Nature is in a constant state of "rough equilibrium showing both "cold/cruel callous" while simultaneously exhibiting "cooperation and synergy".............."We can let either one of these perspectives inform our interactions with nature"............As an example, for those who tend to a home woodlot, one can " cut and then spray and then plant the trees we want in an attempt to impose our will on the woods, or let nature dictate the composition of our forest and work with that – acting less like a god and more like a partner"........."One approach seeks to dominate, the other to nudge things in our self-interest".............Perhaps, "the outdoors should be a place where we can lose ourselves and be humbled by forces outside of our control"-----Thank you Dave Mance of NORTHERN WOODLANDS MAGAZINE for this excellent bit of introspection

Read Full Article by David Mance of NORTHERN WOODLANDS MAGAZINE

No Way to Say What’s in the Heart. Never.

by Dave Mance III

Editor's Blog

May 27, 2015

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It’s often implied, if it’s not said outright, that nature is a cruel, cold place. We’ve all seen trees wrapped around each other fighting for light; late frosts that leave flower faces disfigured; fawn carcasses. These images feed the “red in tooth and claw” idea of nature that many of us grew up with – the woods as a horror show where self-interested plants and animals are locked in a desperate fight for survival.

And yet it’s just as easy to look at nature and see the spirit of cooperation that imbues everything. Above ground the trees might be fighting for light, but below ground they’re partnering with mycorrhizal fungi, through which they’re potentially sharing nutrients, and receiving them, from all the other plants in the neighborhood (including the ones they’re supposedly fighting with). Studies in recent years have shown that birds, mammals, even fish recognize the alarm calls of other species and use this information to stay safe. The farmers use the bees and the bees use the flowers and the flowers use the bees and the farmers – everything touches this way, or is separated by just degrees.

We can let either one of these perspectives inform our interactions with nature. Tending a vegetable garden can be a cold, calculated war of sorts – on bugs, on weeds, on herbivores – a harvest gained through attrition. Or it can be an exercise in cooperation, where we build up the soil to make it more resilient, encourage beneficial insects to deal with unwanted pests, plant extra as a means of making peace with token loss. We can practice forestry in similar ways – cut and then spray and then plant the trees we want in an attempt to impose our will on the woods, or let nature dictate the composition of our forest and work with that – acting less like a god and more like a partner. One approach seeks to dominate, the other to nudge things in our self-interest.

It’s been fashionable since Li Po was writing poetry (at least that long) for naturalists to wrinkle their nose at the domineering approach and celebrate the holistic one, but this can come off as judgmental. Rather than separate people into camps, I think it’s more productive to acknowledge that this tension exists in each of us; these competing visions are a part of both human nature and nature, nature. Most of us live in homes built to keep the natural world at bay, travel on paved roads that defy the landscape, advance our self-interests through control; at the same time most value cooperation, selflessness, and the outdoors as a place where we can lose ourselves and be humbled by forces outside of our control.

Do we use the rotenone? Do we kill the porcupine? Do we subdivide and build the house in the forest? Each of our lines fall in a different place, but it doesn’t mean we’re not all struggling with some version of the same question.

Title from “The Exile’s Letter,” by Li Po, (699-762 AD).

If we provide enough connected habitat, Wolves will once again be part of the Colorado landscape as we saw this week after the canid shot in Kremming, Col. was positively identified as a Gray Wolf...............You can watch the video of the black wolf that was believed to be the one shot by going to the home page of my blog...........Wolves did occupy Colorado right up until the 1930's---like in Washington State and Oregon, time for the "howls" to once again be heard alive in the "Centennial State"

http://www.aspentimes.com/news/16552437-113/wolf-found-dead-in-kremmling
GO TO HOME PAGE OF COYOTES, WOLVES AND COUGARS
FOREVER TO SEE VIDEO OF THE WOLF THAT LIKELY
WAS SHOT IN COLORADO

“As I traveled on, the air was literally filled with pigeons"......"The light of noon-day was obscured as by an eclipse, and the continued buzz' of wings had a tendency to lull my senses......Before sunset, I reached Louisville, Kentucky............ The pigeons passed in undiminished number, and continued to do so for three days in succession........... The people were all in arms............. "The banks of the Ohio were crowded with men and boys, incessantly shooting at the pilgrims, which flew lower as they passed over the river"............ "Multitudes were thus destroyed"............ "For a week or more, the population fed on no flesh other that of pigeons, and talked of nothing but pigeons"---John James Audubon 1813 when an estimated 1 billion Passenger Pigeons called North America home

http://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/10.2307/3588903.pdf?jpdConfirm=true&isForConfirmDownload=false

Abstract

We considered the possible effects Passenger Pigeon(Ectopistes migratorius) flocks may have had on the disturbance regime and species composition of presettlement forests in eastern North America.

male passenger pigeon

 We suggest that the activities of roosting and nesting Passenger Pigeons caused widespread, frequent disturbances in presettlement eastern forests through tree limb and stem breakage and nutrient deposition from pigeon excrement. We suspect that the deposition of fine fuels resulting from such disturbances may have influenced fire intensity and frequency in presettlement forests. 

Further, we propose that consumption of vast quantities of acorns by pigeons during the spring breeding season may partially explain the dominance of white oak (Quercus alba) throughout much of the presettlement north-central hardwoods region.

 Consequently, the pigeon's extinction may have facilitated the increase and expansion of northern red oak(Quercus rubra) during the twentieth century. Although it is difficult to accurately quantify how physical and chemical disturbances and mast consumption by Passenger Pigeon flocks affected forest ecology, we suspect they shaped landscape structure and species composition in eastern forests prior to the twentieth century.

 We believe their impact should be accounted for in estimates of the range of natural variability of conditions in eastern hardwood forests.

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www.damninteresting.com/extinction-of-the-
passenger-pigeons

Extinction of the Passenger Pigeons

Article #200 • Written by Anthony Kendall

When the first European settlers arrived at St. Augustine, Florida in 1565, it is believed that between 3 and 6 billion Passenger Pigeons darkened the skies over eastern North America. This vast host was supported by nearly continuous chestnut, birch, oak, maple, and pine forests the size of Western Europe. The pigeons feasted on the bountiful nuts of those trees and nested in their thick branches.

Passenger Pigeons seemed to have evolved a survival strategy based on predator satiation. The birds nested in the northern forests each spring and summer where a pair would raise just a single offspring each mating. After a few weeks of continuous feeding, the parents would force their fattened youngster (called a squab) from the nest to the ground where it remained until first flight a few days later. In a large colony, hundreds of millions of squabs littered the forest floor helpless to their many predators. But the local populations of foxes, wolves, bears, boars, birds, snakes, rodents and other creatures that feasted on the squabs could eat only a small fraction of the squabs before they flew away. The next year, that colony would find a different nesting site: the Passenger Pigeon was the most ephemeral of prey.

The gigantic colonies may have moved from site to site not because of predators, but because of their effect on their nesting and roosting grounds. Larger colonies covered anywhere between 30 and 850 square miles. Descriptions of those sites indicated that nearly every tree in the area supported a nest, and some had as many as 500 nests. Under such weight tree branches collapsed and trunks more than 2 feet in diameter were snapped off at the base. The droppings of the birds blanketed the forest floor and killed the understorey. Even the most productive forests could support such a brood for a few months at most.

Their prime food source were the plentiful acorns, chestnuts, beech nuts, and hickory nuts that littered the forest floor. But as their forests were logged to provide land and timber for the rapidly expanding US population, they became agricultural pests, and their slaughter was officially supported by local, state, and federal governments. Not that folks needed much encouragement. Eastern palates had developed a taste for the cheap and plentiful pigeon meat; and Southern slaves, when they received any meat at all, were almost exclusively given pigeon. Their feathers stuffed pillows and mattresses and were used for decoration and fashion. And of course the pigeons were shot for sport, both in the wild and in carnival booths where the docile birds proved easy targets.

It didn't take long for a group of professional pigeoners to emerge that helped meet the vast demand for pigeons and their fatty squabs. These men--whose numbers are estimated to have been between several hundred and a few thousand--tracked the nomadic pigeon colonies across the US. Later in the century, they made use of the fledgling telegraph technology to locate their swiftly-traveling prey.

Their tactics were brutal but efficient. Boys used long sticks to knock the birds and their young from nests where they were then clubbed as they rained down. Fire and sulphur were used to suffocate the birds as they roosted. Live pigeons with eyes sewn shut were also used as decoys to attract other pigeons (they were called "stools", hence the phrase "stool pigeon"). Of course the shotgun was an ever-popular option. One published account quoted a man who recalled shooting blindly into a tree at night and collecting 18 birds. Migrating flocks provided a steady stream of birds that flew so close that 50 could be brought down with a single blast. When the bounty proved too much for a single man or even a single town to use, hogs were loosed to clean the ground of dead pigeons and helpless chirping squabs.

The pigeons were killed where they nested, where they roosted, where they fed, and as they flew. They were pursued and harried from town to town and state to state. By the mid 19th-century their numbers had noticeably declined, and by 1880 commercial hunting was no longer profitable. But because of the peculiar habits of the Passenger Pigeon, hunting proved easy and plentiful right until the end. Indeed, their final big season was to be their most successful ever.

In the summer of 1878, the last large breeding colony of Pigeons arrived near Crooked Lake in Petosky, Michigan. The flock covered 40 square miles and for three months yielded over 50,000 birds a day to hunters. One hunter reportedly killed 3,000,000 of the birds and according to one account earned $60,000--more than $1 million in today's dollars. All told, between 10 and 15 million birds were dressed, packed for sale, and shipped out of Petoskey that summer. Estimates of the total number slaughtered vary widely but agree that the harvest rate was upwards of 90%. Though moderate-sized colonies nested in Michigan in 1881, the bird was never again spotted in that state after 1889.
In 1896, the last remaining flock of Passenger Pigeons settled down to nest. All 250,000 were exterminated in one day by sportsmen who gathered to kill what was advertised as the last wild flock of the birds. Fully aware of the rarity of the species, a 14-year-old boy in Ohio shot the last wild pigeon in the spring of 1900.

A Young Martha

All efforts at breeding in captivity failed. The Passenger Pigeon reproduced slowly, had odd mating habits that prevented crossbreeding, and were seemingly incapable of breeding within their species outside of large colonies. One by one, pigeons in captivity died without producing offspring. Finally on September 1st, 1914 the last Passenger Pigeon fell off her perch and died. Martha had lived to be 29. She was frozen in ice and shipped to the Smithsonian Institute in Washington where she was skinned and stuffed. She remains there on display. Reports of sightings continued into the 1930s, but despite hefty rewards, none were confirmed.

Though it was a shameful deed, it was more than simply human hunting that doomed the Passenger Pigeon: it was our very presence. Its cousin, the Mourning Dove, is better adapted to living with humans and is so numerous that 30 million are killed each year with little threat to the remaining 400 million. The unfortunate truth is that had the Passenger Pigeon not been hunted to extinction, it probably could not have survived without the vast forests that supported its great colonies. Those forests no longer exist, and though they are growing back in some areas, they are much smaller and more fragmented. It seems that the Passenger Pigeons are no more compatible with modern man than were the forests that they called home.

In an attempt to combat the free-fall of Moose in Minnesota from deer brain worm, winter tics and other stresses, a coalition of Indian tribes, the Nature Conservancey and Minnesota Deer Hunters Association is engaging in a habitat optimization program to simultaneously create new forests that will simultaneously create new browse for food and cover for propagation.........The State's LEGACY AMENDMENT SALES TAX will provide the funding to improve some 8500 acres in the northeastern sector of the state............This is a tiny fraction of the habitat that is needed to attempt to mitigate warming temperatures that are largely thought to have accelerated the multiple blights that are plaguing the iconic Moose of this Great Lakes State

https://www.google.com/url?rct=j&sa=t&url=http://www.albertleatribune.com/2015/05/to-save-moose-coalition-of-groups-spend-millions-to-restore-habitat/&ct=ga&cd=CAEYASoTMzgxMTQxMDg0MDU5NTc3ODY1NjIaM2JiNTcwMGRiYTRlZTUyZDpjb206ZW46VVM&usg=AFQjCNEUtfimf3OBKr8fW7GpBSL-VuMR_w

To save moose, coalition of groups spend millions to restore habitat

Published 4:26pm Saturday, May 23, 2015

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By Dan Kraker, Minnesota Public Radio

FINLAND — Aiming to help save Minnesota’s endangered moose population, a coalition of groups is spending nearly $3 million to restore the animal’s habitat in northeast Minnesota.

The number of moose in Minnesota has fallen to 3,450, down from 4,350 in 2014, according to the state Department of Natural Resources. Since 2006, the moose population has dropped by 60 percent.

To make sure the moose have the food and shelter they need to survive, workers hired by Lake County are planting slender cedar and white pine seedlings in a clearing of a remote forest north of Finland.

Moving quickly, each worker is planting about 3,000 conifer trees a day.

“Eventually, in 15 to 20 years, they’re going to be high enough to provide shade for moose,” said Ron Moen, a professor and moose researcher at University of Minnesota Duluth.

Moose need those big trees to stay cool. But they also need food. That’s why before the seedlings were planted, winter crews first sheared the brush down to the ground. When it sprouts again, it will grow low enough for moose to eat for several years.

“You can see with the shearing that went on, there’s food that’s within reach of moose,” said Moen, who works at UMD’s Natural Resources Research Institute.

Moen said moose require a patchwork of two very different kinds of habitat across the landscape.

“They need mature forests and they need younger forests,” he said. “Mature forest is for shelter; younger forest is for food.”But that young forest is getting harder for moose to find in Minnesota. Mike Schrage, a wildlife biologist for the Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa, blames two factors: a decline in logging and an aggressive approach to putting out most wildfires. Without those disturbances, he said, there aren’t many places for new trees to sprout.

“Moose need good places to eat and cover to make a living,” Schrage said. “We need to act quickly and aggressively if we’re going to turn our moose numbers around.”

Scientists don’t know exactly what’s behind the precipitous drop in moose numbers in Minnesota. They suspect it’s a combination of climate change, disease and parasites, predators and habitat loss.

That’s where the tree-planting project comes in. A collaborative between a number of government agencies, tribes and nonprofit groups like the Nature Conservancy and the Minnesota Deer Hunters Association, it aims to improve habitat — the one factor that land managers can control.

With funding from the state’s Legacy Amendment sales tax, they plan to treat about 8,500 acres across northeast Minnesota. To create new habitat, workers will use prescribed burns, remove brush, plant trees and harvest timber.

On a recent visit to the forest, Schrage noted clear indications that new habitat is needed. He said moose have been feeding on some trees for years.

“Some of these branches back here (are) broken off six feet off the ground,” he said. “That’s moose grabbing twigs and pulling the branch over to get what they want. And sometimes individual trees in certain locations are just like ice cream for moose, and they just keep coming back and hitting it year after year.”

The hoof prints in the mud and chewed aspen trees that Schrage and others saw on a recent visit to the area are signs that moose are still in Minnesota forests.

But Schrage worries it could be difficult to evaluate the habitat restoration projects.

Earlier this year, Gov. Mark Dayton issued an executive order that banned placing GPS collars on moose. Dayton said he was concerned that collaring had led to the deaths of some adult moose and put calves in danger of abandonment by their mothers.

The collars had allowed researchers to track the kind of habitats moose visited.

“We’re putting a lot of effort into habitat management, a lot of time and a lot of money,” Schrage said. “We need to be able to know that it’s working.”

The GPS collars allow researchers to determine if moose are still in the area and for how long, he said. They also help determine if moose survival rates are improving because of the restored habitat.

“Getting those kinds of answers is a lot harder to do without a lot of research,” he said. “And a lot of that is best done with collared animals.”

Schrage said the habitat collaborative is a good start. But the 8,500 acres it plans to treat is a tiny fraction of the hundreds of thousands of acres of moose habitat in the state. If the climate continues to warm significantly, he said, it might not matter how much habitat is created.

Still, Schrage and others say it’s worth the effort. The Minnesota Deer Hunters Association backs the project because it also will create better ha

bitat for deer and other species, said Craig Engwall, the group’s executive director.

“So yes, it’s a good amount of money, but an important amount of money, and an investment in trying to save an iconic species in Minnesota,” Engwall said.