Wednesday, June 24, 2015

Do you notice whenever one of us does something that we find repulsive, a common comment out of our mouths is: "He(She) is an animal"...........with the inference being that the person in question is disgusting, foul, uncouth, evil or just plain-ass bad!!!!...........As NORTHERN WOODLANDS MAGAZINE Editor Dave Mance states below: "This line of thinking – that there’s a gap between an enlightened human mind and a brutish animal one – probably goes back as far as the Stone Age, but it really took hold in the last 2,000 years".................... "As author Robert Bly once pointed out, "Descartes didn’t mean to disrespect his dogs when he wrote “I think, therefore I am” in 1619"....."However, this idea summed up what was to become conventional wisdom: that consciousness is uniquely human and involves reason".........And therefore, "animals are to be watched, pitied, and taken care of if they behave"........."Maybe the gap between the enlightened human mind and the brutish animal one is not that vast"........... "As the poet Iron Mike Tyson said recently, channeling Mark Twain: “We’re all animals trying to be people"..............Something to think about Sunday on your way to church"

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http://northernwoodlands.org/editors_blog/article/animals#.VYuOnmo4cW0.email Animals by Dave Mance III Editor's Blog Jun...
Tuesday, June 23, 2015

There is a reason that we have so much warmth and empathy for our pet dogs.............We see so much of ourselves in them(and their canid cousins).................And when you watch the two Coyotes in the video below grooming each other of tics, you can draw parallels to how you and your significant other exhibit similar concerned interest in each others welfare............Pope Francis has it right,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,there is so much of us in so many other of the worlds creatures.............A true "circle of life" it is that we must all do our utmost to respect!

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Monday, June 22, 2015

Grizzlies are being seen more and more on the Prairie lands of Alberta, Canada, Montana and Wyoming.........Grizzlies historically inhabited the Plains states and like virtually all Western Carninvores were forced into the mountains by man.........Now some Alberta ranchers are trying to coexist with the bears.........They recently helped acquire an easemaent on some 26,000 hectares of land,,,,,,,,Other Ranchers are removing dead livestock, installing electric fencing and putting new caps on their grainstocks so as to keep Grizzlies from getting into trouble on their land.................A new film entitltled SHARING THE RANGE by filmmaker Leanne Allison shows the good work going on in this region so as to help the bears "live long and prosper".........

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https://www.google.com/url?rct=j&sa=t&url=http://www.piquenewsmagazine.com/whistler/in-plains-sight-a-different-kind-of-bear-story/...

Utah is the latest state to study it's Moose population.........Calving rates of 60 to 70-% in the Wasatch and Uintas ecosystems have Utah State and Dept. of Ntl Resources researchers optimistic about the population...........Further data on recruitment survival will be needed to determine if this optimism is rewarded............Half of the study animals that have died have been from winter tics so there is a a caution as to forecasting the current and eventual health status of this population

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https://www.google.com/url?rct=j&sa=t&url=http://www.thespectrum.com/story/news/local/2015/06/21/researchers-study-health-utahs-moo...
Sunday, June 21, 2015

Apex Carnivores--"The loss of these predators is a “global decapitation of the systems that support life on earth”--Caroline Fraser(Yale 360).....ADVENTURERS AND SCIENTISTS FOR CONSERVATION is embarking on a study of two of these Apex carnivores, The Wolverine and the Lynx.........They are focusing their attention on the Uinta Mtns of Utah and Wyoming...........Although Utah is considered part of the lynx’s historic range, the last officially documented lynx sighting in Utah was in 2004, tracked by satellite when two lynx intended to reestablish the population in Colorado moved through the Book Cliffs east of the Wasatch Range.............. The wolverine’s historic and current ranges are similar, and last year, a wolverine was documented in Utah for the first time in 30 years...............The Uinta Range could optimistically support around 21 wolverines, according to a 2013 study led by renowned wolverine researcher Dr. Bob Inman............... Given that there are only 250-300 wolverines in the United States, that’s a fairly sizeable figure............. The entire USA has habitat capacity for roughly 650, according to the same study.................With there being strong scientific consensus among researchers that at least in the northern Rockies, there are no single [mountain ranges] large enough to hold a genetically viable population of wolverines, it is so critical that the Yellowstone to Yukon connected pathway of Wildlands and connective corridors quickly become a functioning paradigm, and not just an intellectual articulation of what would be "nice" someday to occur

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http://voices.nationalgeographic.com/2015/06/18/phantom-predators-in-search-of-lynx-and-wolverines/#.VYNMh_4dn_I.email Phantom Predators...
Saturday, June 20, 2015

As so many of us now know, fragmented forests, grasslands and prairies lose an average of half of their plant and animal species within twenty years........... Some continue to lose species for thirty years or more.............. In all of the cases examined, the worst losses occurred in the smallest habitat patches and closest to a habitat edge................. More than seventy per cent of the world’s forest now lies within one kilometre of such an edge................Large intact core reserves, interconnected via uninterrupted "wild paths" are the only way to put a halt to species loss from "swiss chesse" punched natural regions

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http://www.newyorker.com/tech/elements/roads-habitat-fragmentation What Roads  Have Wrought BY  MICHELLE NIJHUIS The first...