Thursday, August 25, 2016

"The West Texas pronghorn population has crashed"................ "In the 1980s, there were approximately 17,000 animals"................ "Drought, habitat fragmentation, and a nasty parasitic worm combined into a lethal concoction that devastated the herd to a 2013 low of only 3,000 animals"............. "The Borderlands Research Institute, Texas Parks and Wildlife, and private landowners have teamed up to revive (these) dwindling populations"............. "In the words of Wildlife Biologist Louis Harveson, we drew a line in the sand not to watch this species diminish on our watch"........ "In January of 2016, they set out to capture over 100 pronghorn from an abundant herd in the Texas Panhandle and translocate them 500 miles to revive a dwindling herd near Marfa",..............."There was a 5% mortality rate(in the translocation), the lowest yet for the Texas pronghorn team, and spirits were high"................... "Abundant rainfall has given West Texas a bountiful supply of forage and release conditions are the best in years"................. "But the work is far from done"................ "(Biology) students at Sul Ross University (will conduct) ambitious research projects that will yield crucial data on (the) pronghorn's movement, survival rates (and) forage habits"............"(This will) hopefully pave the way for more translocations in the future"....................And from my perch, once the new Pronghorn populations are established, hopefully Texas Wildlife Officials will seek to restore Wolves and Pumas to the same regions, truly setting the stage for optimum biodiversity and health of the land

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https://www.google.com/url?rct=j&sa=t&url=https://stories.yeti.com/story/pronghorn-revival&ct=ga&cd=CAEYAioUMTA2ODI5NjcxODI...

Threatened and Endangered Timber Rattlesnakes are supposedly doing well enough in Pennsylvania to be removed from the State's Endangered Species List.............I certainly hope that the state biologists there have an accurate count of the snakes as in adjacent New England, New York and the Middle Atlantic, the snakes are hanging on to existence by a thread................Intuitively, based on all that you hear about disturbed habitat and den destruction, the following claim by Pennsylvania Fish & Boat Commission Endangered Species Coordinator Chris Urban rings hollow to me------“Those of us who study them have made a few back-of-the-envelope estimates, but no one has a solid number"................“The statewide population is definitely in the hundreds of thousands"............... "Considering that about 50 percent of their habitat is inaccessible for one reason or another, the number could be higher than a million"...............Chris, I sure hope I am wrong and your population estimate is sound,,,,,,,,but I am not buying it without more evidence

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https://www.google.com/url?rct=j&sa=t&url=http://www.centredaily.com/sports/outdoors/article96919397.html&ct=ga&cd=CAEYACoTO...
Wednesday, August 24, 2016

I would love to see several thousand Red Wolves back across the Appalachians alongside Eastern Coyotes...........If enough of the Wolves were in the woods, the likelihood lowers tremendously for hybridizing with the Coyotes as evidenced by the Eastern Wolves(same as Red Wolves) residing in Canada's Algonquin Park.............And if that insertion of Wolves into the system still results in hybridizing with Coyotes, well, we will still have a Eastern Canid that is best equipped to deal with both us human animals and potentially be a more effective deer hunter, something that is truly necessary in our deer bloated East

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https://www.google.com/url?rct=j&sa=t&url=http://wnct.com/2016/08/23/organizations-rally-to-keep-red-wolf-recovery-program-active/...

If I know anything about RESTORE THE NORTH WOODS Executives Michael Kellett and Jym St. Pierre, it is that in their minds, the newly designated KATAHDIN WOODS AND WATERS NATIONAL MONUMENT is only the beginning of their quest to cobble together enough willing sellers of land to create a contiguous 3.2 Million acre National Park that would touch Canada and be the anchor of an Eastern network of"wildlands and woodlands" that would connect down the entire Appalachian Spine and weave back into Florida...........A chain of open space that would put our entire AD1500 suite of predator and prey animals back on the ground fulfilling their ecological function-----In my mind, something that would truly begin the process of MAKING AMERICA GREAT AGAIN

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From: Michael Kellett [mailto:restore@restore.org] Sent: Wednesday, August 24, 2016 1:55 PM To: Meril, Rick Subject: REST...
Tuesday, August 23, 2016

Ecologist and Open Space Advocate George Wuerthner commenting on the ongoing effort that he and RESTORE THE NORTH WOODS(Michael Kellett and Jim St. Pierre) have made seeking to create a new MAINE WOODS STATE PARK..................With former Bert Bees owner Roxanne Quimby and her ELLIOTSVILLE PLANTATION INC. transferring over 87,000 acres of land to the Federal Government on Tuesday, the "bells seem to ringing" in advance of a likely President Obama Executive Order creating a new NORTH WOODS NATIONAL MONUMENT..............As NY Yankee Hall of Fame Catcher always said: "It's not over till its over".................Nonetheless,I am going to go out on the limb hoping that this Monument will indeed become a reality, "tipping my hat" to Mr, Kellett, Mr. St. Pierre and Mr.Wuerthner---All who I now call a friend and who work tirelessly for the rewilding of our Country.............As George put it recently, "There is no place else outside of Alaska where so much land is essentially undeveloped, though not entirely untouched, and some want to keep it that way by creating a 3.2-million-acre Maine Woods National Park".............This Quimby charter donation of land could one day morph out large enough to restore the Eastern Wolf, Puma, Caribou, Elk and Atlantic Salmon,,,,,, large enough to expand the toehold habitat that the Lnyx has carved out in the state

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From:  George Wuerthner [ mailto:gwuerthner@gmail.com ] Sent:  Tuesday, August 23, 2016 10:46 AM Subject:  Fwd: Maine Woods NM lik...