Wednesday, September 25, 2013

""We need a dramatic change in how wildlife are managed in this country"......... "The separation of 'game' management and wildlife management is the first critical step"------Our friend, biologist John Laundre who is one of the most eminent cougar-bologists in the country continues to write convincingly on why it is wrong to establish hunting seasons on Carnivores in the same way we do for hoofred browsers like Deer, Elk and Moose..............As many of you know, he is vice president of the Cougar Rewilding Foundation and author of the book "Phantoms of the Prairie: The Return of Cougars to the Midwest."............................John goes on to say---"Let the game agencies with their millions of hunter dollars manage the deer and the ducks, but let new wildlife agencies manage the rest of the wildlife the way they should be managed, based on sound ecological science, not hunter demands"...............John has commented often on the absurdity of the Nebraska Fish & Wildlife Agency allowing people to hunt the 22 Pumas that are attempting to re-wild the Corn Husker State.

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  Nebraska mountain lions targets of unrealistic fears High Country news via Albuquerque Journal It was just a few years ago that...
Tuesday, September 24, 2013

The Michigan environmental Advocacy Group, KEEP WOLVES PROTECTED, is getting the word out to stop the killing of up to 43 Wolves in Michigan's Upper Peninsula starting November 15................. Michigan law already allows farmers, ranchers and pet owners to kill wolves threatening their animals................ In fact, the Dept. of Natural Resources sanctioned the killing of 89 wolves in Michigan over the past decade based on this paradigm.................There are only some 600 Wolves in this recovering population and therefore many biologiists feel that it is way to premature for any sport hunting season to take place..........Every piece of peer reviewed science(See Trent University paper on this subject by Linda Rutledge) regarding Wolf Pack culture reveals that there is no good reason to ever sport-hunt Wolves............Human hunting of Wolves results in social disruption of their Packs which precipitates a breakdown in the top down biological diversity stabilizing impacts that Wolves bestow on the full array of plants and animals in a given natural system...............The people of Michigan sought to have a referendum on the Wolf hunt which Legislators circumvented by doing an "end-around" and passing Senate Bill 288 (Public Act 21 of 2013) just weeks after the qualifying signatures were submitted............This allowed the Michigan Natural Resources Commission, in addition to the legislature, to add Wolves to the list of game species that could be hunted..................KEEP WOLVES PROTECTED has launched a 2nd petition referendum to restore peoples rights to vote on whether Wolves should be hunted and needs 225,000 signatures to get on a November 2014 ballot........................Support this effort and the people of Michigan might just overturn future Wolf hunting seasons going forward

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                                                 KEEP MICHIGAN WOLVES PROTECTED FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                               ...
Monday, September 23, 2013

Texas has not seen Black Bears in the state for a good 50 years!!!! However, in recent times, Bruins have been finding success in neighboring Arkansas, Oklahoma and (to some extent) Louisiana and their prodigy are now recolonizing the Lone Star State..............If Black Bears can make it in New Jersey, one has to hope that the colossal land acreage state of Texas can also successfully harbor a population successfully

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Black bears come home to East Texas  Photo: Handout Louisiana Black Bears, which haven...

COYOTEWATCH CANADA does the same type great advocacy for Coyotes up North as PROJECT COYOTE does for Songdogs in the USA-----They both take the fear and half-truths out of how to co-exist with Coyotes and lay out a tried and true paradigm that allows both species to have their proper time and space on our planet............Food and access to it are the main reasons that Coyotes take chances coming into human neighborhoods...............And yes, small dogs and cats are on the menu if Coyotes feel that they have a better than even chance of getting their meal without being harmed............Carry a baseball bat and bang it on the sidewalk when walking your pets and encountering a Coyote................Opening and closing an umbrella is another excellent deterrent............

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Coyotes just looking for food, so remove  food sources, expert saids guelphmercury.com GUELPH — If you have a problem wit...
Sunday, September 22, 2013

A quick overview of the Canadian Lynx: The breeding season of the Canada Lynx lasts for only one month in the spring, from the end of March to beginning of May.............. Female Lynxes will give birth to a litter of one to eight kittens after a gestation period of 64 days....... The size of the litter is correlated with the abundance of prey................L. c. subsolanus is also known as the Newfoundland Lynx and is the largest of the three subspecies................ They have been.known to hunt and kill caribou calves when their preferred prey, the snowshoe hare, is not available

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The Canada Lynx ( Lynx canadensis ) is a medium-sized felid that can be found in North America, and I mean   northern   North America. Its ...
Saturday, September 21, 2013

Interesting that the San Francisco newspaper website(sfgate.com) Outdoor writer Tom Stienstra includes Puma, Black Bear and Coyote predation of Deer in California as one of the key reason for the deer herd population declining to 445,000 in 2013 versus 2 million "bambi's" in the 1960's.................As the Calfornia Dept. of Fish & Wildlife accurately explains,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,"During the period around 1850-1920, California wildlands were subject to high disturbance from logging, mining, fire, and grazing"........ "These disturbances led to increased acreages of early successional vegetation (new, young plants) that deer thrive on. Deer populations increased to where overuse of range by deer became evident starting in the early 1930s"............ "Since that time, with increased fire suppression and declining disturbance from mining, etc., the vegetation has matured and is not capable of supporting the previous high numbers of deer"..........."These changes began to show in the 1930s, with deer populations not reaching their peak until the 1960s"................. "Dr. Tracy Storer, a noted ecologist from the University of California, had predicted such a change in a 1932 paper published in Ecology" .............."The changes have not been instantaneous, rather, have taken several decades to become evident"................................"California Dept. of Wildlife biologists biologists believe that long-term declines in habitat condition, starting in the 1930s and continuing today, are most responsible for the decline(and not due to Bears,Pumas and Coyotes which have grown up with deer for millenia--also Grizzlies and Wolves were part of the historical carnivore mix in the state and deer did just fine with them on the land as well)...... "Lack of habitat disturbance, especially from fire, has decreased habitat value for deer and other wildlife in much of the state's forested areas"............... "Deer and numerous other wildlife thrive on early successional (seral) vegetation that grows back in the first few years after fire"............ Without periodic fire, the habitat becomes old, or “decadent,” and is unable to support wildlife populations of the past"............. "Indirect consequences, such as increasing competition with livestock and overuse of ranges by deer themselves, are typical" as we humans continue to alter lthe landscape via our building and agricultural activities................Historical population patterns from 1800 suggest that if we people got off the land, about another 100,000 deer(from 450 to 550,000) would take up residence in the state

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  CALIFORNIA DEPT. OF FISH AND WILDLIFE     Long Term Trends in California's Deer Population The graph below is a general...

The animal that graces the State Seal of California is the Grizzly,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,As discussed on this Blog often, California had the highest density of Grizzly Bears in the lower 48 at the time of European colonization(16th century)................The mild and temperate climate throughout the non-desert regions of the state harbored a wide array of fruit, insect and animal foodstuffs that enabled Grizzlies to "multiply and prosper" .............. Less than 75 years after gold was discovered in the Sierra Nevada foothills(1850), every grizzly bear in the state had been hunted down or trapped and killed..............A sad commentary it is regarding us as supposedly the most intelligent species(man), that we now can only celebrate "Griz" in California via stuffed animals at museums..................There is viable habitat throughout California where the Griz could once again roam...............Will we ever have the will the share the Golden State with the animal that many indigenous Indian tribes saw as sacred?

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Grizzly bear returns to California SANTA MARIA NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM UNVEILS NEW EXHIBIT Santa Maria Natural Histo...