Tuesday, June 19, 2018

With tick transmitted Lyme Disease, Babesiosis and Anaplasmosis all increasing in frequency around the Country, thought a good idea to run a series a of Posts throughout the rest of this week so as to optimize your enjoyment of the outdoors this Summer season..........."Important to know that when ticks feed on white-footed mice, they are much more likely to survive and become infected with the pathogens that cause Lyme disease, anaplasmosis, and babesiosis"............."Also know that when a variety of birds and mammals are present, ticks can feed on non-mouse hosts that are less efficient at transferring the three disease causing bacterium"........... "As a result, this reduces the number of infected ticks"................."Also, some animals are very efficient at killing ticks"............. "Opossums are fastidious groomers and can kill thousands of ticks each week during tick season"..............."Landscapes that support predators have reduced Lyme disease risk"..........."This is because predators such as foxes, coyotes, bobcats, and barred owls feed on white-footed mice"

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https://caryinstitute.us1.list-manage.com/track/click?u=735fd733abe107220114c7fe0&id=02f861f2b8&e=e2c42f73ca The Ecology of Lym...
Monday, June 18, 2018

"Savanna and woodland were once common in the Midwest, but land use changes have led to increasing scarcity of these early-successional forest/grassland-shrub communities "............."A new study presents some of the best evidence to date that restoration efforts in Missouri's Ozark Highlands make a difference for nesting songbirds that breed there"............"The reduction of Missouri pine savannah and woodland areas has caused birds that rely on these habitats to decline"............."Current efforts to bring these habitats back are under way and include prescribed fire and thinning tree stands"................."This two-pronged habitat improvement paradigm changed the cover available to both hunting predators and hiding prey, changing the dynamics in favor of the birds who call this habitat home--shrub-nesters like the Eastern Towhee, Prairie Warbler, and Yellow-breasted Chat as well as canopy-nesting species including the Eastern Wood-Pewee, Pine Warbler, and Summer Tanager"

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http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/sciencedaily/plants_animals/ecology/~3/E2mq-12aRko/180613101955.htm?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=ema...
Wednesday, June 13, 2018

"Raccoons are famous break-in artists".......... "No chimney flue, garbage can, or campground cooler is safe from their prying hands".................."While they lack thumbs, they do have five long, tapered fingers to lift and then acutely manipulate objects".............."Thanks to this tactile intelligence, Raccoons are outstanding problem solvers that adapt easily to cities, suburbs, and our other man-altered habitats".........."When Raccoons wet and wash an object, they are not cleaning it"................."Rather, they are "seeing it"--"It’s thought that water contact increases a raccoon’s tactile ability".............."When a Raccoon wets and handles a crayfish, stone, worm, or clam, he’s gathering information".........."Nearly two thirds of the sensory data that he’s processing comes from cells that interpret various types of touch sensation".............."In other words, touch is as important a sense as hearing, smell, and sight".............."Scientists believe that being omnivorous(e.g. humans and coyotes) has driven Raccoon brain development"..........."As with humans and coyotes, every object that Raccoons come across has the potential to be food"...........So is it any wonder that we both find the Raccoon fascinating as well as annoying............"They have this enormous ability to sense with their forepaws and a brain that’s able to interpret and store vast amounts of touch sense information".............."They’re omnivorous, curious, smart, practically fearless, and they have great memories".............If they had thumbs, they would be us(lol)!

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https://northernwoodlands.org/outside_story/article/raccoons-hands Raccoons: It’s All In The Hands by Tim Traver March 31, 2...
Tuesday, June 12, 2018

Woodchucks(Groundhogs as they were referred to in Bill Murray's Groundhog Day film) are the diggers of our woodlands and meadows, ranging from Southern Alaska across Canada and into the Midwest and eastern USA".........Known to the Indians as "Monax-The Digger", they move yards of topsoil and subsoil in excavating their burrows"........"They have short, powerful forelegs equipped with stout claws, and low ears that can close to keep out dirt"..........."Their sturdy incisors are used to cut roots and pry out loose stones as they dig"........"These dens provide shelter for many other animals"............"A Wisconsin study found 20 different species associated with woodchuck burrows"........."Rabbits, opossums, raccoons, and skunks may use part of the burrow while the woodchuck is hibernating"............"Other animals inhabit vacant or abandoned dens: otters, chipmunks, voles, shrews, weasels, and snakes"............"Coyotes and foxes often enlarge old woodchuck dens for their own use"..........."Foxes have been known to use a den while the woodchuck is still living in the same tunnel system"

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https://northernwoodlands.org/outside_story/article/appreciating-woodchucks Appreciating Woodchucks by Susan Shea May 25, 201...
Monday, June 11, 2018

"A 2014 study in Science documented a steep drop in insect and invertebrate populations worldwide"...................."Rodolfo Dirzo, an ecologist at Stanford University, developed a global index for invertebrate abundance that shows a 45 percent decline over the last four decades".................... "Dirzo points out that out of 3,623 terrestrial invertebrate species on the International Union for Conservation of Nature [IUCN] Red List, 42 percent are classified as threatened with extinction".............."In Europe and the United States, researchers have documented declines in wild and managed bee populations of 30 to 40 percent and more due to so-called colony collapse disorder".............."Other insect species, such as the monarch butterfly, also have experienced sharp declines"................."Scientists cite many factors in the fall-off of the world’s insect populations, but chief among them are the ubiquitous use of pesticides, the spread of monoculture crops such as corn and soybeans, urbanization, and habitat destruction"...................."A significant drop in insect populations could have far-reaching consequences for the natural world and for humans, who depend on bees and other invertebrates to pollinate crops"......................"A study by Canadian biologists, published in 2010, suggests that North American bird species that depend on aerial insects for feeding themselves and their offspring have suffered much more pronounced declines in recent years than other perching birds that largely feed on seeds"..................."The analysis is based on data from the North American Breeding Bird Survey"............We are witnessing a clasic case of a human caused disruption in the food chain from the bottom up..............As we kill the insects, we end up killing am unlimited array of larger life forms-including ourselves..........Can we reel ourselves in from using the chemicals, planting thousands of acres with just one crop and ripping up the landscape at every turn????????

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https://e360.yale.edu/features/insect_numbers_declining_why_it_matters What’s Causing the Sharp Decline  in Insects, and Why It Matters...
Friday, June 8, 2018

Over the past two years, we have Posted a couple of videos of Pumas swimming in lakes across their current Western USA range.........."”Cougars are great swimmers"..........."They'll commonly swim between islands in search of prey".............."Their preferred prey is deer, which also swim well"................ "In addition to deer and other terrestrial animals, these opportunistic hunters will also tackle sea creatures such as otters, seals and sea lion pups"................"They're a highly adaptable predator".............. "It’s this adaptability that has resulted in mountain lions formerly claiming the largest range of any terrestrial mammal in the Western Hemisphere, with a distribution that in pre-colonial days, stretched from Canada to the southern tip of South America"................"So it’s hardly surprising, given their extensive stomping grounds, that these cats are sometimes faced with “aquatic obstacles” that force them into the drink"................ "In 2016, a pair of cougars were spotted bobbing across California’s Shasta Lake, and earlier in the summer another nautically inclined cat was seen paddling across a lake in Bellingham, Washington"

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click on this link to watch the video of the Puma swimming in California's Lake McClure https://www.earthtouchnews.com/natural-world...