhere for employment.

Let's briefly consider coyote attacks on humans. The National Geographic special gives close attention to the tragic killing of Canadian folk singer Taylor Mitchell. Needless to say, I and many others were stunned and deeply saddened by what happened to Ms. Mitchell.  (To read about Taylor's mother's thanks for the support her family received and her remarks about how Taylor would not have wanted the coyotes to be killed please see this article.)

The attack on Taylor Mitchell was the first fatal coyote attack(ON AN ADULT) ever recorded. One researcher claims that the coyotes were motivated to kill and eat Ms. Mitchell but this simply cannot be known based on the reconstruction of the incident, and would be difficult to know even if someone saw it happen. Based on other reports of human-coyote encounters this is highly speculative.

 This researcher also said that we shouldn't live in fear of coyotes and that they're constantly testing us. I agree we shouldn't live in fear of coyotes, but my own experience and that of others questions whether they're constantly testing us. I'm sure that because of the increasing amount of time that people are spending outdoors in areas where coyotes live there are numerous and increasing opportunities for coyotes to harass and attack but as we know this rarely occurs despite increasing opportunities.

 Between 1960 and 2006 there were only 142 attacks on 159 victims in the U.S. and Canada. It's estimated that 3-5 people are attacked in the United States each year. To be sure, this is regrettable but hardly something worth media hysterics. Compare coyote attacks with attacks by domestic dogs. In the U. S. it's estimated that about 1000 people a day are treated in emergency rooms for dog bites and in 2010 alone there were 34 fatal dog attacks. Talk about making a mountain out of a molehill.

We should appreciate the presence of coyotes and educate ourselves on how to coexist with them. Killing them doesn't work for they are here to stay because they are true survivors in incredibly unfriendly situations. Let's encourage media to provide a more balanced view of coyotes (and other animals) based on what we know about them and their encounters with us rather than irresponsible sensationalism. This will go a long way toward fostering more harmonious relationships for all.

Possible contacts for National Geographic:  pressroom@ngs.org, estanley@ngs.org
_______________________________________________________________________
To: Brent Patterson
Fm: Rick Meril

Thank you Brent.................appreciate your time and insight as always...........Curious as to your one year plus later take on all that occurred
______________________________________________________________________



On Sun, Feb 20, 2011 at 7:21 AM, Patterson, Brent (MNR) wrote:

Hi Rick,

Unfortunately I haven’t seen the full episode yet – we don’t get Nat Geo channel. I’m trying to make arrangements to see the replay later today and will certainly get back to you with more informed comments once I see the show.

Cheers,

Brent

Brent Patterson
Research Scientist – wolves and deer
Adjunct Professor, Trent University, Environmental and Life Sciences Graduate Program
President, Ontario Chapter of The Wildlife Society
Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources
Wildlife Research and Development Section
Trent University, DNA Building
2140 East Bank Drive
Peterborough, ON
K9J 7B8, CANADA
Tel: (705) 755-1553
Fax: (705) 755-1559
http://people.trentu.ca/brentpatterson/









From: Rick Meril [mailto:rick.meril@gmail.com]

Sent: February 19, 2011 11:32 AM

To: Patterson, Brent (MNR)

Subject: ntl geo special on Cape Breton Coyote attack on Taylor Mitchell

Brent.....................



How are you....................Iwatched the Ntl Geo Special last night and perhaps this was the most balanced reporting you can expect from a media organization on an inflamatory topic of carnivores killing human animals. I have read most of what you have previously published on the habituation likelihood of Cape Breton Park coyotes to people.........................though foodstuffs is not the habituation agent in this case..............simply a long time of coyotes being around 20,000 hikers annually and perceiving they have nothing to fear from them.



Like my periodic corresspondence with you over the past couple of years, I communicate regularly with Stan Gehrt in Chicago(Ohio State Coyote Biologist). The two of you were featured in the Ntl Geo Special.................Stan's comments to me yesterday about his feelings on the atttack a year later are below.....................Do you have any additional thoughts or feelings about the attack?..........................Another full year has gone by......................Another 20,000 plus hikers have been through Cape Breton Park................................Can you illuminate me on anything further that you now feel about coyote habituation to humans..........................Their seeing us as prey..............................We know that wolves, bears and cougars can and have stalked men as prey....................Seems likejust as you should hike with a minimum of 5 in your party when in Grizzly Country, so should that be the rule wherever any of our suite of native carnivores reside(coyotes, bears, wolves, cougars, lynx, bobcat).



Appreciate whatever insights you can provide.



All the best,



Rick

Destoying infected maple trees found to have invading long horned beetle infestations has been successful in halting the spread of this devasting exotic insect............Unfortunately. applying this same strategy in the fight to halt the spread of WHITE NOSE SYNDROME IN BATS ( by destroying Bats infected currently infected with this disease) will not stop the spread of this most virulent fungus.................and Scientists say it might actually spread the disease further and faster to new locales

Culling Can't Control Deadly Bat Disease, Mathematical Model Shows

White-nose syndrome, which is estimated to have killed over a million bats in a three year period, is probably caused by a newly discovered cold-adapted fungus, Geomyces destructans. The new model examines how WNS is passed from bat to bat and concludes that culling would not work because of the complexity of bat life history and because the fungal pathogen occurs in the caves and mines where the bats live.

"Because the disease is highly virulent, our model results support the hypothesis that transmission occurs in all contact areas," write the paper's authors, Tom Hallam and Gary McCracken, both of the University of Tennessee. "Our simulations indicated culling will not control WNS in bats primarily because contact rates are high among colonial bats, contact occurs in multiple arenas, and periodic movement between arenas occurs."
Ground work on the model was initiated in a 2009 modeling workshop on white-nose syndrome held at the National Institute for Mathematical and Biological Synthesis (NIMBioS) in Knoxville, Tennessee. At the interdisciplinary workshop, experts in the fields of bat physiology, fungal ecology, ecotoxicology, and epidemiology discussed ways in which mathematical modeling could be applied to predict and control the spread of WNS. "NIMBioS' support for the workshop that initiated this project was crucial in helping formulate models that could be useful in looking at white-nose syndrome," Hallam said.
Culling of bats in areas where the disease is present is one of several options that have been considered by state and federal agencies as a way to control the disease. However, a review of management options for controlling WNS in the paper indicates that culling is ineffective for disease control in wild animals and in some cases, can exacerbate the spread.
White-nose syndrome first appeared in a cave in upstate New York in 2006, and has since spread to 14 states and as far north as Canada. Regional extinctions of the most common bat species, the little brown bat, are predicted within two decades due to WNS. Eating up to two-thirds of their body weight in insects every night, bats help suppress insect populations ultimately reducing crop damage and the quantities of insecticides used on crops. Bats also play an important ecological role in plant pollination and seed dissemination.

Is Hybridization about to take place amongst species whose ranges were historically separated by winter temperature severity?............Will certain species be knocked out of the chain of life by new aarriving sympatric species who outcompete them due to the warming climate?....Will these Southern species bring with them diseases that their Northern counterparts do not have immuninty to?.............Our man-made toxins swirling and accumulating in the atmosphere since the dawn of the Industrial Revolution are seemingly about to intiate a "Russian Roulette" game of pinball with the animal species of the Northern climes

Arctic Roamers: The Move of
Southern Species into Far North

Grizzly bears mating with polar bears. Red foxes out-competing Arctic foxes. Exotic diseases making their way into once-isolated polar realms. These are just some of the worrisome phenomena now occurring as Arctic temperatures soar and the Arctic Ocean, a once-impermeable barrier, melts.

by ed struzik

Scientist John England was flying in the High Arctic last summer when he spotted something large moving on a tiny island in the Beaufort Sea, not far from the Alaska-Yukon border. When he and the helicopter pilot moved in to get a closer look, they were astounded to see a grizzly bear prowling the shoreline.

What this brown bear was doing in the kingdom of its white cousin is not entirely clear. But a week later when I joined England in the field, we found the tracks of the animal leading to a partially excavated den. It was obvious that the bear had no intention of going back to the mainland.

Up until about twenty years ago, sightings of grizzlies in the High Arctic were extremely rare; a quirk of nature, many biologists thought, that may

have simply occurred because the bear ended up walking the wrong way or because it had strayed too far following mainland caribou that sometimes cross the sea ice to the Arctic islands. But that thinking began to change in recent years as more brown bears and a succession of other animals such as red fox, white-tailed deer, Pacific salmon, and killer whales began showing up in areas traditionally occupied by polar bears, Arctic fox, caribou, Arctic char, and beluga whales.Most scientists now believe that climate change, which is warming the Arctic faster than any other place on Earth, is responsible for removing the barriers — long winters, bitterly cold temperatures, and thick, continent-size sheets of sea ice — that once stopped these southern animals from moving into the far north. Initially, the fear was that some of these Arctic animals would not be able to compete with their southern cousins. Experimental studies have shown that Arctic fox do not fare well in competition with red fox, and anecdotal evidence from some Arctic regions — including a video from Alaska's Prudhoe Bay Oilfield showing a red fox killing an Arctic fox — suggests that this is the case in the wild. Killer whales moving into the Arctic from more southerly waters have eaten beluga whales and narwhal, as Inuit hunters have been reporting for years. In August 2005, several biologists from Canada's Department of Fisheries and Oceans witnessed such an attack at Kakiak Point in Admiralty Inlet, Nunavut, Canada.

iStockphoto

Interbreeding is "likely to become increasingly important as the summer ice diminishes and is ultimately lost," says David Tallmon, a marine biologist at the University of Alaska. "Hybridization is essentially impossible to reverse once it has begun on a large scale." The possibility of this happening came to light for biologist Brendan Kelly in 2006 when an American hunter killed an animal in the High Arctic that turned out to be the offspring of a female polar bear and a male grizzly. The bear had a combination of traits from both species, including a mix of white fur on its torso and brown fur on its paws. It also had a head shaped more like that of a grizzly, but the longer claws of a polar bear. Kelly, who is now the deputy director of the Arctic Sciences Division at the National Science Foundation, wondered then whether this kind of hybridization was occurring in other species. Marine mammals such as seals, walrus and sea lions, he knew, are more prone to hybridization, because they share the same number of chromosomes, which allows them to produce offspring. If you removed this vast ice sheet that prevented southern marine mammals from moving north, he thought, what might be the outcome?
In a recent paper published in the journal Nature, Kelly and two colleagues reported that hybridization had already occurred between harp and .

hooded seals, narwhal and beluga whales, and very likely between North Pacific right whales and bowhead whales. This is not unimportant because with only a few hundred North Pacific right whales left in the world, for example, the species' gene pool is becoming perilously shallow. Kelly and his colleagues suggested that at least 22 Arctic marine mammals — many of them already threatened or endangered — are at risk from hybridization.

"There is something to be said about species adapting to climate change," Kelly says. "But the kind of adaptation that's necessary is a shift to genes that fit the new climatic environment better than the old genes. That takes time. The change that is taking place in the Arctic now is happening so fast that long-lived animals like whales, seals and polar bears aren't getting the chance to adapt as quickly as it is necessary."

Kelly likens the role that sea ice has played in the Arctic to the role South America has played in separating the world's two great oceans. For tens of millions of years, the continent was a barrier to dispersal and gene flow between the South Atlantic and the South Pacific. If you could somehow remove South America, its disappearance would be similar to eliminating the big barrier of sea ice in the Arctic world. "People have a tough time wrapping their minds around this concept," says Kelly, "but sea ice is a huge barrier that prevents air-breathing marine mammals from moving from one place to the other. It is also in its own way a very important habitat for many Arctic species. Removing that as quickly as is happening now is going to have an impact."

Almost lost in the current debate about Arctic hybridization and invasive species from the south is that some southern marine mammals will also bring with them diseases for which Arctic marine mammals have no immunity. The possibility of this happening came to light several years ago when Canadian scientists were monitoring the spread of trichinella in the Arctic.  This parastic roundworm, which is commonly found in polar bears and Arctic fox, was of little concern in the Arctic until the 1980s, when it began to spread to walrus and to humans who had eaten uncooked walrus meat, as occurred last fall in a village in Nunavut. Trichinosis in humans can create severe gastrointestinal problems and in some cases can be fatal. Ole Nielsen, a microbiologist working for the Canadian Department of Fisheries and Oceans, was assigned the task of tracking the spread of this parasite and determining whether there might be anything else of concern in the hunter-killed samples he was given. He soon found evidence of brucellosis, a bacterial disease — sometimes found in cattle, wild animals, dogs, and humans — that has been linked to reproductive failure in dolphins and baleen whales. The disease is extremely widespread in the marine world, and Nielsen said it wasn't a stretch to think it might have gotten a foothold in the Arctic. What did surprise him was the speed with which the disease has spread since he began sampling in the Arctic more than two decades ago. He now sees it in 21 percent of his samples, a four-fold increase from the 1980s.A stuffed hybrid "grolar" bear, killed last year in the Northwest Territories, Canada.A bigger concern, however, was the discovery that neither beluga whales nor narwhal have antibodies that would help them resist phocine distemper, a deadly virus that was first discovered in the marine environment in 1988 when it killed 20,000 harbor seals in northwestern Europe. Since then it has spread to seals in Russia's Lake Baikal, striped dolphins in the Mediterranean, and to several other marine mammals species worldwide.No one knows how phocine distemper made its way into the ocean. But because it is so closely related to canine distemper, it is thought to have its origins in land-based species whose remains were dumped into salt water. "There are a lot of unknowns should distemper strains capable of infecting narwhal and beluga make their way to the North American Arctic," says Nielsen. "If distemper gets a foothold here, it could get ugly. With as many as 80,000 narwhal and 150,000 belugas in the North American Arctic for most if not all of the year, a massive die-off somewhere is not out of the question." All that's required is a carrier: a pilot whale, harbor seal, or dolphin — marine mammals that are known to carry the virus for long periods of time before suffering the symptoms. Any number of them could ride a warm current into an Arctic environment that is no longer choked with ice. Brendan Kelly acknowledges that there is no easy solution to what's happening. Culling hybrids, as some countries do, for example, would be difficult in an environment as large and as hostile as the Arctic. One step advocated by Kelly is more careful study of mammals killed by Arctic hunters, so that the spread of various lethal viruses can be tracked and better understood. "Many of the species that are vulnerable are already endangered or threatened," he says. "Removing that barrier of ice as fast as is happening now could be the final straw for many of them."Heading back home last summer, England and I crossed paths on separate occasions with an Inuit hunter and mining geologists who had spotted a total of three other grizzly bears. The Inuk turned out to be Roger Kuptana, the guide who led the American hunter to the hybrid "grolar" bear in 2006. He was also the cousin of the man who shot a second hybrid bear in the Arctic that spring. "I'm sure there are more out there," Kuptana told me. "Think about it. Bears almost always produce more than one cub. So it's very likely that there are brothers or sisters of those two animals still out there mating with other bears, including that grizzly bear you saw."

As many of you know, Doug Peacock is one of the strongest advocates in the USA for the preservation and range expansion of our Grizzly Bear..............Must reading for all of us is Doug's GRIZZLY YEARS AND THE ESSENTIAL GRIZZLY....................Doug's clearly worded prose below about the threats to the Griz from one of it's key foods disappearing from the Northern Rockies---- White-Bark Pine seeds, a critical source of fat for the bears prior to going into hibernation

A Fierce Advocate for Grizzlies
Sees Warning Signs for the Bear

Doug Peacock has been tireless defender of the Yellowstone grizzly for decades, but he believes the bear may now be facing its toughest threat yet. Peacock talks about the insect infestation that is destroying a key food source for grizzlies

When he returned from Vietnam in 1968, Doug Peacock retreated to the Yellowstone backcountry to "get out of myself" and get beyond the war memories that haunted him. It was there he had his first encounter with a grizzly – a mother bear who came upon him as he sat naked in a hot springs, looked him over, and then let him be. That incident led to what was to become Peacock's life's work: documenting the grizzly on film and in books (including Grizzly Years and The Essential Grizzly) and fiercely advocating for its protection.

Now Peacock is warning against what he sees as the greatest threat yet to the grizzly's future: the loss of white-bark pine, a major food source for the bear. Warming temperatures in the Rocky Mountains have led to a proliferation of the pine beetle, an insect that destroys the trees, wiping out vast swaths of white-bark pine.In the last five years, steady warming temperatures have allowed the mountain pine beetle to move up a life zone to where the white bark pine live. The mountain pine beetle has been around a long time. Until now, it's mainly affected lodgepole pine up here, and lodgepole pine has evolved some defense to it. That same genetic material is present in white  bark pine, but it has not evolved a defense. And that's because it hadn't been invaded before [by the pine beetle], because we had winter temperatures that reached 30, 35 below for four or five days in a row up in that high country and the larvae of the pine beetle cannot winter over. But since 2002 those temperatures have warmed to the point where the pine beetle can winter over. The last studies concluded that in the greater Yellowstone ecosystem, which is a much bigger area than the national park, 82 to 83 percent of the white bark pine trees were either dead or dying. And a lot have died since. So what we're talking about is probably the total loss of white bark pine in this ecosystem. We don't know if we're going to have any trees left in three or four years. And as far as the grizzly bear is concerned, that means the nut of the white bark pine cone is lost forever as a food source to grizzlies.

. We don't seem to be finding many, if any, beetle-resistant pine trees. There are methods that have been talked about that would involve painting the tree with some kind of a substance. But you're talking about a labor-intensive procedure that is not just impractical — it's impossible.  White bark pine is incredibly nutritious. With the loss of the white bark pine as a food source, the carrying capacity — which is how rich the habitat is for bears — is going to be greatly diminished. And for bears to survive, basically they're going to need a much larger area to forage in.The grizzly, along with animals like polar bear and musk ox, has the lowest reproductive rate of any land mammal. And so they're highly vulnerable — once mortality exceeds birth, a population can crash in a hurry. So I think they have to be protected. And I think that the Endangered Species Act and the recovery plan that's been designed for it was absolutely unprepared for what has happened. Nobody foresaw global warming in 1975 [when the grizzly was listed under the Endangered Species Act]. Nobody saw that it would knock out white bark pine. But now this insane insistence on delisting, technical delisting of the grizzly, it's not rational, it's not logical, and it's not based on any science. I mean, global warming is a big wild card here... And you know, I tend to watch the grizzly just because it's a metaphor for the way I think about the world. And if the bear can make it, I always assume maybe we've got a shot, too.The bear is equally important to me because it's the one animal out there that can kill and eat you about any time it chooses to, even though it seldom does. And it just stands as an instant lesson in humility. It stands in the face  of human arrogance. And that lack of humility and human arrogance is what's gotten us to where we are now — we're seeing these incredible widespread effects on the very life-support system of the Earth, collectively manifested by this thing we call global warming. But we've done it and we seem not to want to notice it. Everyone wants to kind of think it's happening somewhere else and it's not going to hit home, but it has hit home. I'm looking up at my mountains right now, and they're covered with this red blanket that's kind of dripping down off the shoulders — and that's dead white bark pine forest.