PROJECT COYOYTE sponsoring a series of talks with Paul Pacquet and Marco Musiani about how humans can successfully coexist with other fellow predators

Tails of Marin: Experts hope to introduce more people into world of wolves

By Camilla Fox

Posted: 06/18/2010 09:05:31 PM PDT

Northern Rockies and coyotes fill vacant niches where wolves once dominated the landscape, misunderstanding and misinformation of these wild canines can drown out the melody and lead to conflict.

No other species is as beloved and reviled as the wolf. Two renowned wolf experts, Paul Paquet and Marco Musiani will share their stories, observations and research in a series of Bay Area talks this month sponsored by Marin-based Project Coyote.

Paquet and Musiani are co-editors of two new books, "A New Era for Wolves and People" and "The World of Wolves." Studying wolves all over the world from Saskatchewan to Montana, Paquet and Musiani have collectively more than 50 years experience in wolf ecology and behavior.

Their latest work focuses as much on people as canis lupus because human behavior and socio-politics are as much or more important than wolf behavior in determining the fate of the species.

This is equally true for the wolf's close relative - the coyote. Both species have been unrelenting victims of misguided federal predator control programs, snaring, aerial hunting, poisoning, bounties, denning (the killing of coyote/wolf pups in their dens) and body-count contest hunts where prizes are awarded for the largest and most animals killed. And now as hybridization between coyotes and wolves is taking place in the Northeast where wolves are protected and coyotes can be killed year round in unlimited numbers, questions about appropriate and ethical management, wolf recovery and conservation, and wild canid evolution are coming to the fore.

While many local residents complain about rodent infestations and the presence of wild turkeys and Canada geese, the coyote is one of the most effective predators of all three.

Project Coyote's mission is to promote educated coexistence between people, coyotes and other native carnivores, noting that the presence of a "problem" or habituated coyote that has lost its fear of people is often the product of inadvertent or intentional feeding.

Readers should check http://www.projectcoyote.org/ < http://www.ProjectCoyote.org>  for information about how to coexist with coyotes and reduce negative encounters with America's native wild "song dog."

Food chain apex carnivores have always made people feel uneasy and the unease is often the product of misunderstanding normal animal behavior.

We cannot change our own behavior and design effective strategies for sharing our community with wildlife until we "know" these species - and understand how our actions can both positively and negatively effect our interactions with wild carnivores.

INFORMATION ON PACQUET AND MUSIANI EVENT:
What: "World of Wolves" with Paul Paquet and Marco Musiani
When: 6 p.m. June 24
Where: Marin Humane Society, 171 Bel Marin Keys Blvd., Novato
Admission: Free
Information: 883-4621, http://www.marinhumanesociety.org/ < http://www.marinhumanesociety.org> , projectcoyote.com
When: 7 to 9 p.m. June 25
Where: Book Passage, 51 Tamal Vista Blvd., Corte Madera
Admission: Free
Information: 927-0960; http://www.bookpassage.com/ < http://www.bookpassage.com

Project CoyoteP.O. Box 5007
Larkspur, CA 94977
ph: 415.945.3232 

Mountain lion killed in Rapid City neighborhood-Iowa has the Cougar!

Mountain lion killed in Rapid City neighborhood

http://www.kcautv.com/global/story.asp?s=12678895

click above link to read full article

'Cougars beginning to colonize Missouri?

Midwest Cougars East and South of the Dakotas.............click below to read article
http://www.columbiatribune.com/news/2010/jun/20/cougars-make-mo-home/
columbiatribune.com

"THE LANDSCAPE OF FEAR"

 

Helen Mcginnis of the Eastern Cougar Foundation introduced me last week to John Laundre, wildlife biologist who is the originator of the "LANDSCAPE OF FEAR" ecological concept and co-originator of the "ECOLOGY OF FEAR" concept...............the paradigm that states that all animals(including humans) spatial and temporal use of the landscape is fear driven.

 

As revered naturalist Aldo Leopold aptly put it: " AS A DEER HERD LIVES N MORTAL FEAR OF ITS WOLVES, SO DOES A MOUNTAIN LIVE IN MORTAL FEAR OF ITS DEER."

 

Fear is defined as a strong emotion caused by the anticipation or awareness of danger. In us humans, it is at play daily in our locking of our homes and car doors............making sure we know who our kids are playing with and where they are playing.................not walking down deserted streets late at night............the home securitiy business is driven by our fear of being violated or killed.

 

For all animals, a certain backround level of fear of predation is critical for species to survive and perpetuate their stay on the planet. To walk around clueless or oblivious to potential threats invites that species going extinct quickly!

 

John's teriffic and defining article(click on below) discusses how animals respond to changes in predation risk by altering their behavior patterns on the landscape, not lingering in locations where they learn predators might lurk, eating less of their preferred foods in favor of vigilance and staying on the move to avoid being killed.

 

His and many of his fellow biologists(and this layman concurs) point-of-view is that all animals learn to do their best to avoid being eaten. That it is not just instinct or hard wiring that stimulates creatures to avoid predation, but in fact it is learning, the same kind that we humans employ, that assist Elk from being corralled by Wolves...........Bighorn Sheep from being ambushed by Cougars.

 

Since predators of all types generally are successful in their hunts 20% of the time, the animals that they hunt in fact have time to learn how to avoid mortal danger.................that in fact adult deer and caribou can teach their youngsters "where to play and where not to play"...........................

 

Additionaly, the CONCEPT OF FEAR has very positive impacts on the landscape by minimizing prey animals overgrazing preferred plant foods..............allowing for regeneration of the optimum suite of green plants..............resulting in stabilized watercourses and terrestrial habitats...............leading to the widest and fullest biodiversity array possible.

 

We will be hearing more from John on an on-going basis..........................Teriffic insights and enjoy his expertise!

 

click to read:

 

 

From: John Laundre <launjohn@hotmail.com>
To: Meril, Rick
Sent: Tue Jun 15 12:40:27 2010
Subject: RE: The Fear factor

Rick,
 
I am a wildlife ecologist who has been studying cougars for over 20 years, mainly in southern Idaho but also in northern Mexico.  I have published a variety of scientific articles on cougars and am a co-author of one of the chapters in the new cougar book edited by Hornocker.  I have also worked with coyotes and wolves. I am the originator of the concept of the landscape of fear and co-originator of the more general concept of the ecology of fear.  With all modesty, I originated the discussion of fear as an ecological concept.  After several years in northern Mexico, we decided to return to the states where my wife, Dr. Lucina Hernández got a job as the director of a small field station for the University of New York at Oswego.  She started that work in the fall of 2008 and we continue here.  I am working parttime as an adjunct professor and am trying to develop my skills as a nature writer, especially on predators.  So I do have a lot of ideas on predators, which run counter to much accepted wisdom (they are evil) and accepted practice by game agencies (kill them).  I have to admit, after looking at your website, I see this as an opportunity to be a voice for the predators as important ecological players and as presenting my ideas on predators, the landscape of fear, etc. to a broader public.  I have a lot to say and hope I can use your blog as a platform
 
To start with, if you are a mind to, you can post either of both (parts or total) of the two voice articles on the blog.  The Voice is a newsletter of a nonprofit and there is no copyright involved.  Also, if you would want to post the site address for the article from the Open Ecology Journal, as the name indicates it is open to all.  The site address is: http://www.bentham.org/open/toecolj/openaccess2.htm
 
Thanks
 
John

WOLVERINES SOMEHOW STILL PERSISTING IN MICHIGAN?

http://www.mlive.com/news/bay-city/index.ssf/2010/06/wolverine_in_dnre_freezer_futu.html

Are Wolverines still somehow finding an isolated snowy spot to survive in Michigan? Hope for the New England States as well as the Great Lakes Region?....click on link above to read full article

RIVER OTTERS RESTORED IN INDIANA.....one small step for biodiversity!

If we keep at it, diversity across Wild America is possible to restore..........
River otters returning to Indiana
Click on the link below to read................
http://www.nwitimes.com/sports/local/article_38dc1396-1312-5a61-b1c3-47db4dd3fb2c.html

POLAR BEAR PROTECTION ....YES, THEN NO!

http://www.montrealgazette.com/technology/Nunavut+reversal+polar+bears+alarming+Scientist/3172367/story.html

Political hot potato,..............polar bear protection plan is!.....click on link above to read article

SOUTH SALEM, NY WOLF CENTER.....GREAT VIDEO OF RED WOLF PUPS WITH MOTHER WOLF

click on video at the South Salem, NY Wolf Center to see Red Wolf mom with her pups
http://nywolf.blogspot.com/2010/06/blog-post.html

WHEN ANOTHER CARNIVORE BESIDES US HUMANS ENTERS OUR LIVING SPACE, CONTROVERSY ERUPTS

Some welcome Oregon wolf return, others concerned

June 18, 2010    11:52 am

Their deep, mournful howls sometimes drift along Tucker Down Road not far from Joseph, sliding across the open ranch country and timber-covered mountain foothills.
Wolves finally have returned to Oregon.
Two small permanent packs roam the far northeastern corner of the state -- giving Oregon its first real taste of what's ahead as Canadian gray wolves repopulate their historic haunts.
"Wolves were a missing piece of that ecosystem," said Cat Lazroff, spokeswoman for the 530,000 member Defenders of Wildlife environmental group.
The powerful predators are good for the isolated landscape and its wildlife, she said. They keep elk and deer on the move, preventing them from overgrazing. That, in turn, improves the health of riverbanks and re-energizes foliage and grasses, she said.
"One of the things that wolves can do is make their traditional prey species act more the way they used to," Lazroff said.
But Wallowa County ranchers beset by a rash of wolf attacks on calves this spring insist that cattle and Canis lupus will never co-exist in their rugged county, where cows outnumber people almost 4-to-1.
"You've got essentially a social experiment here," said Wallowa County Sheriff Fred Steen."Wolves are a very efficient, four-legged piranha."
Wildlife managers fall in the middle of the debate -- they've sent government hunters to kill two wolves because of attacks on livestock and issued permits to several ranchers, allowing them to kill wolves if they catch the animals preying on their cattle.
This is likely the beginning of a culling cycle that should keep the wolf population down in Oregon, preventing dramatic declines in livestock and Rocky Mountain elk, said Ed Bangs of Helena, Mont., the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's gray wolf recovery coordinator.
"There will not be wolves wall-to-wall, that's for sure," Bangs said.
That's little comfort to ranchers worried about their livelihoods. The 10-wolf Imnaha pack, which ranges near Joseph and Enterprise, has killed up to nine calves since early May on private ranchland in the green and nearly treeless Wallowa Valley.
Todd Nash believes the pack killed one of his calves this spring and 15 to 20 of his calves last year on a 100,000-acre government grazing allotment.
"I never found a single carcass. I never found anything," said Nash, operator of the 550-cow Marr Flat Cattle Co. near Joseph."This is like the'Twilight Zone.' Every time I go out to check cattle, the first thing I look for is something that's dead. It makes my heart sick."
Wolves once roamed from central Mexico to the Arctic, but were hunted, trapped and poisoned to near-extinction by the 1930s in most places besides Canada, Alaska and northern Minnesota. Some remained in eastern Oregon until 1921, and the last bounty was paid in 1946 for an Oregon wolf killed in the Umpqua National Forest.
Wolf numbers in recent years have rebounded dramatically, and Bangs said more than 1,700 wolves now ramble around Oregon, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming and Washington. Environmentalists say that keeps prey species wild and creates healthier stands of aspen, willow and cottonwood because elk and deer don't have the leisure in wolf country to eat them down.
Gray wolves are protected under Oregon's Endangered Species Act. The better-known federal act of the same name protects wolves in the western two-thirds of the state, but not in the eastern third. The federal government is considering whether to once again list wolves as an endangered species across the West.
Oregon's 5-year-old Wolf Conservation and Management Plan calls for allowing gray wolves to migrate in from Idaho, but eliminating wolves that kill pets and livestock. Ranchers must have a permit to shoot wolves when they're killing livestock in eastern Oregon. If they kill a wolf without one -- even if it's attacking cattle -- they face a misdemeanor with a maximum penalty of a year in jail, a $6,250 fine and $1,000 in restitution.
The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife this spring authorized government hunters to trap and kill two uncollared wolves -- but they must spare the Imnaha pack's alpha male and female, the state's only known pair of breeding wolves. The agency also issued"kill permits" to nine ranchers.
Last September, federal hunters killed two young gray wolves in Baker County in the first authorized hunt of its kind in Oregon after they killed 27 sheep, a goat and calf on two ranches.
Ranchers can apply for compensation from Defenders of Wildlife for the value of cattle killed by wolves, but they complain that it can be difficult to get confirmation that a cow or calf fell prey to a wolf
Joseph rancher Rod Childers claims that on average around the West, only one of eight cows killed by wolves is confirmed as such."For the other seven, the rancher gets nothing," he said.
Ranchers also say they have little political clout and don't get much empathy for the everyday hardships that living with a new predator poses.
"We are against the world," said Wallowa County rancher Karl Patton, standing beside his mud-spattered four-wheeler, a holstered revolver on his hip, after checking some of his 400 cows on a lonely section of his ranch."Those people over there" -- in the Willamette Valley --"who do the voting, they don't have an idea what we are up against."
Ranchers must change the way they operate because of wolves, they say. Some are keeping their cows away from private timberlands that have been grazed for decades because they fear wolves can get at the cattle too easily in those remote reaches. That translates to less income for some landowners and greater potential for wildfires because the grass will grow tall, become parched and more easily carry flames.
Ranchers Charley and Ramona Phillips of Joseph said they may switch from cattle ranching to farming to avoid potential financial losses."We were told these wolves would be in the high country, and they wouldn't be a problem," Ramona Phillips said.
Ranchers Dick and Kerry Tienhaara's daughters, ages 17 and 19, no longer bicycle a 5-mile loop near their home near Joseph. Wolves have been seen running on the roads, and the teens decided bicycling is too dangerous, they said.
Jesse Timberlake, a Defenders of Wildlife spokesman in Boise, said it will take time to adjust to the wolves.
"They are a native species, they come from the natural system," said Timberlake, whose agency recommends fencing, lighting, alarm systems and other non-lethal ways to separate wolves and livestock.
"We have had two or three generations now where we haven't had wolves," he said."I think people haven't learned to live with them."
Wolves usually try to avoid humans, said Todd Rinaldi , a wolf biologist with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game. Most Alaskans have never seen a wolf in the wild, he said, Still. "For the most part, wolves present very little threat to humans."
For now, the gulf between wolf advocates and ranchers is unlikely to change anytime soon if the experience in other states with growing wolf numbers is an indication.
Bangs, the federal wolf expert, is characteristically philosophical about the rural-urban divide.
"Wolves don't always make everybody's lives better, but they make them more interesting," he said.

 

FW: Let's put an end to pens for coyotes and foxes

 

Let's put an end to pens for coyotes and foxes
By Eric Ernst

 Published: Friday, June 18, 2010 at 1:00 a.m.
 Last Modified: Thursday, June 17, 2010 at 11:43 p.m.

They may call it hunting, but that's an insult to real hunters.

In this case, wild coyotes or foxes are trapped, packed and shipped to fenced areas where they are turned loose to run for their lives, day after day, from a pack of dogs.

If the dogs don't maul them to death, the wild animals die of disease.

Incredibly, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission, an agency entrusted with managing the state's natural resources, has sanctioned the practice for more than 20 years.

That could change soon.

Next week in Orlando, the commission will decide whether to ban the fox/coyote pens, phase them out by 2013 or let them continue to operate under stricter rules.

The vote here is to ban.

Maybe the penning started out as a decent idea. In the 1980s, as Florida grew and open land disappeared, the owners of hunting dogs needed places to train their animals.

The pens opened mostly in the northern part of the state, ranging from 100 acres (the minimum allowed) to 743 acres at Sand Sifters in Marianna County. Handlers paid to enter their dogs in competitions.

The result, however, has been anything but sporting.

All pens were supposed to be permitted. The permits are free, but many landowners did not apply. Probably, they did not want to adhere to FWC rules, which require, for instance, dog-proof escape hatches for the prey, records of veterinary care and special training to possess foxes and coyotes.

An FWC undercover investigation last year led to 12 arrests for black market animal trading. In February, the commission suspended fox/coyote pen operations. At the time, only Sand Sifters was open. Since then, 15 pens have obtained temporary authorization permits.

It's time to finally shut them down.

"Cruelty happens when nobody's looking. We can't say we don't know about this. And the FWC knows about it," says Becky Pomponio of Sarasota.

Pomponio, a local representative of Project Coyote, intends to fly from her summer home in North Carolina to testify at the FWC hearing.

The coyote/fox pen practices are so inherently inhumane that they've galvanized statewide opposition, including from some legislators. State Sen. Nancy Detert, R-Venice, wrote a June 11 letter to the commissioners urging a ban.

While tightening regulations might seem a tempting compromise, other states have tried many of the proposed rules without success. They're simply too hard to enforce.

One compelling letter to the commissioners came from Martin Main, a University of Florida ecologist who often advises the FWC on coyote issues.

After dispelling arguments that pens benefit native wildlife populations by removing coyotes and help control coyote populations, Main takes on the issue of hunting.

He quotes from a renowned hunting organization founded by Teddy Roosevelt in 1887: "The Boone and Crockett Club condemns the pursuit and killing of any big game animal kept in or released from captivity to be killed in an artificial or bogus 'hunting' situation where the game lacks the equivalent chance to escape afforded free-ranging animals."

Penning isn't sport. It's slaughter. Just ask the real hunters.

Eric Ernst <http://www.heraldtribune.com/section/TOPIC090302//> 's column runs Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays. Contact him at eric.ernst@heraldtribune.com or (941) 486-3073.

___________________
Project Coyote
P.O. Box 5007
Larkspur, CA 94977
ph: 415.945.3232

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Fw: Family values: Why wolves belong together

Insightful and logical........social animals like wolves are badly impaired by sport hunting..........learning and passed on traits to younger generations badly disrupted(as happens in elephant herds)

Read on.....

---

From: Project Coyote <info@projectcoyote.org>
To: Project Coyote <info@projectcoyote.org>
Sent: Thu Jun 17 23:00:20 2010
Subject: Family values: Why wolves belong together

Family values: Why wolves belong together

16 June 2010
by Sharon Levy
<http://www.newscientist.com/search?rbauthors=Sharon+Levy>        

GORDON HABER was tracking a wolf pack he had known for over 40 years when his plane crashed on a remote stretch of the Toklat river in Denali national park, Alaska, last October. The fatal accident silenced one of the most outspoken and controversial advocates for wolf protection. Haber, an independent biologist, had spent a lifetime studying the behaviour and ecology of wolves and his passion for the animals was obvious. "I am still in awe of what I see out there," he wrote on his website <http://www.alaskawolves.org/Alaska%20Wolves.html> . "Wolves enliven the northern mountains, forests, and tundra like no other creature, helping to enrich our stay on the planet simply by their presence as other highly advanced societies in our midst."
       

His opposition to hunting was equally intense. He excoriated the "heavy government-sanctioned killing" and "Mengele-like experiments" with wolf sterilisation in Alaska, which, as he saw it, threaten to transform the very nature of the wolf. And he did not pull his punches when identifying the enemy. "Perhaps worst of all, these problems originate primarily from biologists," he wrote on his website, referring to the fact that many wildlife managers work on the assumption that wolves can withstand heavy culling because they breed quickly.
       

In Alaska, up to 50 per cent of wolves are shot or trapped every year, with little effect on their numbers. But Haber argued that by focusing on population size, the establishment has ignored the fact that the hunting of wolves warps their social structure, ripping apart the family ties and traditions that define wolf society.
       

"Gordon was an aggressive personality, and he took on the scientific dogma about wolves," says Douglas Smith, leader of the Yellowstone Wolf Project. Despite many thousands of hours spent in the field, Haber published little peer-reviewed documentation of his work. Now, however, in the months following his sudden death, Smith and other wolf biologists have reported findings that support some of Haber's ideas.
      

Once upon a time, folklore shaped our thinking about wolves. It is only in the past two decades that biologists have started to build a clearer picture of wolf ecology (see "Beyond myth and legend") <http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20627641.000-family-values-why-wolves-belong-together.html?full=true#bx276310B1> . Instead of seeing rogue man-eaters and savage packs, we now understand that wolves have evolved to live in extended family groups that include a breeding pair - typically two strong, experienced individuals - along with several generations of their offspring.
        

Building on this insight, Haber argued that older wolves pass knowledge down to younger pack members, and that human hunting disrupts this natural order. Lone survivors or pairs without supporting family members behave more unpredictably and kill more large prey animals than wolves living in stable packs, so hunting is often a counterproductive way of trying to manage wolf populations. His claims have been difficult to prove, partly because few corners of the Earth hold undisturbed wolf habitat where they can be tested.
       

Yellowstone National Park, located primarily in Wyoming and also in parts of Idaho and Montana, is one of the exceptions. Grey wolves were reintroduced here in 1995, following a 70-year absence that resulted from intense predator control measures in the early 20th century. The population now thrives, and in recent years it has become clear that packs there are different from those in areas where wolves are regularly killed because of conflicts with people or their livestock. Outside the protective boundaries of the park, few wolves live more than three or four years, and a pack seldom includes more than five or six individuals. Within Yellowstone, wolves tend to live longer - some have survived to be more than 10 years old - and they sometimes stick with their natal pack into their fourth or fifth year, a phenomenon never before recorded. As a result, packs are multigenerational and typically include about 11 wolves, though the biggest have more than 20 (Reintroduction of Top-order Predators, edited by Matt W. Hayward and Michael Somers, Wiley-Blackwell, 2009 <http://www.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-1405192739.html> ).
       

"Such packs do things very differently than the much simpler packs found in human-dominated landscapes," says Smith. When it comes to hunting, for example, there is a division of labour between the sexes. The fleeter females test herds of elk by rushing them at high speed, to find the weakest targets. Then the heftier males attack and kill the prey. Such skills clearly require practice: during a decade of intense wolf-watching, Smith and his colleagues have documented a learning curve among young wolves (Ecology Letters, vol 12, p 1). Yearlings are already at 80 per cent of full size, but the ability to take down an elk peaks at age 2, while the ability to choose the right elk to go after - the greatest intellectual challenge for wolves on the hunt - doesn't peak until age 3. Smith believes hunting skills are learned by watching older pack members, and from experience.
       

Comparisons between Yellowstone and areas where wolves are not protected also support Haber's contention that smaller packs tend to kill more prey animals per wolf. A group of five or six wolves cannot eat an entire elk or moose in one sitting. They will fill their bellies and then rest and digest, leaving scavengers such as ravens, eagles, coyotes and grizzly bears to attack the carcass. "They only get one feeding on it," says Smith, "so they will go and kill another animal to feed themselves again at the same pace as a pack that's got twice as many animals."
      
A new order
       

The contrast in behaviour between hunted and protected wolves is emerging from studies in another area too. In Algonquin Provincial Park, Ontario, Canada, eastern wolves have been protected for more than a century. Nevertheless, hunting in the surrounding townships was causing around two-thirds of total wolf deaths, primarily in winter when their main prey, white-tailed deer, roamed outside the park in search of forage. Then in 2001, hunting on the outskirts of the park was banned. Since then, Linda Rutledge, a geneticist at Trent University in Peterborough, Ontario, has led a team tracking changes in the wolf population.
       

Their recently published results reveal that following the 2001 ban, the number of wolves in the park held steady as more animals died of natural causes (Biological Conservation, vol 143, p 332). The team also observed a rapid shift in wolf social structure. Before the ban, few animals survived to the age of 5 and a typical pack comprised a handful of unrelated animals. A decade on, packs are now made up of a breeding pair - an unrelated male and female - and two or three generations of their offspring, just as in Yellowstone.
       

This transition to more stable, family-based packs has been accompanied by a shift in diet. Before 2001, wolves would seldom attempt to take down a moose, even though moose are abundant in Algonquin and a single adult can provide as much meat as six deer. That has changed, to the extent that moose is now the primary food source for some packs. This suggests that younger wolves are learning sophisticated hunting strategies from their elders, just as Haber thought. "Taking larger prey likely requires more skill, experience and social learning on the part of the predators," says Rutledge's colleague Karen Loveless.
       

Protected from hunting, the Algonquin wolves have clearly altered their behaviour. Haber argued that allowing wolves to express their natural social behaviour benefits the wider ecosystem as well as the wolves themselves. Studies from Yellowstone and Banff national park in Alberta, Canada, have shown that intact wolf packs boost the diversity of plants and songbirds, and increase populations of beaver and amphibians, all by limiting the numbers and grazing patterns of elk and other large herbivores.
    
Allowing wolves to express their natural social behaviour benefits ecosystems     
    

Haber believed there was seldom a valid reason to kill wolves, and that managers make a serious mistake when they treat the deeply social wolf in the same way as elk or caribou, based solely on the numbers of animals. He wrote about a "gradient of sociality" that should be considered in wildlife management, pointing to a growing body of research on other social animals. Female red howler monkeys living with close kin, for example, raise more young than those living among unrelated animals (Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology, vol 48, p 253). Breeding opportunities for orca whales depend on the social traditions passed down from their mothers (Animal Behaviour, vol 63, p 1103). And studies of African elephants reveal that when poaching is rife, families are disrupted and young males tend to run amok (New Scientist, 18 February 2006, p 39) <http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg18925391.400-elephants-on-the-edge-fight-back.html> .
        

As wolf numbers in North America gradually grow and historical hunting bans are lifted, Haber's ideas will increasingly be tested. He had been a strong advocate for a buffer zone around Denali national park, but on 6 March, the Alaska Board of Game removed a ban on wolf trapping outside the park's eastern boundaries.
       

Meanwhile, an equally controversial situation has arisen around Yellowstone. Last year, grey wolves were removed from the federal endangered species lists in Idaho and Montana, and state officials authorised the first legal wolf hunts in decades. On 3 October, a Montana hunter shot a radio-collared wolf that had been tracked by Smith's team for five of her seven years. Wolf 527F, the alpha female of the Cottonwood pack, which had long occupied a remote northern corner of Yellowstone, died 2 kilometres outside the park boundary. Over the next four weeks, her mate and two other Cottonwood wolves were also shot. All the collared animals and some of the pack's most experienced wolves are now dead; the fate of the remaining members is unknown.
       

The reaction has been heated. "There should be a large buffer zone around Yellowstone so park wolves are not shot," says ecologist William Ripple of Oregon State University in Corvallis. "Reintroduced wolves are helping to rebalance the park's ecosystem. If park wolves are hunted at all, they are bound to change their behaviour."
       

Meanwhile, Rutledge and her team are now advocating that conservation policies should "look beyond numbers" and take into account the social dynamics of wild creatures. "The family-based wolf social structure evolved over millions of years," says Rutledge. The benefits of this behaviour to wolves and the world around them can be cryptic and difficult to track, but they are nonetheless an integral part of the natural wolf.
       

Haber would have approved. "Sophisticated family groups are what set wolves apart," he told a reporter for Backpacker magazine <http://www.backpacker.com/dogs_of_war_the_battle_over_denalis_toklat_wolf_pack/nature/>  in an article published in January 2009. "Which is why it burns me up when people say it's the population, not individual wolves, that matter."
    
Long viewed as a gang of competitive thugs, a wolf pack is actually an extended family     
       
    
Beyond myth and legend
    

Popular ideas about wolves are shaped more by fairy tales than reality. Humanity has persecuted the wolf so aggressively that survivors became elusive and near-impossible to observe. For decades, scientific understanding of wolf society was based on studies of captive animals, whose lives seemed ruled by a rigid pecking order. Wolves were thought to be born genetically programmed to fit into a role in an unbending hierarchy, in which the more dominant personalities - the alpha wolves - are the only ones destined to mate.
       

That vision shifted in the late 1980s, when David Mech of the US Geological Survey began to publish his studies of packs on Ellesmere Island in Canada's remote high Arctic. The Ellesmere wolves have never been hunted, and so are fearless enough to allow researchers into their midst. Based on decades of close observation on Ellesmere, Mech has transformed the popular vision of the wolf pack, long viewed as a gang of competitive thugs. He argues that the pack is actually an extended family.
       

Wolf families are as diverse and changeable as human ones, says ethologist Jane Packard at Texas A&M University in College Station, who has worked with Mech. Packs are shaped by environment and chance: the established order can be shattered by a shortage of food or the death of a parent. In times of change, it is common for the classic pack structure to be disrupted. Monogamous packs are the norm only in areas where prey is abundant and humans do not hunt wolves. In other situations, all kinds of new family conformations have been observed, from polygamy to single mothers.
       

Packard also reinterprets wolf social behaviour. Rather than seeing it as a dance of dominance choreographed by successful bullies, she views it as a dramatic saga of intelligent creatures learning to coexist. So a socially submissive wolf may be more savvy than oppressed: often its behaviour successfully gains a share of meat, when being pushier would only bring on a fight. What's more, a submissive wolf may later grow to become a pack leader. In other words, the wolves that survive in a tough environment are those that possess the intelligence to know when to fight and when to defer to a companion. Such animals display emotional resilience - a skill also vital to humans in times of stress, and one that clinical psychologists say can be learned.
 

Sharon Levy is a science writer based in California

 <http://www.newscientist.com/issue/2764>

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ph: 415.945.3232

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Lynx restored to Ecosystem dampens fox impact on hares

Another revealing examination as to how all the "cogs and wheels" strenghen and energize a given ecosytem by providing optimum diversity............As the Wolf re-introduction to Yellowstone in 1995 tapped down coyote populations allowing more Pronghorn fawns to matriculate to adulthood, so has the lynx resurgence in Finland caused fox populations to mitigate.............allowing for more  hare to exist in the system................top down predation at work once again working hand in glove with bottom up pressures to ensure optimum variety of living things...............read full article attached:

http://scienceblogs.com/laelaps/2010/06/from_almost_the_very_start.php

FLORIDA'S COYOTES & FOXES NEED YOUR VOICE!

Public outcry won a temporary ban on coyote and fox penning in Florida in February. Your voice was heard! And now we're asking you to speak out again, and this time it's an urgent request to prevent this cruel practice from being formally legalized.

The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) will meet Wednesday, June 23, 2010 near Orlando and will decide whether to ban or regulate this practice. We need your help again to push for a permanent ban on penning!

Florida's pens, in which packs of domestic dogs are released on a captive coyote or fox, have been shut down temporarily since February, while FWC staff draft a formal "rule" to regulate the practice. This temporary ban came on the heals of an undercover FWC investigation of penning operations that led to the arrest of 12 people and the issuance of 46 citations for various violations.

Now the FWC is on the verge of legitimizing penning through adoption of rules- yet repeat past permit violators demonstrate that this practice cannot be regulated. FWC Chairman Rodney Barreto has publicly stated that he favors shutting down the pens permanently. We agree- and believe this heinous practice — like dog and cockfighting (now illegal in all U.S. states) — has no place in "civilized" society.

If you live in Florida, please attend and testify at the upcoming FWC meeting in Lake Mary (near Orlando) in support of a permanent ban on all coyote/fox pens statewide. Tell your Florida friends to attend too!

Date: June 23rd
Time: 8:30 am EST
Location: The Orlando Marriott
1501 International Parkway
Lake Mary, FL 32746
Phone: 407-995-1100

If you cannot attend, email or write to the FWC. Penning supporters are a very small, but vocal minority in Florida. The FWC needs to hear from Florida residents and visitors, who want to see coyote/fox pens abolished. Even if you have already written on this issue in response to our previous alerts, please send another letter since this is a different phase of the administrative process.

You can also submit comments directly online (mention your association with Florida-- i.e. you are a resident; you visit Florida often, etc):
myfwc.com/RULESANDREGS/Fox_CoyotePublicWorkshops.asp <http://myfwc.com/RULESANDREGS/Fox_CoyotePublicWorkshops.asp>


Or email a letter directly to the Commissioners at:

Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission
620 South Meridian Street
Tallahassee, FL 32399-1600
EMAIL: Commissioners@MyFWC.com

POINTS TO INCLUDE IN YOUR LETTER (remember to include your first and last name and your full address):

*You strongly support a permanent ban on the taking, killing and harassment of coyotes and red foxes for "penning" purposes;
*Coyote and fox penning is inhumane, ecologically reckless and counter to sound scientific management;
*There is nothing "sporting" about setting a pack of dogs into an enclosed pen against a helpless coyote or fox. Most penned coyotes and foxes become "live bait" and are literally torn apart and killed by the dog packs;
*This practice parallels dog and cockfighting – activities made illegal in all U.S. states in the last twenty years;
*The Commission won't be able to enforce rules or regulate this practice as past investigations have demonstrated;
*Transporting wild animals for penning purposes has directly led to the spread of rabies and other diseases; and
*Coyote/fox penning reflects badly on Florida where tourism is so important to the economy.

We are working to end the wanton abuse and cruelty of coyotes nationwide- from coyote "penning" to contest hunts and bounties. Check out Project Coyote's website <https://www.earthislandprojects.org/projectCoyote/donate.html> for updates on these issues to what we've been doing on behalf of America's native "song dog."

We need your help <https://www.earthislandprojects.org/projectCoyote/donate.html> to keep doing this important work. We can do it with your support! If you are not yet a member of Project Coyote, please consider joining our growing team today. To make a secure online donation now, visit Project Coyote's website <https://www.earthislandprojects.org/projectCoyote/donate.html> .

Camilla H. Fox, Executive Director
www.projectcoyote.org/action

FW: What do we do with too many white-tailed deer?

Helen McGinnis from the Eastern Cougar Foundation forwarding the very astute commentary from John Laundre that the FEAR FACTOR.................keeping prey from lounging and feeding at will................as much as anything, is one of the key "top down" influences that has kept the predator and prey balance through the millenia...............and has kept our World, healthy, balanced and green!
________________________________
From: Helen McGinnis [HelenMcGinnis@frontiernet.net]
Sent: Sunday, June 13, 2010 5:55 AM
To: Meril, Rick
Subject: What do we do with too many white-tailed deer?
From: John Laundre<mailto:launjohn@hotmail.com>
Again, it is not so much how many deer there are but how scared they are! I don't think predators can kill enough deer to make a difference (such systems would be unstable and have gone extinct long ago) but the fact that they scare them keeps them from using all the area, providing shelter for other plants and animals. It also effectively reduces the carrying capacity, which then would reduce the numbers of deer. Only when we start to appreciate the non-lethal impact predators have on their prey will we truely understand and appreciate the role of predators in ecosystems.
John
________________________________
From: HelenMcGinnis@frontiernet.net<mailto:HelenMcGinnis@frontiernet.net>
Subject: What do we do with too many white-tailed deer?
Date: Sun, 13 Jun 2010 07:44:46 -0400
http://www.actionbioscience.org/biodiversity/rooney.html
How are deer impacts and deer populations managed?
[Among the options discussed is this:]
Reintroduction of predators. The reintroduction of predators, such as the gray wolf and the cougar, has not been widely tested. Cougars are still largely absent east of the Mississippi River. Wolves have successfully recolonized northern Wisconsin and Michigan in recent years, but no compelling evidence exists yet to indicate the wolves have significantly reduced deer numbers in those regions. The reintroduction of large predators is controversial,32 and it is not clear if successful reintroductions would reduce deer numbers. Coyote and black bear are important predators of deer fawns,33 and they can account for over 50% of fawn mortality in some years and in certain places.34 It is not clear how this translates to deer population numbers; for example, some parks in the Midwestern U.S. have large coexisting deer and coyote populations.
________________________________

Northern Rockies Conservation Cooperative--Blackfoot Valley Watershed Grizzly and Wolf update

news from the People & Carnivores Program

Grizzly Bear and Wolf Update for the Blackfoot Watershed
The partnership between NRCC and the Blackfoot Challenge continues to pay conservation dividends. Since 2003-2009 there has been a 93% decrease in human-grizzly bear conflicts in the project area as the grizzly bear population has increased in northwestern Montana's Northern Continental Divide Ecosystem—a nearly eight million acre area comprised of multiple wilderness areas and national forests. MT Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks estimates that the grizzly population in the Northern Continental Divide Ecosystem is expanding at approximately 3% per year. Additionally, grizzly bears continue to reoccupy former habitat on lower elevation private lands, yet conflicts with people remain low in the Blackfoot watershed. This success is largely due to the fact that people are willing to work together on this issue. This community-based project has involved hundreds of residents and ranchers and has pulled together a strong partnership among numerous wildlife management agencies, NGOs, and industry. NRCC has played a pivotal role in providing technical expertise, coordination, and funding that has helped implement dozens of proactive and participatory projects involving electric fencing of beehives and calving areas, regular livestock carcass removal, citizen based-monitoring of bears and wolves, and creating regular coordination and communication among stakeholders.

Wolves are proving to be a great challenge. Just recently, several livestock depredations by members of the Elevation Mt. Pack occurred in the Blackfoot and the pack was lethally removed from the watershed by the USDA's Wildlife Services. Despite intensive monitoring of livestock by a "Range Rider" that were in regular contact with this pack, multiple livestock depredations have occurred over the past two years and four members of the pack were removed in 2009. Ranchers in the Blackfoot are concerned about the increased wolf pack activity that has been observed since 2007. Currently four packs and approximately 25-30 wolves are living in the watershed. The Blackfoot Challenge has hired a seasonal Range Rider to monitor wolf pack activity and to help reduce the risk of livestock depredations. While this approach will not prevent all problems with wolves, it is an important way learn more about wolf behavior, monitor livestock, communicate regularly with the community, and take proactive steps when needed.

Blackfoot Valley Project Highlights

Livestock Carcass Removal: Throughout the 2010 calving season, hundreds of livestock carcasses have been removed from Blackfoot Valley area ranches helping to reduce the risk of livestock depredations from both grizzly bears and wolves. All livestock carcasses have been composted at a facility operated by the MT Department of Transportation. South of the Blackfoot, NRCC Research Associate, Seth Wilson has worked closely with ranchers, county commissioners, and the Granite Headwaters group to develop a livestock carcass removal program and a new composting facility to set the stage for a long term livestock carcass removal in an area that grizzly bears are expanding into and where wolves are present.

Electric Fences Continue to be Proven Deterrent for Predators: Electric fences continue to work well for Blackfoot area ranchers to deter grizzly bears and wolves from calving areas in late spring. NRCC helped construct two new calving area fences on Helmville area ranches (PHOTO-8453) and have protected calves across more than 12 different ranches in the valley where the risk of livestock loss is greatest.

New Fladry Deployment System Developed in Blackfoot: Over the past month, we have worked with Blackfoot ranchers, Jim Stone and Jim Bauer who have developed a new system to rapidly deploy and retrieve fladry, a type of visual fencing that deters wolves from pastures and reduces livestock depredation risk (PHOTOS-10331 and 10333). The system uses a custom built trailer and spooling system that is towed behind an ATV. This makes rolling out and retrieving fladry fast and efficient. Recently, Jim Stone set up nearly three miles of fladry on his ranch in just over two hours. We hope that these innovations will make fladry more rancher friendly and widely used across the region.

site map<http://www.nrccooperative.org/sitemap.html> | home<http://www.nrccooperative.org/index.html> | contact<http://www.nrccooperative.org/contact.html>

Northern

Northern Rockies Conservation Cooperative--Wolverine Update

Wolverine Update

As a partner in the recently completed Absaroka Beartooth Wolverine Project, NRCC is assisting to complete a final, 5-year summary report of this project, which will be available this summer. We also continue to partner with the Gallatin National Forest on some selected live-capture work in the Absaroka Range. Our goals with this continued effort include detection and gathering of further information regarding reproduction and large-scale movements of wolverine in Greater Yellowstone. We are currently working to establish wolverine surveys and monitoring sites in large tracts of Wyoming that have not been formally assessed for wolverine presence, but that hold high potential for holding wolverine populations. We continue in our efforts to build a broad public constituency for wolverine conservation, and are exploring options for accelerated awareness-building work in other Rocky Mountain States.

The US Fish and Wildlife Service is currently assessing the status of the US wolverine population, and is scheduled to release a decision in December of 2010 on whether or not the wolverine is warranted a listing on the Endangered Species Act.

As always, we are interested in any wolverine sightings you may have. Please contact us with sighting reports or any wolverine questions you may have. Remember, wolverine track identification cards are available from NRCC or online.<http://nrcc.createsend1.com/t/r/l/nihiyk/ilkkzuyy/z>

For Absaroka Beartooth Wolverine Project information visit NRCC's wolverine ecology page.<http://nrcc.createsend1.com/t/r/l/nihiyk/ilkkzuyy/v>

Northern Rockies Conservation Initiative on Wolverines update

Wolverine Update

As a partner in the recently completed Absaroka Beartooth Wolverine Project, NRCC is assisting to complete a final, 5-year summary report of this project, which will be available this summer. We also continue to partner with the Gallatin National Forest on some selected live-capture work in the Absaroka Range. Our goals with this continued effort include detection and gathering of further information regarding reproduction and large-scale movements of wolverine in Greater Yellowstone. We are currently working to establish wolverine surveys and monitoring sites in large tracts of Wyoming that have not been formally assessed for wolverine presence, but that hold high potential for holding wolverine populations. We continue in our efforts to build a broad public constituency for wolverine conservation, and are exploring options for accelerated awareness-building work in other Rocky Mountain States.

The US Fish and Wildlife Service is currently assessing the status of the US wolverine population, and is scheduled to release a decision in December of 2010 on whether or not the wolverine is warranted a listing on the Endangered Species Act.

As always, we are interested in any wolverine sightings you may have. Please contact us with sighting reports or any wolverine questions you may have. Remember, wolverine track identification cards are available from NRCC or online.<http://nrcc.createsend1.com/t/r/l/nihiyk/ilkkzuyy/z>

For Absaroka Beartooth Wolverine Project information visit NRCC's wolverine ecology page.<http://nrcc.createsend1.com/t/r/l/nihiyk/ilkkzuyy/v>

What Do We Do with Too Many White-tailed Deer?

Tom Raney, Wright State University Assistant Professor of Biological Sciences recaps again what so many of us know...............the unnaturally large deer herds(10 to 40 deer per square km) that we have created through the elimination(and/or significant reduction)of Wolves and Cougars and manipulation of our open spaces(wooded suburbs with large edge type openings that deer thrive in) is dramatically changing the composition of our woodlands and spiking  lymes disease and agricultural damage.

A thorough recap of this significant problem is addressed in Tom's paper attached....................He notes accurately that while Bears and Coyotes can take as many as 50% of the fawns born each Summer, there does not appear to be any of reduction of deer populations in the areas where these predators exist.

Wolves and Cougars is the answer boys and girls..................in their correct historical densities........................just as the Yellowstone Wolves have halved the number of elk in the Greater YSK region since the Wolves re-introduction in 1995 so might this occur with Deer if the 100-120 pound Wolves and the 120-200 pound Cougars re-asserted their historical position atop the Wild America foodchain.

Have a read of Tom's paper below..............click on the link..................

http://www.actionbioscience.org/biodiversity/rooney.html

NEW ENGLAND WILDLANDS AND WOODLANDS UPDATE ON PRESERVING 50% OF THE REGIONS WOODLANDS

 

Our friend David Foster and his colleagues at Harvard Forest(Harvard University) are continuing the push with regional partners to set aside half of the remaining open space in New England in a combination matrix of wild forest and working forest…………..We have updated you on this teriffic effort in previous blog entries…………..click below to get updated from the recent regional meeting.

 

http://www.wildlandsandwoodlands.org/

Fw: White-Nose Fungus Discovered on New Bat Species in Virginia

WILL HOT, HUMID WEATHER BLUNT BAT WHITE NOSE SYNDROME? SEE NINA FASCIONE'S COMMENTARY BELOW.......

---

From: Bat Conservation International <BCI@batcatalog.com>
To: Meril, Rick
Sent: Thu Jun 10 12:33:48 2010
Subject: White-Nose Fungus Discovered on New Bat Species in Virginia

Bat Conservation International learned this week that the fungus linked to White-nose Syndrome, which has killed more than a million bats to date, has been confirmed on another bat species. A southeastern myotis found at Virginia's Pocahontas State Park last month has tested positive for the White-nose fungus. This is the ninth bat species so far threatened with White-nose Syndrome.

This southern species could carry the fungus into the deep South, since its range reaches from Indiana and Illinois south along the Mississippi River and East Texas and then along the Gulf and Atlantic coasts to North Carolina.

In addition to caves, southeastern myotis use an assortment of roosts, such as hollow trees, underground cisterns, bridges, buildings and culverts. To date, the WNS fungus has only been found on bats that hibernate in caves and mines.

Biologists do not know whether the WNS fungus will survive in warm, humid climates or in non-cave habitats. Many hope a climate barrier will stop the fungus or prevent its progression into disease. We may soon find out, as this new species signals an important shift in latitude.

More than a million bats have died from White-nose Syndrome so far, and as it continues to spread, millions more are threatened. BCI will continue to work around the clock to combat this deadly disease. Learn more about White-nose Syndrome here.

Nina Fascione
Executive Director
Bat Conservation International

P.S. - To support Bat Conservation International's efforts to combat this devastating epidemic, you can donate at http://donate.batcon.org/i-581.

If you do not wish to receive emails from BCI click here

A Wisconsin resident commenting on the Wall Street Journal article of two weeks back that I reviewed on this blog.....Wisconsin Wolves and people...can they co-exist together?

Your article about gray wolves in Wisconsin ("Gray Wolves Rebound, to Neighbors' Unease," U.S. News, May 29) gets some important things right: the story of wolves' success in readapting to northern Wisconsin, and the anger and fear some people feel toward them. However, by skewing this story with antiwolf anecdotes and by not clarifying how small the wolves' impact is on livestock and deer, you lose the chance to show a more truthful picture.


People who live and hunt up here know that if you send a dog into woodlands with an active wolf-pack, the dog will be at risk. And wolves, like coyotes, do occasionally kill livestock, for which owners are reimbursed. Some people are afraid of wolves, despite the fact that there's no record of wolves attacking humans in Wisconsin. (Black bears are a real problem, since they're much more tolerant of human contact than wolves and are likely to show up on your deck or at your campsite if you're not careful.)

The big truth you miss is that the hatred of wolves here comes mainly from those who see themselves as the losing competitor for Wisconsin's other wildlife, mainly deer. Many believe that first dibs on deer should belong to hunters who have paid good money for deer tags, weapons, ammunition and travel. The "neighbors' unease" you record is really the familiar narrative of human intolerance of competition for resources we perceive as ours by inherent right.

David Foster
Boulder Junction, Wis.

Rosie coyote - great coyote teaching story by Los Angeles Animal Rehabilitator Skip Haynes

Skip is an animal rehab specialist living in Los Angeles and he shares his book and story below on ROSIE, THE COYOTE that brought the famous Los Angeles neighborhood of Laurel Canyon(the birthing neighborhood for all of the great Country rock bands of the 60's--Byrds, Buffalo Springfield, Burrito's Poco, etc, etc) that came together to aid an injured coyote...............read on folks!

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Skip <animalco@pacbell.net>
Date: Sun, Jun 6, 2010 at 8:42 AM
Subject: Rosie coyote - great coyote teaching story
To: rick.meril@gmail.com

Hi Rick' 

My name is Skip Haynes and I live in Los Angeles. As a fellow coyote lover and rehabber I thought you you might find this interesting and if you do, pass it along.  It was quite an experience and learning process for me - other people might learn from also..

all the best and keep up the good work

Skip Haynes

Waiting For Rosie – new book telling the powerful story of a small, sick coyote's journey that brought a community together.

This new book and companion website by author, musician and animal activist Skip Haynes tell the compelling story of the months long effort to successfully track, capture and rehabilitate a small coyote that appeared suddenly in their Laurel Canyon neighborhood.

It involves a crew of volunteers that rival M.A.S.H., three animal communicators, a world renown vet and a coyote that was smarter than all of them, who brought their community together in a positive way that never could've been imagined.

"Our entire community learned invaluable lessons from Rosie. I didn't write the story, I just wrote the words to pass on those lessons and possibly change a few perceptions about how we interact with the animals we live with in the urban interface. Rosie's story is a great teacher about how to deal with our environment in a real and positive manner, something that becomes more necessary with each passing day as evidenced by the catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico.

Meeting Rosie turned us into advocates for coyotes, which in turn made us advocates for all animals and our environment. It's a great against all odds story that will make you smile and teach you valuable lessons at the same time."

Rosie's is the story of one animal uniting a community and teaching it how to learn to live with the wildlife rather than destroying it. Other communities can learn how to do the same.

The website http://www.rosiecoyote.com/, is the first step in an informational campaign to counter the often negative and misleading information on wildlife. Coyotes, like sharks, are completely misunderstood and misrepresented, yet a very necessary part of our ecosystem, as are all animals – including us.

Rosie's story has appeared in Steve Lopez's column in the L.A. Times http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-lopez17-2010jan17,0,2462847,full.column

This is the video/song of "Coyote Girl" – so you can see Rosie for yourself.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AWvC1TZ6u_Q

One of the earliest videos of Rosiehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gi7JS9A8r0E

Waiting For Rosie $14.95 + S&H is available at http://www.rosiecoyote.com/ The first three songs of a companion CD "Waiting For Rosie" are also available for digital download. The entire CD will be released in July 2010. All profits are donated to the wildlife rehabilitation organizations listed on the website.

For a review copy, mp3s, interviews or more information, please contact:
Skip Haynes
323.822.1764
skip@rosiecoyote.com

Wolves in the Northeast Denied Protection Again

At some point, we will get wolves back in the Northeast.................It would be so much easier if there was an easier route for Algonquin Wolves to navigate South...................The vast farmlands(farmers shoot anything that moves) and the St Lawrence River are formidable obstacles to natural Wolf migration............coupled with the sizeable eastern coyote population that can breed with the occasional lone wandering wolf, not a simple proposition to get wolves on the ground in New England with transplanting some there(a la Yellowstone reintroduction)

Wolves in Northeast Denied Protection Again

In response to a petition from a group of concerned citizens, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service issued a finding today that because there is not currently a breeding population of wolves in the northeastern United States, the population does not qualify for protection under the Endangered Species Act. As a result, a recovery plan will not be developed to bring the species back.

Click here to read more on our site

My greater neighborhood in Los Angeles reacting to coyotes who have become bold due to garbage, foodstuffs and pets in every yard

click on this link to read full article
http://www.toacorn.com/news/2010-06-10/Community/As_coyotes_grow_bolder_one_pet_owner_fights_back.html

--
Sent via AddToAny: http://www.addtoany.com/

More on my neighbors seeking to scare coyotes from Los Angeles neighborhood

click on link to read full article
http://www.toacorn.com/news/2010-06-10/Community/Newbury_Park_residents_trying_to_control_coyotes.html

WOLF and WOLVERINE YUKON DESTRUCTION IN THE EARLY E0th CENTURY--from our friends at The Wolverine blog

A copy of the Yukon wolf conservation and management plan, written in 1992, fell into my hands today. On page 3 of the plan, the unintended wider effects of wolf slaughter campaigns in the 20th century are highlighted:

"During the 1920's, strychnine poisoning of wolves was first allowed in the Yukon....Government poisoning programs started in the 1950's when up to 154 strychnine poison baits were set out in the southern Yukon each winter. Between 1957 and 1967, a total of about 600 wolves were killed and many other animals were accidentally killed, including more than 150 wolverines."

Mike Schwartz of the Rocky Mountain Research Station published a paper on wolverine genetics, <http://www.esajournals.org/doi/abs/10.1890/08-1287.1> estimating that the effective population of US Rockies wolverines - that is, the number of wolverines contributing to the gene pool - is somewhere between 28 and 52 animals. Most of these are in Montana and Idaho. Wyoming holds six or seven known wolverines. Colorado is home to one. We couldn't lose 150 wolverines, because there are probably barely that many in the US in the first place.

Wolverines are more widespread in northern Canada than they are in the Lower 48, but 150 unintended deaths in the course of a decade still seems substantial. Strychnine and other poisons were widely used in wolf and coyote eradication campaigns in the US, and there is speculation, even beyond the wolverine research community, that the poison baits intended for other predators eliminated wolverines from the US Rockies and the Sierras. The range expansion that we are seeing now, as wolverines make their way to Colorado and California, is, according to this theory, part of a decades-long recolonization process as Canadian and then Montanan wolverines make their way south. In one sense, then, the story of wolverines in the US Rockies in the 21st century is a story of a resilient species making its way home in the wake of astonishingly irresponsible human behavior. And it took little human effort; all we needed to do was stop interfering.

Alberta, Canada taking first tentative steps to stabilize it's declining Grizzly Bear population

click on this link to read full story
http://www.edmontonjournal.com/technology/Good+first+step+protect+grizzlies/3115917/story.html

our friend Stan Gehrt, Ohio State Coyote Biologist completing 10 years of continuing studies of Coyotes in and around the City of Chicago

To read the full story, click here:
http://www.suntimes.com/news/metro/2358128,CST-NWS-coyotes06.article

The final State in the USA to have Coyotes take up residence-Delaware

Just 10 years ago, the First State had very few resident coyotes. Even now, coyotes remain rare, so rare that even Delawareans who spend a lot of time outdoors probably will not encounter one. However, the DNREC Division of Fish and Wildlife has documented that these animals can now be found in each of Delaware’s three counties.
Because of this, residents are no longer being asked to report sightings to the division. “In the past, we have asked people to contact us if the saw an animal they believed to be a coyote. These sightings helped us document their distribution but now that we know they are here, we do not need sighting reports from the public,” said Joe Rogerson, deer and furbearer biologist.
For more of this story, click on or type the URL below:
http://www.newarkpostonline.com/articles/2010/06/04/news/doc4c06fb05f33dd792108296.txt
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Newborn ocelots boost South Texas population

Ocelots are giving birth in their last remaining South Texas domain..............will we be able to expand their habitat so that more than 50 of these beautiful creatures can survive North of Mexico?  click to read full story :http://www.valleycentral.com/news/story.aspx?id=465967

FW: Killing Coyotes Doesn't Work

MARC'S PERSPECTIVE ON LIVING WITH COYOTES AND ALL OF OUR WILD "COUSINS" AND FELLOW EARTH TRAVELERS IS THE FOCUS OF THIS BLOG.

YOU OWE IT TO YOURSELF TO READ ANY OF HIS HISTORICAL AND CURRENT GROUNDBREAKING BOOKS ON ANIMALS EMOTIONS.

________________________________
From: Project Coyote [info@projectcoyote.org]
Killing Coyotes Doesn't Work
by Marc Bekoff<http://animals.change.org/blog?author_id=609> June 02, 2010 04:17 PM (PT) Marc Bekoff, Professor Emeritus of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Colorado

Coyotes have defied virtually all attempts to control their cunning ways. Native peoples portrayed coyotes as a sly tricksters, thieves, gluttons, outlaws, and spoilers, because of their uncanny ability to survive and reproduce successfully in a wide variety of habitats, including major metropolitan areas such as Chicago, Los Angeles, and New York City, and under harsh conditions.

Coyotes have also survived their encounters with humans who have tried to control them using incredibly brutal methods, and who hold well-organized community hunts in which the person who kills the most coyotes wins a prize. Often these mass killings are considered to be wholesome family outings, quality family time. What a perverted sense of family values.

In the United States, Wildlife Services (formerly called Animal Damage Control) ruthlessly slaughters around 90,000 coyotes each year as part of federally subsidized lethal predator control. More than $1.6 billion has been spent on coyote management over the past 60 years. Wanton killing doesn't work because little or no attention is paid to the versatile behavior of these adaptable predators.

Only rarely is "the problem" coyote caught or killed, and when coyotes are killed, others take their place. There's evidence that in areas where coyotes are killed, birth rates and litter size increase, the result of which is the maintenance or increase in coyote numbers. Killing does not and never has worked.

Coyotes are considered the enemy of ranchers, but disease and unsanitary conditions frequently cause more livestock deaths than do coyotes or other predators. Concerning predation on sheep, biologist Kim Murray Berger discovered the biggest culprit by far to explain the missing sheep is the high price of hay. Wages and lamb prices are important players, too. Even the rancher's age has more to do with his predicament than do predators. At the statistical bottom of Berger's list of prime suspects sits the coyote.

It is ethically indefensible to wantonly go out and kill coyotes because they try to live among us, arrogant big-brained invasive mammals who have redecorated the homes of coyotes and other animals, and then conveniently decide that they have become "pests" when we don't want them around any longer. Confrontations with coyotes can almost always be traced to irresponsible human actions including allowing dogs to run free off leash and feeding the coyotes, either intentionally or unintentionally. And, it's pretty easy to clean up all of these problems and co-exist peacefully with coyotes.

Coyotes are adaptable, intelligent, socially complex, and sentient beings who deserve respect. An extraordinary amount of time, energy, and money has gone into coyote control. Nonetheless, it hasn't worked, lest coyotes would be controlled and the controllers could move on to other programs, hopefully less pernicious and more successful and economically worthwhile activities. I expect that if any of us were as unsuccessful and wasteful in our jobs as Wildlife Services and animal "controllers" have been in theirs we'd be looking elsewhere for employment.

Let's appreciate coyotes for the amazing beings they are. They offer valuable lessons in survival and we must expand our "compassion footprint" and incorporate them into our lives, not wantonly blast them away. Though coyotes try our patience, they're a model animal for learning about adaptability and success by nonhuman individuals striving to make it in a human dominated world. They're a success story, hapless victims of their own success.
Coyotes — love them and leave them be.

To learn more about the amazing lives of coyotes and how we can easily coexist with them, visit the website of Project Coyote<http://www.projectcoyote.org/>, a national non-profit organization that is dedicated to fostering co-existence<http://www.marinij.com/marinnews/ci_14817030> between humans and coyotes, and advocating on behalf of America's wild "song dog."

Marc Bekoff<http://animals.change.org/blog?author_id=609> is Professor Emeritus of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Colorado. He has published numerous essays and books, and has received several awards for his work with animals.
__________________
Project Coyote
P.O. Box 5007
Larkspur, CA 94977
ph: 415.945.3232
Join the conversation!

Fw: Feds to let Arizona Game Department capture jaguars

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From: Meril, Rick
To: 'a_povilitis@yahoo.com' <a_povilitis@yahoo.com>
Sent: Sat Jun 05 15:28:10 2010
Subject: Re: Feds to let AZ Game Department capture jaguars

Thanks for sharing Mr T...........doesn't sound optimum

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From: Tony Povilitis <a_povilitis@yahoo.com>
To: Tony P <tpovilitis@lifenetnature.org>
Sent: Sat Jun 05 15:14:04 2010
Subject: Feds to let AZ Game Department capture jaguars

  Wow, can you think of a less trustworthy agency given the Macho B fiasco?

For details, go to:

http://jaguarhabitatusa.wordpress.com/2010/06/05/us-fish-and-wildlife-service-to-authorize-more-jaguar-captures/

Cougars as primary limiting factor when Mule deer are sympatric with White tails

Hugh Robinson and team at the Large Carnivore lab at Washington State U. examined reasons for declining Mule deer populations across the Western States. Especially where "Mulies" are sympatric and sharing a wide ranging landscape with White tail deer, Mulies are experiencing severe population declines. While Mule deer prefer unaltered woodlands versus Whitel tails responding favorably to man made clearcuts and edge effect cuttings, this by itself does not seem to account for the fact in the study area of Southeastern British Columbia during the late 90's the Whitetail population was 3 times that of the Mule deer herd.Mulies prefer higher elevation habitat whereas White tails are more valley and mid slope occupant dwellers which allow for the two species to not compete greatly for food resources.

The Authors conclude that the rapid acceleration of Whitetails has Cougars not only feasting on this bounty....................but also taking Mule deer wherever they come across them. Even if Managers cull the cougar population, immigrating younger cougars quickly take up the slack of their departed brethren,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,keeping pressure on the smaller herds of Mulies. Note that there is a small population of wolves in  Southern British Columbia and where wolves and cougars are sympatric, cougars usually protect themselves by occupying rockier uplands that wolves find more difficult as it relates to chasing(rather than ambushing which is the way of the Cougar) down their prey.

click here  to read full article

Fw: Lyme in coyotes

----- Original Message -----
From: Meril, Rick
To: 'walter.jakubas@maine.gov' <walter.jakubas@maine.gov>
Sent: Tue Jun 01 13:06:30 2010
Subject: Re: Lyme in coyotes

Wally

Thanks for getting back to me......we will all keep our eyes peeled to see if any lyme pathology studies emerge regardiing impact on any and all of our native carnivores.

Rick

----- Original Message -----
From: Jakubas, Walter <Walter.Jakubas@maine.gov>
To: Meril, Rick
Sent: Tue Jun 01 10:41:23 2010
Subject: RE: Lyme in coyotes

Rick,

He pretty much reaffirmed what I told you earlier. While there have
been some studies on Lyme disease and wolves. He was not aware of any
studies on the pathology of the disease in coyotes.

Wally

-----Original Message-----
From: Meril, Rick [mailto:Rick.Meril@warnerbros.com]
Sent: Wednesday, May 26, 2010 9:17 AM
To: Jakubas, Walter
Subject: Lyme in coyotes

Morning Wally

Hope this finds u well. Any luck hearing from your Vet friend on lyme's
impact on coyotes?

Saw u quoted in the Geri Visten Project Coyote article on humans
co-existing with coyotes.

Enjoy a good day.

Rick