Friday, May 25, 2018

Many of us have seen pictures or watched videos of Gray Wolves and Grizzly Bears fighting each other for a recently killed prey animal...............But to watch a Bald Eagle in Washington State's San Juan Island swoop in on a Red Fox and attempt to steal his(her) freshly killed rabbit is truly a must-see action sequence(click on link below to view).............Amazingly, the Eagle claws the rabbit in its talons lifting it and the fox high into the air-----------The Fox refuses to yield his "rabbit dinner" to the Eagle and withstands being flung to the ground(unharmed), albeit losing its rabbit prey to the Eagle............."Though the bald eagle’s diet is made up mainly of fish, they aren't choosy when seafood is in short supply"............."They'll eat birds, turtles, small mammals, carrion, and even pick off vulnerable chicks from an unguarded nest"............."Their kleptoparasitic habits are widely known (Benjamin Franklin even recognised their reputation as food thieves), so it's not all that surprising to witness one robbing a fox of it's rabbit"

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CLICK ON LINK AND THEN SCROLL TO BOTTOM OF ARTICLE TO VIEW THE VIDEO OF THE  BALD EAGLE "CAGE-MATCH" WITH A RED FOX OVER A RABBIT...
Thursday, May 24, 2018

"In Inuit culture, a polar bear remains a deeply respected animal, called Nanuk in the Inuktitut language, and getting one is considered the mark of a great hunter"............"Despite vanishing sea ice and shorter, milder winters, Labrador’s polar bear population is actually growing – which means a bigger harvesting quota for Inuit hunters"..........."There are more than 2,500 polar bears in the vast coastal area that includes Labrador and northern Quebec, according to Environment Canada – far more than was expected earlier in the millennium – and further signs the bears continue to rebound despite the impacts of climate change"............"The reason, biologists suspect, is the boom in the harp seal population"............. "As Newfoundland’s seal fishery has collapsed under international pressure, the harp seals of the north-west Atlantic have proliferated"............... "They now number about 7.4 million animals – more then seven times the population in the 1970s----and therefore, providing more "protein" for the Labrador Polar Bears than anytime in recent memory"

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https://www.google.com/url?rct=j&sa=t&url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/may/24/canada-polar-bears-labrador-rigolet-seal-hu...
Tuesday, May 22, 2018

"Coyotes now live across North America, from Alaska to Panama, California to Maine"................. "But where they came from, and when, has been debated for decades"............ "Using museum specimens and fossil records, researchers from the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences and North Carolina State University have produced a comprehensive (and unprecedented) range history(maps below) of the expanding species that can help reveal the ecology of predation as well as evolution through hybridization"................"Coyotes historically had a wide distribution, primarily in the western half of the continent” prior to European contact, with unknown range limits but extending at least as far east as southern Wisconsin, northwestern Indiana, western Arkansas, and central Texas"

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https://www.google.com/url?rct=j&sa=t&url=https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/05/180522114626.htm&ct=ga&cd=CAEYACoUM...
Sunday, May 20, 2018

"Six million square kilometres — 32.8 per cent — of protected land around the globe is under intense human pressure from threats including more roads, cities, farms and railways".............Canada is doing a far better job of protecting its open space and the Province of Alberta just protected another 13,600 square kilometers adjacent to Woods Buffalo Provincial Park........."With this purchase of land, Alberta is now home to the largest area of protected boreal forest in the world"................The trick now will be for Alberta to minimize the industrial pressures(dams/mining/forestry/tar sands) adjacent to its open space so as to optimize biological diversity

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http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/protected-areas-human-stress-1.4667734 Study suggests one-third of protected wildlife areas under inte...
Friday, May 18, 2018

"After 60 years, Isle Royale(Michigan) continues to be the site of the world's longest predator-prey study"..............."With only two wolves remaining alive, The Royale research team estimates the moose population to be around 1,475 members"..........."Historically, prior to the crash of the Wolf population, Moose numbered between 700 and 1,200 animals"............. "The National Park Service has proposed introducing 20-30 wolves to the island over the next three years so as to optimize both plant and animal biodiversity there"............"The final environmental impact statement was completed and the identified preferred alternative is to restore wolf predation, but the final decision on the plan is pending as of the Winter Study report publication"

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From:  Leah Vucetich ; lmvuceti@mtu.edu Date:  May 17, 2018 at 6:08:32 AM EDT To:  ", isleroyalewolfmoose-; isleroyalewolfmoose-l@mt...
Wednesday, May 16, 2018

"Cutting down trees to help birds sounds heretical"................"And the science clearly shows that intact forests are critical for interior-nesting species like Worm-eat­ing and Cerulean Warblers, and Scarlet Tanagers"............"Ample research has docu­mented the hazards to these birds when the woods become fragmented, such as more pressure from so-called edge predators like raccoons and opossums"............."But early successional forests—those dense, tangled thickets of young sap­lings, fruit-bearing shrubs, and vines—represent some of the most-needed bird habitat today, and they are largely miss­ing from many landscapes"................"In presettle­ment times, young forests were spawned by natural sources of disturbance like windstorms, hurricanes, and fire that leveled standing trees and reset the suc­cessional clock".............."Then from the late 19th through the mid-20th centuries, after the waves of European settlement, land­scapes in the East and Midwest were full of old, abandoned farm fields and regen­erating clearcuts that provided millions of acres of early successional habitat for Chestnut-sided Warblers and box tur­tles, Field Sparrows and hognose snakes"..............."The Karner blue butterfly is just one of many shrubland butterflies that depend on early successional habitat".............."Today, the natural forces of fire and wind have been dampened by human intervention and the fragmented na­ture of the landscape, with a lot of land permanently cleared for farming and development"................"Much of the forest that remains is middle-aged with striking uniformity, and little of the structural complexity from layered understories, snags, and downed logs that promotes biodiversity"............"True “old-growth” forest that survived the 19th century logging boom accounts for a fraction of one per­cent of the landscape in the East"............"Crucial as young forests may be, though, biologists say they are only part of the equation"............."The best bird habitats contain a mix of forests both young and old".............."Variety—in this case, habitat vari­ety—is the spice of life for birds(and all wildife)"................ “If you don’t have a diversity of all forest age classes and structural con­ditions, whether for a Golden-winged Warbler, a Cerulean Warbler, Wood Thrush, you name it, you’re going to have less than optimal conditions for any of those species,” said Dr. Jeff Lar­kin, a wildlife ecologist at Indiana Uni­versity of Pennsylvania who has worked on forest management strategies for all three of those birds"............. “It’s the land­scape they evolved with, long before we mucked things up"

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CLICK LINK TO READ FULL ARTICLE https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__r20.rs6.net_tn.jsp-3Ff-3D001oADDpUHcZFDuQFdb0m9mmE7WdZU...