Monday, November 20, 2017

The New Hampshire farmer who wrote our Post column today, Susie Spikol Fager of Hancock, New Hampshire captures beautifully the symbiosis between ourselves and Coyotes---Both of us animals are the ultimate opportunists and therefore the ultimate survivors in our respective territories..........The Coyote, whether western or eastern, will eat virtually anything available..............Rodents and rabbits of all kinds, deer(both scavenged and fresh killed), eggs, fruit, seeds and nuts..........In short, anything and everything to "LIVE LONG AND PROSPER"..............."Deer are the dominant winter food for coyotes, but it doesn’t follow that coyotes are the main reason for deer mortality"............ "According to Will Staats, a New Hampshire Fish and Game regional wildlife biologist, most deer consumed in the winter by eastern coyotes are winterkill or roadkill".............."It’s their frequent consumption of small rodents that helps us mitigate the growing threat of Lyme Disease"............Long live Coyotes!

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https://adirondackexplorer.us5.list-manage.com/track/click?u=f2786fbb7862339a0b90113d7&id=ecc596b438&e=46b8d98c61 SUNDAY, NOVEMBE...
Sunday, November 19, 2017

"In 19th century pioneer Illinois(as everywhere across the planet), Gray Wolves were (and still greatly are) associated with sin and the supernatural".......... "Even modern perceptions of wolves(witness the Great Lake, Northwest and Rocky Mtn States) are tinged with the bedtime stories of being snatched from our beds".......... "Our unwarranted fear of wolves(and all the large carnivores) is more a reflection of legend and lore than the hard science of wolf biology and behavior".......... "That said, if anything doomed Wolves(latin name-Canis lupus) in Central Illinois, it was the farmers ferocious defense of livestock, as wolves naturally turned to the relatively slow-footed and defenseless newcomers such as sheep, hogs and calves as those same farmers extirpated their natural prey of deer and Elk from the landscape"......... "In the year 1850, in Mclean County, Illinois, the people all turned out for a grand hunt, and went after the wolves in their dens, before the little wolf puppies were large enough to come out, and killed 30 in two days, and after that they were never so troublesome"......... "Circle or ring hunts were the embodiment of wolf killing as amusement"............."Participants would employ horns, cowbells and hounds to drive wolves, foxes and other animals into a predetermined killing ground, usually a field marked with a pole and flag"............"Wolves were also trapped in cages and pits, or poisoned with strychnine"............. "Prior to Wolves being wiped clean from Illinois prairies and woodlands at the dawn of the Civil War(1860), a farmer named William Wilcox was said to have “caught these cunning and treacherous animals in pens, with dogs and horses, and in every way that ingenuity could suggest"............."In 1823, the Illinois state legislature dangled $200 in prize money to the wolf killer who could produce the most scalps (“with ears entire”)"............... "In 1860, McLean County, Illinois offered a reward of $3 for grown wolf scalps, and 50 cents for wolf pups, with no distinction made between Gray Wolves or Coyotes"

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https://www.google.com/url?rct=j&sa=t&url=http://www.pantagraph.com/news/local/pfop-settlers-waged-war-of-extinction-against-wolves...
Saturday, November 18, 2017

Even with Eastern Coyotes having 10-25% Eastern Wolf genes, a lone Coyote is unlikely to kill a Whitetail Deer if the deer stands its ground and does not flee...........There is no question that Eastern Coyotes enjoy a venison meal and are key predators of newborn deer fawns in the Spring,,,,,,,,,,,In the first couple of weeks after birth, before being able to "run like the wind", Bears and Coyotes opportunistically kill fawns they come across as they patrol their territory.............In the video below, a good size Maine Eastern Coyote(25-55 pounds as a rule versus 20-35 pound Western Coyotes) comes up empty handed in a "cage match" with a Whitetail.........Had the Deer run at the sight of the Coyote, it is even money that on the slippery, snowy surface, the Coyote might have been able to leap onto the deers back initiating a killing neck bite...........Not so the case with the deer wisely matching the coyotes circular movements and keeping the canid in front of him

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CLICK ON LINK BELOW TO VIEW THE STAND-OFF BETWEEN EASTERN COYOTE AND WHITETAIL DEER IN MAINE https://www.earthtouchnews.com/natural-world...
Friday, November 17, 2017

"The forest understory is vibrant and throbbing with life"........... "But it’s too often overlooked"............... "That’s kind of indicated by how we describe it: the common definition is pretty much anything beneath the canopy"............. "That encompasses a lot of territory and a lot of different types of plants".................... "Of course some scientists parse it much more finely, breaking it down into the herbaceous layer and the shrub layer and so on. For practical purposes, you might think of the understory as anything that grows from ankle high to perhaps as high as you can reach, or slightly higher"..........."This includes everything from forest wildflowers to shrubs to shade-dwelling tree species that might get 20 or 25 feet tall, but are usually much shorter"............... "The understory also includes other tree species — seedlings and saplings — that are only hanging out there temporarily, waiting for more light so they can bolt for their true home in the canopy"............."The understory.provides food for mammals and birds, plays an important role in nutrient cycling, and provides cover and nesting structures"................ "Early-season plants help capture nutrients that would otherwise be lost in spring runoff"............... "Understory plants help moderate temperature extremes in the lower levels of the forest, and help conserve moisture"................"Deer, at densities of over 15 per square mile, can have a profound impact in eliminating understory species, including forest herbs, but also seedlings and saplings" .........."Another significant threat to the biodiversity of the understory are introduced exoticc/non-native plants, which due to a lack of predators in their new environment, often crowd out the native understory plant association"..........."Both the deer and the exotics are significant threats to the biodiversity of ecosystems"

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http://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?f=001y-GcGf90oIv0oSVHSoQnQW5GW7EnZ14JnKrD9Y7Zbpl2M65b0xTBV_Mn58TEPMWI_fUqzt_2OmaAGH5RfrYN7GkbOR-99MlXwQ8E7Em_ztvhn...
Tuesday, November 14, 2017

Janet Kessler's great COYOTE YIPPS blog has a great post on how to handle an encounter with a Coyote while walking your dog........HEAD THE OTHER WAY!!!!---Janet explains why below

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WordPress.com yipps:janetkessler posted: "Coyotes live in all of our parks, and they can be seen on t...
Monday, November 13, 2017

Any forest, anywhere in the world is in a constant evolutionary process called SUCCESSION.............."Forest succession is, simply, a “sequence of tree species, over time,” the “replacement of plant species due to differences in competitiveness due to different environmental conditions,” explained Kevin Smith, the supervisory plant physiologist at the US Forest Service’s Northern Research Station in Durham, New Hampshire".......... “The previous mix of tree species that came in, the depth of soil and its characteristics, the drainage, the temperature and the availability of seed sources all influence it"..............."In northern New England, it starts with grasses, weeds and tough wildflowers, followed by raspberries and blackberries and staghorn sumac".............. "The earliest colonizers protect the soil from erosion"........... "Most of the first tree species to follow are light lovers and quick growers"................. "They include white pine, virtually pure stands of which sprouted in abandoned fields when farmers moved on to the black earth country of the Midwest"............... “Before European settlement white pines were much more scattered on the landscape"..........."These pioneer, fast growers work together to create a new forest on bare ground, paving the way for a future forest of longer-lived species, the so-called climax forest"............ "The crowns of early successionists create annual layers of leaf litter, building up humus and looser, richer soil".......... "Their shade keeps soil moisture from evaporating".................. "All that creates conditions where shade-tolerant middle and late succession species, like sugar maples, American beech, or eastern hemlock, can grow, since they tend to need more fertile soils"........... "These trees are happy to grow slowly in the shade until a disturbance or death takes out earlier trees and grants them more light".............As events like fire, hurricanes, cyclones, earthquakes, insect outbreaks, disease pathogens and man-made alterations occur, the process of succession will start all over again assuming enough moisture, seed sources and open space remain on the landscape.

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Sunday, November 12, 2017

The Red(Eastern) Wolf is the most threatened Wolf species in North America.............Whie the Mexican Wolves are under intense pressure to survive with some 100+ currently protected in Arizona and New Mexico, the Red(Eastern Wolves) in the wild total only about 50, currently confined to North Carolina's Albemarle-Pamlico Peninsula............As many of you likely know, the USFW Service is currently debating whether to end the re-building of this population, once tens of thousands strong from Texas to Florida and from Eastern Canada down the Appalachians across to the Great Lakes...................While there are two schools of thoughts on whether the Red(Eastern Wolf) is a distinct species or a hybrid of Gray Wolves and Eastern Coyotes, my money is on the DISTINCT SPECIES evaluation put forth by Trent University(Canada) geneticists and biologists.................The Red(Eastern) Wolf known as "WA'YA" to the Cherokee Indians, is smaller than the Gray Wolf of Western North America weighing in up to 80 pounds-Gray Wolves can top out at 120)...................."Whether the Red Wolves are hybrids, subspecies or distinct species doesn't detract from their "ecological authenticity" as apex carnivores in eastern North America"...........Click on the link below to see camera footage of these beautiful canids

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CLICK ON THIS LINK TO WATCH RED WOLVES IN NORTH CAROLINA https://www.google.com/url?rct=j&sa=t&url=https://www.earthtouchnews.com/...