Thursday, February 25, 2016

'"Black bears were abundant throughout Missouri during the 18th and 19th centuries"............."However, by the 1890s, they were almost gone from their last stronghold in the Ozarks"............. "Bears were believed extirpated from the state by the 1940s due to unregulated hunting and major losses in forest habitat"................ "Over the past 50 years, black bears have been naturally recolonizing Missouri coming into Missouri from Arkansas"............ "Sightings of adult bears and cubs, nuisance complaints and other incidents involving bears have increased considerably over the past 10-15 years, suggesting that the black bear is increasing in abundance and expanding its range in the state"............Some 300+ bruins are thought to call Missouri home as of the start of 2016

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https://www.google.com/url?rct=j&sa=t&url=http://kcur.org/post/why-missourians-need-start-thinking-about-black-bears&ct=ga&...

The once preeminent Bumblebee of the northwest states, Bombus, occidentalis, took a steep population dive in the 1990's, likely due to the Nosema parasite...........Now, the Bees seem to be rebounding, perhaps through a very fast evolutionary metamorphosis that enables them to fight off the adverse impacts of the parasite

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http://app.getresponse.com/click.html?x=a62b&lc=8P0o9&mc=IC&s=RzieYd&u=Yy3s&y=S& Rare bumblebee makes comeback ...
Wednesday, February 24, 2016

Biologists Bill Ripple and John Laundre get their due this week as their originally published(2010) LANDSCAPE OF FEAR paradigm is reinforced in a large way via the University of Western Ontario study that once again demonstrates that trophic carnivores like Wolves, Grizzlies, Black Bears and Pumas--Mesocarnivores like Coyotes, Lynx and Bobcats----All promote "top down" positive influence on optimum biodiversity by keeping prey animals vigilant and keeping them on the move, thus not lounging in any one locale too long overbrowsing the flora of a given region

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http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/sciencedaily/plants_animals/ecology/~3/KTWWUL-PsS8/160223132414.htm?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=ema...
Tuesday, February 23, 2016

New Jersey(my home state through my college years) is one of the most densely human populated states in the USA.............Despite this, it is,still some 40% wooded(although badly fragmented), rewilding Black Bears Eastern Coyotes, Fishers, Bobcats and Turkeys amidst its suburban sprawl.............It's Turkey Restoration Project is one great wildlife management success story.............. . By the mid-1800s, turkeys had disappeared in the "Garden State" due to habitat changes and killing for food.............. State biologists, in cooperation with the NJ Chapter of the National Wild Turkey Federation, reintroduced wild turkeys in 1977 with the release of 22 birds............... In 1979, biologists and technicians began to live-trap and re-locate birds to establish populations throughout the state................ By 1981, the population was able to support a spring hunting season, and in December, 1997, a limited fall season was initiated................ There is now an abundance of wild turkeys throughout the state with turkeys found wherever there is suitable habitat........................ In South Jersey, where wild turkeys had been struggling just a few years ago, intensive restoration efforts have improved population numbers significantly................... The statewide population is now estimated at 20,000 - 23,000 turkeys with annual hunter kill of approximately 3,000 birds(some 15% pf the total population)

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http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/19/nyregion/bold-as-they-are-wild-turkeys-accost-the-neighbors-in-new-jersey.html https://www.google.com/ur...
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Monday, February 22, 2016

Some great Wolverine video footage from Canadian filmmaker Andrew Manske who spent 5 years alongside trappers and U. of Alberta researchers, Mark Boyce and Matt Stafford revealing that the thought to be solitary wolverines do in fact "scavenge in family caravans"..............His "WOLVERINE: GHOST OF THE NORTHER FOREST is airing this Wednesday, 2/24 on the Canadian Broadcasting Channel(CBC-channel 4)...............If you have access to CBC, some outstanding television in store for you coming from northern Alberta, Canada(click on link below to see a preview of the full show).

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https://www.google.com/url?rct=j&sa=t&url=http://edmontonjournal.com/entertainment/television/alberta-filmmaker-advances-understandi...
Sunday, February 21, 2016

Between 1947 and 1956, U. of Wisconsin researchers did an extensive study of the most pristine remaining prairie systems in Wisconsin............They determined that the physical size of the prairie remnant and the incidence of fire greatly influenced the plant composition ...........As is true of so many terrestrial natural systems, "a changing climate and loss of habitat are impacting prairie ecosystems"............, "While fire used to be commonplace on the prairie, people have fundamentally changed the nature of the landscape by suppressing this natural disturbance".............."Some sites, the research team found, had fewer than 18 percent of the species documented in the 1950s survey".................., "Some were now made up of more than 60 percent non-native species"....................... "More than one species is being lost in the average year"................."The species that we're losing most frequently are specialist prairie plants, like rattlesnake master"............ "The species that are showing up are more generalist plants, like those you might find in a roadside ditch or in a thick, brambled woods"............... "For the most part, it's fast-growing weedy trees"............"It's box elder, it's buckthorn, it's honeysuckle, and probably a big part of their success is the absence of fire".

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http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/sciencedaily/plants_animals/ecology/~3/vS64La-a7AA/160219185208.htm?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=emai...

Linda Rutledge is one of North America's preeminent carnivore geneticists(formerly working out of Trent State; now Princeton University)............Linda has long put forth the Canis three-species paradigm(the model that makes most sense to this Blogger) to explain the family tree of the Wolf and Coyote in the USA and Canada....................In her words--- "There are two prevailing evolutionary models for North American Canis: (i) a two-species model that identifies grey wolves (C. lupus) and (western) coyotes (Canis latrans) as distinct species that gave rise to various hybrids, including the Great Lakes-boreal wolf (also known as Great Lakes wolf ), the eastern coyote (also known as Coywolf/brush wolf/ tweed wolf ), the red wolf and the eastern wolf"..................... "(On the other hand), the three-species model identifies the grey wolf, western coyote and eastern wolf (C. lycaon) as distinct species, where Great Lakes-boreal wolves are the product of grey wolf eastern wolf hybridization, eastern coyotes are the result of eastern wolf western coyote hybridization, and red wolves are considered historically the same species as the eastern wolf, although their contemporary genetic signature has diverged owing to a bottleneck associated with captive breeding".................."The recognition of the eastern wolf as a separate species does not exclude the possibility that a grey wolf eastern wolf hybrid animal (previously identified as Canis lupus lycaon, boreal/ Ontario-type, similar to a Great Lakes-boreal wolf currently located in the Great Lakes states and across Manitoba, northern Ontario, and northern Quebec, historically inhabited the northeastern United States alongside eastern wolves, and there is some evidence to support the historical presence of both Canis types"................ "The recognition of C. lycaon(eastern/red wolf) should not, therefore, influence grey wolf delisting decisions in the USA., in light of the current funding gap for biodiversity"...............Anotherwards, both the Great Lakes Gray/Eastern Wolf admix and the Eastern/Red Wolf species should be afforded Endangered Species protection east of the Mississippi and a full rewilding of both animals should be pursued in all the habitat previously identified by biologists as suitable for long term persistence of the wolves-low human and roadway densities, continuous/contiguous forest regions and whitetail deer habitat of at pre colonial or higher 6 to 12 deer per square mile..................Linda's full paper can be read by clicking on the link below.............Execellent research and fascinating and relatively easy to read verbage for the layman to digest and ingest .....Enjoy this one!

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http://rsbl.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/11/7/20150303.full-text.pdf Evolutionary biology RAD sequencing and genomic simulations re...
Friday, February 19, 2016

"MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN", like in 1995 when our USFW Service displayed backbone and resolve in accomplishing arguably the greatest wildlife restoration effort ever in restoring Gray Wolves to the Northern Rockies..........There is a reason that Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump are resonating with "the folks".............We have lost our way on everything from job creation to boys not attending college to leadership in the world---And yes, to wildlife preservation...........No better example of our lack of focus and will in the Red Wolf(Eastern Wolf) debacle that has been unfolidng in 2014 with the Red Wolf Recovery Coordinator being asked to step down and the stoppage of red wolf introductions in the Carolina's............Who will step up and make America great again and let us perpetuate the ancient Red Wolf lineage in our eastern states?

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http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/news/press_releases/2016/red-wolf-02-16-2016.html For Immediate Release, February 16, 2016 Contac...
Thursday, February 18, 2016

The problem with strict interpretation of anything that was written decades, years, centuries and millenia ago-----Things change, new facts emerge-------And therefore, my mantra of "Adapt and Overcome" weighs heavy over "Fundamentalist thinking of any kind, especially when it comes to preserving and enhancing biodiversity. Supreme Court Judge Anthony Scalia had a razor sharp analytical mind, but not a creative thinker apparently was he.............As the article regarding New York's Adirondack State Park depicts below, Vernal Pools, seasonal bodies of water in the woodlands that get Spring flooded and then get dry as a bone in Summer merit the same protection as our Federal Government affords major rivers and Streams.............."Millions of acres of prairie potholes, the breeding grounds for North America’s ducks; vernal pools where our amphibians breed; and millions of smaller wetlands that may have all sorts of invisible, below ground hydrological, ecological and other life giving functions merit protection............Even though they do not have a “continuous surface connection” with a permanent body of water" as defined by a strict interpretation of the Clean Water Act, our Federal Officials are not allowing themselves to "see the forest through the trees" as it relates to enhancing our environment through the preservation of these "other" life-giving" "wet spots"

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http://adirondackexplorer.us5.list-manage.com/track/click?u=f2786fbb7862339a0b90113d7&id=fac3ceb1d6&e=46b8d98c61 WEDNESDAY, FEBR...