Thursday, July 27, 2017

"While we tend not to think of skunks as meat-eaters, these animals like diversity in their diets"............ "While small critters like insects, rodents and amphibians are the most common skunk prey, the opportunistic eaters will also scavenge larger kills when they can – and with anal-gland chemical weaponry at their disposal, it's not too difficult to get a share"..........Some "holy cow, can you believe it" videos of a Skunk in the Bighorn National Recreation area(bordering Wyoming and Montana) chasing off(via it's pungent spray) both a Puma(Mountain Lion) and a Fox from a dead deer that the Skunk had claimed for dinner

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CLICK ON THIS LINK TO WATCH VIDEOS OF A SKUND CHASING OFF A PUMA AND A FOX FROM A CLAIMED SCAVENGED DEER https://www.earthtouchnews.com...
Wednesday, July 26, 2017

During it's 8 year run, the Obama Administration put the 50 or so remaining Red(Eastern) Wolves in the USA(North Carolina barrier islands location) in jeopardy of extinction........Their Plan and the one that the Trump Administration continues to endorse(both Dems and Repubs are awful on biological diversity and endangered species issues) focuses on preserving Red Wolves in zoos via a captive breeding program and only allowing a few Wolves to run wild on Federally owned land in Dare County North Carolina, specifically the Dare County Bombing Range and Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge"..... "Virtually all conservation groups, like Defenders of Wildlife and The Center for Biological Diversity are opposed to this idea".............."Shrinking the red wolf’s wild territory by about 90 percent would have a “catastrophic impact” on the wild population"..................The Wolves need more land to roam and to be able to grow in population via the historical program of sterilizing the Coyote population(which can hybridize with the Red Wolves due to their historical common ancestory lineage, especially when there are so few Wolves about)..............Wake up Interior Secretary Zinke,,,,,,,,You have a chance to undue the previous Administration's wrong-headedness on this matter.............Surprise the environmentalists by demonstrating that a Republican Administration can grow jobs and grow wildlife simultaneously.............What bragging rights that would reap!!!!!

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https://www.google.com/url?rct=j&sa=t&url=http://publicradioeast.org/post/public-comment-sought-changes-red-wolf-program&ct=ga...
Tuesday, July 25, 2017

Two videos for you to observe a juvenile(sub-adult) Puma in the Ranch San Antonio Preserve (Santa Cruz Mountains) south of San Francisco, California battling to hold onto and make a kill of a Black-Tail Deer..............Pumas are ambush predators, lying in wait of passing prey to pounce on and make a throat biting, instantaneous, clean kill.................The juvenile Puma in this video is not yet an experienced hunter and he(she) incorrectly has grasped the deer by its nose, on the wrong side of the deers antlers, thus having to battle and tire the deer for a full 10 minutes before being able to switch his(her) bite to the throat so that a kill and a meal is secured................While some of you might feel squeamish viewing this video, know that just as we human animals kill other animals of all sorts for food (via slaughterhouse and gun/rod), so has the Puma/deer-elk predator and prey paradigm played out in natures design for eons, with all three of these creatures being able to thrive at healthy ecosystem maintaining populations.............We seem to be the only predator that has a history of driving other species to extinction via our modern arsenal of weapons, poisons and land altering endeavors

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https://www.earthtouchnews.com/natural-world/predator-vs-prey/jogger-films-mountain-lions-15-minute-battle-with-a-deer-video Jogger films...
Monday, July 24, 2017

As many of you know, all dogs have the same genetic makeup of Wolves................While there are many theories regarding when man first domesticated some wild wolves into what we now call dogs, most scientists agree that the most social,docile and trusting of Wolves took the most chances coming into ancient peoples camps to scavenge scraps of leftover foodstuffs.................From this association, came our dog breeds of today................New research from Princeton University canid resarcher Bridgett von Holdt and Oregon State's Monique Udell suggests that "mutations in three genes known as GTF2I, GTF2IRD1 and WBSCR17 cause an increase in social behavior in domestic dogs that is usually not seen in Wolves"...... "Interestingly, two of wolves in the study were very social and dog-like in their behavior, while one of the dogs acted quite wolf-like"......... "The team found that the two social wolves had more mutations in these three genes while the wolf-like dog had fewer mutations..........Both Von Holdt and Udell are quick to empathize that since they only studied 18 dogs and 10 gray wolves who had been socialized to people, much more research with a larger sample of both wild and domestic canids will need to be conducted to fully flush out their hypothesis on why dogs so easily "hang" with us humans and vice versa

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To read full article, click on this link https://www.google.com/url?rct=j&sa=t&url=http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sc...
Sunday, July 23, 2017

It has been 155 years since our great American Philospher and Naturalist Henry David Thoreau passed away...........His insights into our natural world and his theories on forest succession resonate even more strongly in 2017 than when he was living in mid 19th Century New England--now that 7 billion(expected to hit 9 Billion by AD2100) of us humans are altering the planet and exploiting its bounty with ever rapid speed...........In his own words----"No one has yet described for me the difference between the wild forest which once occupied the oldest townships, and the tame one which I find there to-day(note that 70 to 90% of the forest East of the Mississippi was cut down by the late 19th century,,,,,The woods you seen today have grown up and been cut down 3 to 5 times since colonization----the oldest today some 125 years old)"..................... "The civilized man not only clears the land permanently to a great extent, and cultivates open fields, but he tames and cultivates to a certain extent the forest itself"................... "By his mere presence, almost, he changes the nature of the trees as no other creature does"......................."While the wind is conveying the seeds of pines into hard woods, the squirrels and other animals are conveying the seeds of oaks and walnuts into the pine woods"........ "The oak seeds that are buried anew every year under the protection of the evergreen woods suffer less from the shading effect of the mature pines than do the pine seedlings"................. "When the pine woods are cut down, the oak seedlings finally get a chance to develop into trees"

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http://adirondackexplorer.us5.list-manage1.com/track/click?u=f2786fbb7862339a0b90113d7&id=c724694772&e=46b8d98c61 Reclaiming He...
Wednesday, July 19, 2017

"From the 1870's onward, the White Ash tree has been the the preferred choice of Major League Baseball Players......While the last decade has seen Maple being used by more and more players, Ash bats are still very much a staple in Major League dugouts.............This might not last though as the Emerald Ash Borer beetle wrecks more and more havoc on White Ash trees throughout its Illinois eastward range.............This Asian exotic insect is another example of how biomes all over the world are being negatively impacted by exotics that come into Countries via plane, boat and train..............It is a real possibility that the White Ash could go the way of the American Chestnut and Elm, virtually being exterminated from the Eastern Woodlands due to invasion of a non-native insect and pathogen................"Additionally, as warming due to climate change accelerates, the ash wood that now makes an ideally dense but flexible bat might turn softer because of a longer growing season"

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http://mobile.nytimes.com/2007/07/11/us/11ashbat.html Balmy Weather May Bench a Baseball Staple By MONICA DAVEY JULY 11, 2007 R...