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Grizzly bears, black bears, wolves, coyotes, cougars/ mountain lions,bobcats, wolverines, lynx, foxes, fishers and martens are the suite of carnivores that originally inhabited North America after the Pleistocene extinctions. This site invites research, commentary, point/counterpoint on that suite of native animals (predator and prey) that inhabited The Americas circa 1500-at the initial point of European exploration and subsequent colonization. Landscape ecology, journal accounts of explorers and frontiersmen, genetic evaluations of museum animals, peer reviewed 20th and 21st century research on various aspects of our "Wild America" as well as subjective commentary from expert and layman alike. All of the above being revealed and discussed with the underlying goal of one day seeing our Continent rewilded.....Where big enough swaths of open space exist with connective corridors to other large forest, meadow, mountain, valley, prairie, desert and chaparral wildlands.....Thereby enabling all of our historic fauna, including man, to live in a sustainable and healthy environment. - Blogger Rick

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Sunday, August 31, 2014

If in fact the 8750 surveys mailed to Wisconsin residents truly represent an accurate cross-section of the population there, then the 55% response IN FAVOR OR KEEPING 660 OR MORE WOLVES(CURRENT ESTIMATE IS 660--PRE SETTLEMENT ESTIMATE OF 3-5000 WOLVES CALLING WISCONSIN HOME) ROAMING THE STATE IS A RESOUNDING WIN FOR THIS TROPHIC CANID........And with the Wisconsin survey weighted 87% residents living in Wolf country and 13% residents living outside of Wolf country, that 55% in favor of keeping the current Wolf population intact is a minimum IN FAVOR OF %(as most of the population of Wisconsin lives outside Wolf country).............As I often say to my colleagues at work after I complete my end of a project,,,,,,,,,,,,,,"BALL TO YOU" WISCONSIN DEPT. OF NATURAL RESOURCES----NOW LETS SEE YOU REVISE A WOLF MANAGEMENT PLAN THAT IS IN TUNE WITH YOUR CONSITUENTS ARE CALLING FOR

https://www.google.com/url?rct=j&sa=t&url=http://www.gazettextra.com/20140831/wolf_survey_finds_support_for_animals&ct=ga&cd=CAIyGjU1OTdlYWIwNGQ4NzFhY2M6Y29tOmVuOlVT&usg=AFQjCNGLNs1Bz91XEe7uCAxczR-XKfczZQ

Wolf survey finds support for animals

 0  0  0 Comments Comments Print Print
Paul A. Smith, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
August 31, 2014
WAUSAU—The primary challenge of modern wildlife management is not related to wildlife. It has to do with people.
Aldo Leopold, one of our guiding lights in conservation, was wearied during the Wisconsin deer wars of the mid-20th century.
An aphorism from that era is often expressed as: “Deer management is easy. People management is tough.”


As the decades have proved, good resource management must take into account social and biological data.
Human dimensions of wildlife conservation is increasingly acknowledged as a leading field of science.
It’s a study of how people’s knowledge, values and behaviors influence and are affected by decisions about wildlife and natural resources.
But the social component can’t be just a selection of comments or opinions. If you listen only to the people who yell loudest or who turn up at a meeting or have privileged access to decision-makers, you’re not likely to get a true representation of public sentiment.
Social science must be just as rigorous and well-designed as any biological study.
The field of human dimensions of wildlife took center stage this week in Wisconsin—in a good way.
On Tuesday, the Department of Natural Resources released “Public Attitudes towards Wolves and Wolf Management in Wisconsin.”
The report detailed results of a 2014 mail survey of Wisconsin residents.
The survey was designed and conducted by DNR social scientists Bob Holsman, Natalie Kaner and Jordan Petchenik.
The DNR sent 7,150 surveys to residents in wolf range and 1,600 to households outside wolf range. Fifty-nine percent were returned.
The survey set out to measure public opinion about wolves and wolf management among state residents.


The information is available just in time as the agency works to update its wolf management plan. It is scheduled to have a draft plan available for public comment this fall and a final plan to the Natural Resources Board in early 2015.
What should be in the plan? How should wolves, which have recovered over the last four decades, be managed?
Perhaps no issue reveals as wide a range of opinions in Wisconsin as wolf management.
Since the Legislature quickly passed a 2012 law creating a hunting-and-trapping season for wolves, the DNR has worked to push wolf numbers down. The target: a 350-animal goal listed in a 1999 management plan.
Is that what the public wants?
The public-attitudes survey provides the DNR with the best wolf information it has ever had at its disposal.
Among survey respondents in wolf range, 53 percent wanted wolf numbers maintained at current levels or increased in their county of residence, while 18 percent wanted wolves decreased and 15 percent wanted them eliminated.
This portion of the survey is critical since residents of wolf range live with depredation issues. When more than half of local residents want wolf numbers held steady or even increased in their county, the level of support for wolves is high.
Outside of wolf range, 56 percent wanted wolf numbers maintained or increased statewide.
At the time the survey was administered, Wisconsin had a minimum of 660 wolves, according to the DNR.
If the DNR produces a wolf plan that sticks to the old goal of 350, it can expect—and it will deserve—a public outcry.
Another aspect of the survey is notable: Most state residents support a “public wolf harvest.”
Forty percent supported a hunting-and-trapping season as a tool for reducing the wolf population, 26 percent supported the season as long as it can be sustainable, 21 percent opposed the season and 17 percent were undecided.
The agency deserves credit for taking on such a large-scale, sophisticated survey. If you don’t think 59 percent response rate on 8,750 surveys is high, check the next political poll you hear quoted. Its sample size will likely be less than 1,000.



The DNR budgeted about $70,000 for the work, said Holsman, whom the DNR hired in 2013. He previously worked for UW-Stevens Point.
The agency gets a tip-of-the-cap also for doing work that could have—and did—produce a rebuke to its plan to reduce wolves to 350.
Wisconsin residents have apparently adjusted to wolves in the post-delisting era. A majority of the public supports a regulated wolf harvest and a wolf population at least as large as it has this year.
Armed with perhaps the best human dimensions research ever conducted in Wisconsin, it is now the DNR’s job to make the updated wolf management plan reflect the public’s views.
- See more at: http://www.gazettextra.com/20140831/wolf_survey_finds_support_for_animals#sthash.sZGdOyam.dpuf
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
History, Population Growth, and Management
of Wolves in Wisconsin
Adrian P. Wydeven, Jane E. Wiedenhoeft, Ronald N. Schultz ,
Richard P. Thiel , Randy L. Jurewicz , Bruce E. Kohn , and

Timothy R. Van Deelen


The gray wolf has exhibited a remarkable recovery in Wisconsin during the late
twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, despite a common belief during the
mid-1900s that the state was no longer wild enough to support populations of large
predators such as gray wolves.

 In some ways, Wisconsin seems like an unlikely
place for wolves to have recovered. The state’s nickname, “America’s Dairyland,”
reflects the abundance of livestock farming. Wisconsin has over 3.3 million cattle and
over 5.5 million people in a land area of 140,663 km 2 . Roughly half the state is forest,
and in 2002, 46% was classified as farmland (Wisconsin Legislative Reference Bureau
2003) . Public lands include 16.4% of the state, with major land ownership in county
forests, national forests, national wildlife refuges, state forests, and state wildlife areas
(Wisconsin Legislative Reference Bureau 2003) . Wisconsin’s largest federal or state
designated wilderness area covers 73 km 2 .



Despite few large wild areas, wolves were able to recolonize and again become
important elements of forest ecosystems in northern and central Wisconsin. Legal
protection, public education and outreach, and sound scientific management of
public forest lands enabled wolves to recover and demonstrated that wolves can
recover without extensive wilderness, provided there is adequate habitat, prey, legal

protection, and public acceptance.

Early History and Initial Recolonization
of Wolves in Wisconsin
Gray wolves probably have occupied Wisconsin since the last glacier receded about
10,000 years ago, and perhaps earlier in portions of southwestern Wisconsin that
were not glaciated. Populations of wolves probably fluctuated with the size of
ungulate populations. When the first European exploration began in 1634, wolves
coexisted with herds of bison ( Bison bison ), elk ( Cervus elaphus , and white-tailed
deer ( Odocoileus virginianus ) in prairies, savannas, and oak ( Quercus ) and maple
( Acer ) forests of southern Wisconsin, and with moose ( Alces alces ), white-tailed
deer, and small numbers of caribou ( Rangifier tarandus ) in the hemlock-maple
( Tsuga-Acer ), pine ( Pinus ), swamp conifers, and boreal forests and bogs of northern
Wisconsin.

 Beavers ( Castor canadensis ) also were abundant throughout the state,
but probably more so in the streams and glacial lakes of northern Wisconsin.
When European settlement started in earnest during the 1830s, beavers were nearly
eliminated due to unregulated trapping during the fur trade, and bison were
extirpated by Native Americans after acquiring horses and firearms (Thiel 1993) 

.

Other prey such as deer, elk, and moose were probably still relatively abundant.
Jackson (1961) speculated that there were 20,000–25,000 wolves in Wisconsin
at the beginning of European settlement. This would have represented an unlikely
density of 142–177 wolves per 1,000 km 2 . Wolf densities this high have not been
documented in modern research on wolves in North America (Fuller et al. 2003) .
Wydeven (1993) speculated that perhaps 3,000–5,000 wolves existed at the
beginning of European settlement, or about 20–35 wolves per 1,000 km 2 .
This estimate appears more compatible with likely prey abundance and agrees with
recent research on wolf densities.

A bounty for the killing of wolves was offered by the Wisconsin Territory from
1839 through 1847, and following statehood (1848), a state bounty ran nearly
continuously from 1865 to 1957 (Thiel 1993) . Bounties were paid to private trappers
and hunters for killing wolves and coyotes ( Canis latrans ), and both species were
listed as wolves in bounty records. After 1947, when wolves had declined to very
low numbers, wolves were distinguished from coyotes in the bounty records (Thiel
1993) . Unlike western states, federal and state governments made no concerted
effort to eliminate wolves in Wisconsin. Rangeland grazing of livestock was not
practiced across northern Wisconsin, and livestock were normally kept in small
fenced pastures near farmsteads. Nonetheless, unregulated hunting and trapping, as
well as the incentive of bounty payments, caused the eventual collapse of the wolf

population in Wisconsin.



Recolonization of Wisconsin by wolves began by 1975, and by 1979, five wolf
packs were established in two Wisconsin counties. A wolf pack was detected in
Minnesota along the Wisconsin border during winter 1974–1975, and between
1975 and 1979, five wolves were found dead in Douglas County, Wisconsin, just
east of the Minnesota border (Mech and Nowak 1981 ; Thiel 1993) . Thiel and
Welch (1981) documented breeding packs of wolves in the state by 1977 and 1978.
In 1979, two wolves were also found dead in Lincoln County, about 200 km southeast
of the Douglas County packs (Thiel 1993) . The source of colonizing wolves was
likely the large Minnesota population to the west, although the appearance of a
pack in Lincoln County in north-central Wisconsin in 1979 may indicate that some
wolves had persisted in parts of Wisconsin. 

The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (WDNR) also maintained a 
list of state endangered and threatened species, and with their return, gray wolves
were listed as endangered species under state law in 1975. In 1979, the WDNR began
a program of formal monitoring of the wolf population (Wydeven et al. 1995) .

The late-winter wolf population grew from 25 wolves in 1979–1980 to 540
wolves in 2006–2007. During this period the range occupied by territorial wolves
grew from <1 2="" km="" to="">14,000 km 2 . Mean pack size has generally averaged
slightly less than 4, survival rates of pups to the end of the first winter averaged
29%, and about 32% of packs were unsuccessful raising pups

Saturday, August 30, 2014

Most Federal and Nevada state biologists postulate theat gray wolves were not numerous in pre-colonial Nevada.............However, the Paiute Indians historically known as the Tudinu (or Desert People), , who occupied the territory encompassing part of the Colorado River, most of Southeastern Nevada and parts of both Southern California and Utah featured the wolf prominently in their creation story, leading many to feel that the Gray Wolf did indeed have a legitimate foothold in pre-colonial Nevada................With there being some 2-3000 Pumas making a living on deer, Gray Wolves(also deer eaters) most likely can also reclaim their historical haunts in the state if they were rewilded there...................Note the following information from the MOUNTAIN LION FOUNDATION discussing Puma habitat in Nevada----Wolves can call this same ground home if given the opportunity-----"The state of Nevada encompasses 109,826 miles of land"............... "Of this the Nevada Department of Wildlife (NDOW) estimates that approximately 50,000 square miles, roughly 45 percent of the state, is suitable mountain lion habitat"............... "Using a 1982 Gap Habitat Analysis map to ascertain the amount and location of mountain lion habitat in each of Nevada's 29 Game Management Units (GMUs), MLF researchers estimate that there is closer to 55,891 square miles of suitable mountain lion habitat in the state"............ "Nevada's mountain lion habitat is distributed throughout all the mountain ranges in the state".............. "According to NDOW, "The mountain lion's habitat ranges from desert, chaparral and badlands to sub-alpine mountain and tropical rain forests".............. "In Nevada, mountain lions are most likely found in areas of pinion pine, juniper, mountain mahogany, ponderosa pine and mountain brush"(We call on Nevada to encourage the return of the wolf to these same habitat regions)

http://elkodaily.com/lifestyles/nature-notes-wolf-myth-we-will-not-allow-wolves-in/article_4b5b5426-2fe2-11e4-81c0-0019bb2963f4.html#.VAJkUj2gkrw.email


Nature Notes: Wolf myth: We will not allow wolves in Nevada

15 hours ago  •  






The myth goes like this: wolves will never live in Nevada, specifically Elko County. We simply will not allow it. We will kill any wolves that dare enter Nevada.
Russell Woolstenhulme is a Nevada Department of Wildlife biologist with the state office. He told me the gray wolf is still listed as an endangered species by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in all lower 48 states other than Idaho, Wyoming, Montana and the Great Lakes states where wolves are already delisted. However, the FWS has posted a letter of intent in the Federal Register to delist the gray wolf in all lower-48 states other than those having the Mexican gray wolf and red wolf species.




Nevada has listed the gray wolf as a big game species, but with a closed season. It is illegal to kill a wolf in Nevada. When asked if someone would be prosecuted for shooting a wolf mistaken for a coyote, Russell said someone might get away with it once but such a kill would bring on an investigation by a FWS Special Agent. It is illegal to kill a wolf attacking ones livestock, (unless the FWS delists wolves in the future).  In the meantime, someone losing livestock to a wolf could contact Wildlife Services to investigate.  They are the Federal Agency with authority to remove such wolves.
Russell said “we probably get wolves wandering in and out of Nevada.” Most likely any wolves are wandering through northeastern Elko County. NDOW has received several reports of wolf sightings but still none with verifiable photos or carcasses. Neither has there been recovered wolf scat or wolf hair clinging to a fence.





He feels it is possible, but not probable, that a wolf pack or two could establish in Elko County. We do not (yet) have the prey base to support a wolf pack. Our large elk herds are still far smaller than those supporting wolf packs in Idaho. If the gray wolf should be delisted in Nevada, he does not feel there would ever be enough wolves to hold wolf hunts.
Ken Gray is the regional game supervisor for the Nevada Department of Wildlife’s Elko office. He said “I have no doubt there are wolves that have crossed into Nevada,” but there still remains no positive proof. NDOW conducts a lot of flights counting elk and has never spotted a wolf. Ken also says they have seen no evidence of wolves being killed and left.






Russell and Ken feel wolves in Nevada will likely remain young wolves wandering through. Idaho has found it difficult to control a wolf population of about 700 with hunts. They have found trapping is more reliable to reduce wolf numbers. Finding and shooting a few wandering wolves would probably be impossible. It appears to me we may always have a few wolves, regardless of the myth.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.deseretnews.com/article/635170655
/Nevada-wolves-extinct-yet-still-endangered.html?pg=all#sBTPf6EThA4ZUsgh.03

Nevada wolves extinct, 

yet still 'endangered'

Federal agency won't remove animal from the protected list

An invasive grass species frequently found in forests has created a thriving habitat for wolf spiders, who then feed on American toads,............... Japanese stiltgrass, which was accidentally introduced to the US in the early 1900s, is one of the most pervasive invasive species.............. Typically found along roads and in forests, it has been found to impact native plant species, invertebrate populations and soil nutrients...............When humans introduce foreign species into the environment, you can at best count on a neutral set of secondary events,,,,,with all too often their being catastrophic consequences for a "long line" of native animals, reptiles and plants



ScienceDaily: Ecology Research News


CLICK ON THE TWO LINES FOLLOWING TO READ FULL ARTICLE


















UGA researchers found that Japanese stiltgrass affects
 arachnid predators. Wolf spiders, like the one above,
 thrive in the grass. As their numbers grow, more spiders
 then feed on young American toads, ultimately reducing
 the amphibian's survival wherever this grass grows.
Credit: Jayna DeVore/UGA

Friday, August 29, 2014

Historically, mountain lions (Puma concolor) once ranged over most of North Dakota, although they were considered scarce except in the Badlands region (Bailey 1926).................. Records indicate mountain lions disappeared from North Dakota in the early-1900s (Bailey et al. [1914] with the last confirmed record of a mountain lion being harvested in 1902 along the Missouri River south of Williston (Bailey 1926)..........Since 2011, research has shown mountain lions are breeding only in the northern portion of the Badlands............And with.females not reaching reproductive maturity until they are 3 years old and then only giving birth to two or three kittens every 18 months,.the 21 Puma hunting quota currently in place in North Dakota is shrinking an already tenuous population..........Allowing "Hounding" during the hunting season is quickening the kill rate........The first year of the hunting season (2005-06), seven mountains were killed................ The next four seasons, 11-12 cats were killed, until the 2010-11 season when 22 were killed......................... The high came in 2011-12, when 31 cats were taken........................ The last two seasons there have been 23 and 20 mountain lions killed, respectively........If there are at most 60 Pumas living in North Dakota, should this population be hunted in any way?.............I believe North Dakota Wildlife Officials are at the very least "out of touch with their professional training" and at the worst criminal in espousing the following Puma Management philosophy-----"One of the most effective methods of gathering data — particularly when dealing with a species new to certain areas — is to open a season on them".............. "It's kind of a reactive way to manage"................ "Animals that have been hunted and harvested provide solid information like feeding habits and genetic background"

https://www.google.com/url?rct=j&sa=t&url=http://www.therepublic.com/view/story/1c085957827143eb8e178a5f67fa7e12/ND--North-Dakota-Lions&ct=ga&cd=CAEYASoTNTk0ODU3NTk3MDc1NTk4Mjc4NTIaNDY5MjBhOTZlZmMxMTU4ODpjb206ZW46VVM&usg=AFQjCNFmG06xshGAErsDfCHL0u1O3yu3aA

Study indicates ND 

mountain lion

 population declining;

 2014 hunting 

season opened Friday

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BISMARCK, North Dakota — A multi-year study tracking
North Dakota's mountain lion population indicates the
 number of big cats is trending downward. In August
 2011, the North Dakota Game and Fish Department, in conjunction with South Dakota State University,
 embarked on a $218,000 study funded by
Pittman-Robertson excise tax money.

Stephanie Tucker, furbearer biologist for the Game
 and Fish Department, said the first phase of the
 study is in the books and a new three-year
 follow-up study will be launched this fall.
North Dakota is entering its 10th year of
managed mountain lion hunting. This year's
season opened Friday.


















Tucker said one of the most effective methods
 of gathering data — particularly when dealing
with a species new to certain areas — is to
open a season on them. "It's kind of a reactive
way to manage," she told The Bismarck Tribune (http://bit.ly/1q3enQR ). Animals that have
 been hunted and harvested provide solid
information like feeding habits and genetic
background.

For the past decade or longer, mountain
lions have been breeding in the state
but also have been immigrating from
South Dakota's Black Hills.Data from
the study also has indicated at least
two male lions have moved in from
eastern Montana.

The first phase of the study tracked
 22 mountain lions that were captured
 and either fitted with radio collars or
 ear tags.
Tucker said it focused on studying
survival rates, food habits and home
 range and movement patterns
compared to mountain lions in other
areas of North America.

Of the 22 cats captured, seven males
and seven females were fitted with radio
collars and seven males and one female
were ear-tagged. Tucker said 18 of the
 cats that were captured for the study
are confirmed dead by hunters or other
means and the fate of the remaining
four is not known.

The first year of the hunting season
 (2005-06), seven mountains were killed.
 The next four seasons, 11-12 cats were
 killed, until the 2010-11 season when
22 were killed. The high came in 2011-12,
 when 31 cats were taken. The last two
 seasons, there have been 23 and 20
 mountain lions killed, respectively.
Tucker said those numbers reflect all
forms of mortality, whether from hunters,
road kill or protection of property.
















Tucker said the first split season was three
years ago, when seven animals were held back
 from the Zone 1 season quota for those hunting
 with hounds.The state is divided into two
mountain lion zones. Zone 1 is the Badlands
 area and Zone 2 is remainder of the state.
The Zone 1 season closes Nov. 23 or when
the 14-cat quota is reached, leaving the
remaining seven in the quota for hound
 hunters, although any hunters can hunt them.
There is no quota for Zone 2.

Tucker said data shows that until 2011, the
 mountain lion population in Zone 1 was
increasing. But that has changed, she said.
We've been declining the last three years,"
 she said. Part of that has had to do with
the success of those hunting with hounds.
"Hound hunters are still having a lot of
success," she said. "We know our harvest
 season is having an impact."Conversely,
 Tucker said, those hunting without dogs
 are having less success than in previous years.

Tucker said data from the first three years
of the study indicates the survival rate of
the North Dakota mountain lion population
is significantly lower than other states. She
 said lions here showed a survival rate of 42
 percent for two years following their capture
and tagging. That compares to survival rates
 of 59 percent in the Pacific Northwest, 64-74
 percent in Utah and 67-97 percent in Canada
 where similar studies have been conducted.
At least part of that may be attributed to the
 fact that mountain lions' primary range in
North Dakota, the Badlands, is a relatively
small and closed system.Tucker said it
 also suggests the state's population is
lower than originally thought.

As far as feeding habits, lions rely mainly
 on deer — mulies and white tails — for
 most of their diet.Porcupines and beaver,
 however, also play a significant role in
the makeup of mountain lion diets.John
 Jenks, the principal investigator at SDSU,
said that is not a big surprise because
lions are known to scavenge whatever
food is readily available."Porcupines are
classic prey for mountain lions in South
Dakota," he said.Jenks said the lions in
 the Black Hills turned to stalking deer
for food after they had thinned out the
porcupine numbers. And, with larger prey,
 Jenks said, the success rate for kills is
 not all that high due to the method in
which they hunt.Mountain lions prefer to
ambush their prey from a high vantage
 point to get a running start.He said the
 scavenge rate for North Dakota lions in
 the study was around 7 percent of their
diet, on par with lions in other states.
He said interestingly, mountain lions
here don't tend to hunt larger animals
like bighorn sheep or elk. Jenks said
 lions are solitary hunters and it may
 be they haven't yet figured out how
to kill larger prey.

He added that based on a small
 population sample of lions studies
,predation on livestock appeared to
be minimal.
Jenks said there has been some
evidence of lions feeding on livestock,
 but it's not known if the lions killed or
 scavenged the carcasses. He said there
 also has been evidence of lions killing
coyotes and of injuries to the cats
themselves, likely from territorial
disputes between males.
























He said the second phase of the study will
 focus more on habitat selection and validate
population data and home range and survival
 rates from the first study.Tucker said male
 lions in the Badlands have been shown to
have a home range twice that of females —
 about 89 square miles compared to 42 —
which is on the lower end of scale in
 comparison to other states.

Jenks said the immigration of two males
 from the Charles M. Russell National
Wildlife Refuge near Fort Peck, Montana,
 is a positive for Badlands population —
at least from a genetic diversity standpoint.
 The first phase of the study has shown
mountain lions are breeding only in the
 northern portion of the Badlands.
Tucker said the next three years of the
study will include an SDSU graduate
student, the second student working
on a master's degree, on the ground
 in North Dakota.She said the goal is
to capture and track more lions to add
to the data from the first three years.
"We'd love to get another 22 cats,
but we'll take what we can get,"
Tucker said.

As far as any conclusive findings
early on, Tucker said the study may
 indicate North Dakota's mountain
lion population may never be able
to support a hunting season with a higher
 quota.

Thursday, August 28, 2014

As late as the 1860s, passenger pigeons had likely numbered in the billions.......At Fort Mississauga, Ontario (located at Niagara on the Lake, about 80 miles from Toronto) in early May of around 1860, Ross King, a major in the British army, witnessed and described in great detail a movement of passenger pigeons that has been calculated at more than two billion birds and, depending on how fast they were flying, could have been as many as 3.7 billion................ Yet by 1890, there were probably no more than several thousand of the pigeons left, and the last wild bird was shot on April 3, 1902 in Laurel, Indiana............... The rapidity with which this bird's population went from billions to none was unprecedented............. And it holds.some important lessons today for a world where increasing numbers of species are becoming extinct. ............... Hunting, cutting of nesting trees, and other disruptive land alteration caused many pigeons to abandon their nests before eggs were laid or hatched, or chicks were fledged..................... The chicks, or squabs, were highly coveted themselves and barrels were filled with them......................... Consider that passenger pigeons nested once a year and laid a single egg.................. Thus with tremendous anthropogenic mortality and few if any young being produced, the collapse in population becomes easier to understand.......... Those adults that eluded human pursuers eventually aged and met the fate of all organisms. ...............The story of the Passenger Pigeon teaches us that we need to be vigilant and proceed with caution. If the passenger pigeon can disappear in decades, so can so many other of the planet's riches, be they biological or not – even if they now seem abundant............. And those that are rare can vanish in a heartbeat. .

http://e360.yale.edu/feature/fate_of_the_passenger_pigeon_looms_as_a_somber_warning/2797/#.VAAE-cx_1LY.email

28 AUG 2014: ESSAY

Fate of the Passenger Pigeon
Looms as a Somber Warning

This September 1 marks the 100th anniversary of the death of Martha, the last known passenger pigeon on earth. The extinction of this once-abundant North American bird still stands as a cautionary tale.

by joel greenberg

This September 1 is the 100th anniversary of a landmark event in the history of biodiversity. On that day in 1914, at about one o'clock in the afternoon, Martha – the last surviving passenger pigeon – died at the Cincinnati Zoo. It is extraordinary to know with virtual certainty the day and hour when a species ceases to be a living entity. And it was a stunning development because less than half a century earlier, the passenger pigeon had been the most abundant bird in North America, if not the world. 

As late as the 1860s, passenger pigeons had likely numbered in the billions, and their population was neither evenly distributed across the landscape
View Gallery
Martha, last passenger pigeon

Smithsonian Institution
Martha, the last surviving passenger pigeon, on display at the Smithsonian Institution.
nor in any way subtle. These birds had a propensity for forming huge aggregations that are difficult to imagine today. John James Audubon, America's best-known student of birds, recorded a flight of passenger pigeons along the Ohio River in Kentucky that eclipsed the sun for three days. Other accounts, written over the course of three centuries and in several languages, testify to the birds darkening the sky for hours at a time over the major cities of the eastern third of the United States and Canada. 

At Fort Mississauga, Ontario (located at Niagara on the Lake, about 80 miles from Toronto) in early May of around 1860, Ross King, a major in the British army, witnessed and described in great detail a movement of passenger pigeons that has been calculated at more than two billion birds and, depending on how fast they were flying, could have been as many as 3.7 billion. Yet by 1890, there were probably no more than several thousand of the pigeons left, and the last wild bird was shot on April 3, 1902 in Laurel, Indiana. The rapidity with which this bird's population went from billions to none was, I believe, unprecedented. And it holds
The 1871 nesting of passenger pigeons in Wisconsin likely involved 136 million adult birds.
some important lessons today for a world where increasing numbers of species are becoming extinct. 

At the time of Martha’s death, the depletion of so much abundance in such a short time was difficult for people to accept and explain. There were the deniers who claimed the hordes of pigeons all moved to South America where they changed their appearance to elude their pursuers. Some, like Henry Ford, accepted their extinction but thought the birds had drowned in the Pacific Ocean as they fled to freedom. More plausible theories included disease, which although not impossible is without any evidence at all, as large numbers of dead birds were never found (unlike caves today filled with dead bats, the victims of white-nose syndrome). 

The best evidence is that the bird was "simply" slaughtered into oblivion. The introduction and expansion of the telegraph and railroad beginning in the 1840s meant that wherever the birds were observed the information could be distributed quickly and widely. This enabled hunters from all over to converge on such locations, and the proximity of rail stations meant the pigeon corpses could be easily conveyed to the burgeoning markets of the Midwest and East. These markets sustained anywhere from 600 to 3,000 hunters who did nothing but chase the birds throughout the year wherever they appeared. Their efforts were augmented by local hunters, who also took advantage of this fortuitous source of revenue. 

Habitat loss played a role in the extinction as well, but only indirectly. There was still plenty of forage to support the birds, but logging and the expansion of agriculture reduced the areas where the birds could congregate and made them more accessible to hunters. 

Of course, not every one of the billions of birds were shot or netted. Think about the links in the chain of life. Some of the pigeon nesting concentrations were incredibly large: The 1871 Wisconsin nesting spread across 850 square miles and likely involved 136 million adult birds. But the shooting, burning, cutting of nesting trees, and other disruptive practices 
What drove the slaughter was the abundance of pigeons, which made them cheap.
used by hunters caused many pigeons to abandon their nests before eggs were laid or hatched, or chicks were fledged. The chicks, or squabs, were highly coveted themselves and barrels were filled with them. Consider that passenger pigeons nested once a year and laid a single egg. Thus with tremendous anthropogenic mortality and few if any young being produced, the collapse in population begins to become understandable. Those adults that eluded human pursuers eventually aged and met the fate of all organisms. 

What drove the slaughter was the abundance of the pigeons, which made them cheap. They were the least expensive terrestrial protein available. Birds could be purchased for pennies a piece. In some places, the birds were worth nothing, and they were fed to pigs or simply discarded as garbage. In the last big nesting in 1878, one eyewitness reported that the pigeons were used to fill potholes in the road. 

By 1900, there were three captive flocks all located in the Midwest. It is not known when Martha was born but she hatched either in the Milwaukee or Chicago flock. In either event, she was certainly descended from the Milwaukee birds and lived for a while in Chicago. From there, she was sent in 1902 to the Cincinnati Zoo where she shared quarters with a small flock, including a male named George. (The zoo channeled the first presidential first family, the Washingtons, in their naming of passenger pigeons.) 

As time elapsed, even with some successful breeding, the captive pigeons declined until the only two remaining were George and Martha. On July 10, 1910, George died, leaving Martha the distinction by which she is known. Over the ensuing four years, Martha became infirm and less likely to flutter or walk. But she was an attraction and crowds gathered around her enclosure. Until the zoo took steps to protect her, visitors would throw sand at her to prompt her to move. 

And then on that September day, Martha too joined the rest of her species. She was frozen in a block of ice and sent by train to the Smithsonian
If the passenger pigeon can disappear in decades, so can so many other of the planet’s riches.
Institution where she has been ever since

The loss of the passenger pigeon did not go unnoticed: It helped spawn the country's first great environmental movement, which led to the federal government's assumption of jurisdiction over the taking of birds. The first such federal law was introduced on the floor of the United States House of Representatives in 1900 by Iowa Congressman John Fletcher Lacey: "It is late. It is too late as to the wild pigeon. The buffalo is almost a thing of the past, but there still remains much to preserve, and we must act earnestly if we would accomplish good things." This became known as the Lacey Act, which banned the interstate commerce in illegally obtained birds. A few years later, Congress passed the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, which ratified an agreement with Britain (on behalf of Canada). We no longer slaughter migratory birds as we did in the nineteenth century. 

Over the succeeding decades we began to see other pernicious things we were doing to rip asunder the web of life. Rachel Carson's Silent Springwarned about pesticides. There were other types of pollution, and there was habitat loss. These realizations contributed to the nation's second great environmental movement of the 1960s and 70s. Out of that effort, the country again enacted laws: the National Environmental Policy Act, the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, the Endangered Species Act. This last was a promise that the United States would not allow species to become 
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A group led by futurist Stewart Brand is spearheading a movement to try to revive extinct species, such as the wooly mammoth and the passenger pigeon. In aYale Environment 360 debate, Brand makes the case for trying to bring back long-gone species, while biologist Paul Ehrlich argues that the idea is ill conceived and morally wrong.
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extinct, at least not without a major effort to save them. 

Despite all that has happened since, Martha's death haunts us still. There is no better cautionary tale to the proposition that no matter how abundant something is – be it fuel, water, or an organism – we can lose it if we are not good stewards. 

There are now over 7 billion of us on the planet, more than there ever were passenger pigeons at their most abundant. We struggle to increase our standards of living, which generally involves greater consumption of the world's resources – and the consequences of that are altering the world’s climate. Technological innovations allow us to locate and take more and more. Powerful political forces here in the U.S. are trying to weaken or gut the environmental laws. The seas are being denuded of tuna, sharks, and other targeted species. In the American West, aquifers and rivers are shrinking. And this summer, the citizens of Toledo, Ohio were warned not to drink water from Lake Erie, even after boiling, because the lake had been contaminated by unsafe levels of microcystin (from algal blooms related at least in part to agricultural runoff). 

The story of Martha teaches us that we need to be vigilant and proceed with caution. If the passenger pigeon can disappear in decades, so can so many other of the planet's riches, be they biological or not – even if they now seem abundant. And those that are rare can vanish in a heartbeat. 

will happen again.

Wednesday, August 27, 2014

Dr. Cristina Eisenberg is back with us today with her latest Island Press blog post about the connection between wilderness and thriving carnivore populations.................Cristina in her own words-----"Studies worldwide compellingly demonstrate that large carnivores enrich ecosystems by controlling their plant-eating prey, which in turn reduces herbivore damage to plants"............... "However, large carnivores, such as grizzly bears (Ursus arctos) which need lots of room to roam and are vulnerable to conflicts with humans, need protected wilderness in order to thrive."......................"As we move into the brave new world of climate change, the Wilderness Act’s legacy becomes increasingly vital"................ "In today’s rapidly warming world, wilderness is essential to help large carnivores and other at-risk species, such as caribou (Rangifer tarandus), adjust to climate change"................... "Wilderness gives them room to roam and find habitat that better meets their ecological needs"............... "Therefore, as part of climate change adaptation, we should examine how our wilderness areas are distributed and identify areas where wilderness could be extended or added, to ensure corridors for migration and adaptation for the large carnivores and other species"



THE WILDERNESS ACT AT 50: WHERE THE CARNIVORES ARE

Fifty years ago, Congress created the Wilderness Act, which today protects nearly 110 million acres of United States lands. Protected, intact wilderness matters even more today than it did in 1964, when this act was signed.
I am intimately acquainted with wilderness. For the past 20 years I have lived with my family in a cabin adjacent to the Bob Marshall Wilderness, at 1 million acres one of the largest federal wilderness areas in the contiguous United States. As a working scientist, my research on wolves (Canis lupus), elk (Cervus elaphus), aspen (Populus tremuloides), and fire in Rocky Mountain ecosystems has shown me that wilderness—which contains relatively intact, large tracts of land—is essential to create ecologically resilient landscapes. Carnivores are a big part of what makes these landscapes so healthy.
 Studies worldwide compellingly demonstrate that large carnivores enrich ecosystems by controlling their plant-eating prey, which in turn reduces herbivore damage to plants. However, large carnivores, such as grizzly bears (Ursus arctos) which need lots of room to roam and are vulnerable to conflicts with humans, need protected wilderness in order to thrive.
My back yard provides a powerful example of the connection between carnivores and wilderness. The Bob Marshall Wilderness lies in the heart of The Crown of the Continent Ecosystem. The most important wildlife corridor in North America, this 28-million-acre ecosystem consists of 90 percent federally-protected wilderness. Seventeen species of carnivores live there—all the species present at the time of the Lewis and Clark Expedition in 1804. But looking beyond my back yard and the Crown of the Continent, federal wilderness matters to carnivores on a continental scale.
Carnivore distribution, federal wilderness, and urban areas. Map by Curtis Edson, used with permission.
Carnivore distribution, federal wilderness, and urban areas. Map by Curtis Edson, used with permission. Click to enlarge.
When I wrote the book The Carnivore Way, I enlisted the help of landscape ecologist Curtis Edson. He created beautiful maps of the distribution of each of the carnivores that I wrote about: wolf, grizzly bear, wolverine (Gulo gulo), lynx (Lynx canadensis), cougar (Puma concolor), and jaguar (Panthera onca). Curtis also created a composite map that contained the North American ranges of all of these species, overlain by urban and federal wilderness map layers. His composite map tells a riveting tale about the importance of wilderness. The layers show that where the carnivores are is where federally protected wilderness provides a refuge for them.
As we move into the brave new world of climate change, the Wilderness Act’s legacy becomes increasingly vital. In today’s rapidly warming world, wilderness is essential to help large carnivores and other at-risk species, such as caribou (Rangifer tarandus), adjust to climate change. Wilderness gives them room to roam and find habitat that better meets their ecological needs. Therefore, as part of climate change adaptation, we should examine how our wilderness areas are distributed and identify areas where wilderness could be extended or added, to ensure corridors for migration and adaptation for the large carnivores and other species.
Cristina Eisenberg

About Cristina Eisenberg 

 Cristina.Eisenberg

@oregonstate.edu 


Dr. Cristina Eisenberg is
 a conservation biologist 
at Oregon State University,
 a Smithsonian Research 
Associate, and a Boone 
and Crockett Fellow who
 studies how wolves affect
 forest ecosystems 
throughout the West.
 She is the author of 
The Wolf's Tooth and 
the new book The 
Carnivore Way.