While we tend to concentrate(and rightly so) on the breeding Puma populations in South Dakota and Nebraska(eastern outposts that are the source of prospectors going East), we do not often hear about the Puma population that exists in the Big Bend National Park in West Texas where most researchers think some 20 to 24 "big cats" exist...............The Park Service is seeking to collar the entire population(seems a bit intense to me) so as to this population uses the various habitats in the region and whether they wander in and out of Park grounds

http://cbs7kosa.com/news/article_d1020700-cb60-11e3-ae46-001a4bcf6878.html#.U1nrY0Fk4Qk.gmail

Research Team Sets out to Collar all Mountain Lions at Big Bend National Park

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Big Bend National Park teams with Sul Ross University to tag Mountain Lions

Posted: Wednesday, April 23, 2014 10:30 pm | Updated: 11:29 am, Thu Apr 24, 2014.

Lauren Lanmon

llanmon@cbs7.com

April 23, 2014

BIG BEND - It’s an unforgiving animal, especially if you unwillingly cross their path, we’re talking about mountain lions and the Big Bend National Park has plenty. As a safety measure the park and Sul Ross State University have teamed up to put a GPS collar on every mountain lion in the park.

 “We saw the need from a science standpoint to try to help the Park Service better understand how mountain lions use habitats,” said Borderlands Research Institute Director Louis Harveson.  

In a park that’s bigger than the whole state of Rhode Island, you would assume a sighting of such an elusive animal like a mountain lion would be rare.

“I’m getting closer and I see that there’s something there, and I realize what it is. I stop, had my window down already and took two pictures,” said Big Bend National Park visitor Eric Collins.

For Collins, the hunt to find and photograph a mountain lion has been a 13 year long dream. “I said, mountain lion, I think I yelled it. It’s pretty exciting and pretty rare,” said Collins.

The park has had its fair share of mountain lion sighting, even attacks, that’s why they saw fit to bring in the experts from Sul Ross’s Borderlands Research Institute. “There’s definitely a method to the madness lions tend to move through draws and across ridge tops,” said researcher Price Rumbelow.

“We hike maybe six miles up to 20 miles on some of the longer days. We have probably gone 500 miles since we started,” said researcher Bert Geary.  

With traps set, and fancy tracking equipment, this crew definitely has it down to a ‘T’ on where these fearless cats travel. After every capture each cat gets a GPS collar so not only the group, but the park can alert hikers on what trails are safe.

“They are very capable, they are very efficient killers and hunters. We are in Mountain Lion Country, you just need to be mindful,” said Harveson.

Officials with the park estimate there to be a couple dozen mountain lions roaming the grounds, but the research team has only been successful in collaring two.

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Mountain Lions in Big Bend

Mountain lion on the Boot Canyon Trail. NPS/Big Bend National Park Mountain lion tracks near the Banta Shut-In. Note the lack of claw marks. Bear and coyote tracks have claw imprints in front of each toe pad. Steven Schauer Big Bend is Mountain Lion Country! If Big Bend had a symbol, it might well be  the mountain lion—the embodiment of freedom and wildness . Solitary and secretive, this  mighty creature is the unquestioned lord  of its natural world. As one of Big Bend’s top predators, Felis concolor —"cat all of one color"— is vital in maintaining the park’s biological  diversity. In the delicate  habitats of the Chihuahuan Desert, mountain  lions help balance herbivores (animals that eat plants) and vegetation. Research shows  that cats help keep deer and javelina within the limits of their food resources. Without lions, the complex  network of life in Big Bend would certainly be changed. Encountering a mountain lion, however, can lead to conflicts in maintaining the balance between natural  processes and visitor  enjoyment and safety. Since the 1950s , there have been more than 2,700 sightings of mountain lions  by visitors. Each year, over 150 lion sightings are reported by park  visitors. While over 90 percent of these sightings were along park roadways, encounters along trails have also occurred. Since 1984, four lion and human encounters have resulted in attacks on people. In both cases, those  attacked recovered from their injuries and the aggressive lions were  killed, preventing them from playing out their important natural roles.  The more we know about lions, and the  less we seek an encounter, the better able we will be to make life easier for them and for us. How much do you really know about this  powerful and wild cat? Mountain lions live throughout the park,  including the Chisos Mountains where they prefer to use trails . Your chances of  encountering an aggressive lion are remote. What can you do  to minimize the consequences of an encounter?  Avoid hiking alone or at dusk or dawn. Watch children closely; never let them run ahead of you. Like all predators, the mountain lion’s role is a  part of the health and welfare of the entire ecosystem. Research and further human  understanding of the cat’s habits pave the way  for conservation  efforts in its behalf. As we discover more about the lion, we fear  it less and appreciate it more. For many visitors, just seeing a track—or just knowing lions are out there—will be reward enough.

Richard Conniff is the author of 'The Species Seekers: Heroes, Fools, and the Mad Pursuit of Life on Earth' and other books.............His take on the the killing of 1000 Wolves in Idaho since 2009............"Why not make wolves the basis for new jobs in the tourism economy, as has happened at Yellowstone National Park?"........... "Idaho’s political leadership, caught up in fairy-tale notions about wolves and a fanatic determination to oppose anything, even a native species, with the taint of the federal government on it, seems determined instead to drive this magnificent state down in a self-destructive cycle of hatred and killing"

http://www.takepart.com/article/2014/04/21/inside-idahos-irrational-war-wolves?cmpid=organic-share-email#.U1vOWF29ejU.email

Inside Idaho's Irrational War on Wolves

The state's political leadership is determined to oppose anything, even a native species, with the taint of the federal government on it.

 

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Grey Wolves (Photo: Reuters)

April 26, 2014 By Richard Conniff

Richard Conniff is the author of 'The Species Seekers: Heroes, Fools, and the Mad Pursuit of Life on Earth' and other books.

Something is loose in Idaho. Possibly a screw. The state’s ranchers and politicians, including the governor and the commissioner of Idaho Fish and Game, have somehow convinced themselves that they are at the mercy of roaming bands of savage sheep- and baby-snatching monsters, also known as wolves. 

This notion has made Idaho anti-wolf activists so fearful and belligerent that they sound at times like New Jersey suburbanites in a gated community fretting about urban youth. Only more deadly.

Last month, Gov. C. L. “Butch” Otter signed a law creating a wolf control board with the explicit purpose of killing all but 150 of the state’s remaining 650 wolves. State officials would have preferred total extermination: “If every wolf in Idaho disappeared I wouldn’t have a problem with it,” the new fish and game commissioner declared at his confirmation hearing in January. But when the federal government, which reintroduced wolves to Idaho in 1995, agreed to turn over management of the wolf population to the state, it stipulated 150 as the rock-bottom number of wolves the state needed to maintain. Idaho has apparently chosen to honor the letter rather than the spirit of that agreement. One anti-wolf group spokesman has even proposed radio-collaring 150 wolves to ensure that the state does not fall below that minimum and “trigger the feds coming back in.” 

“I’ve been doing wildlife work for a long time, and I’ve never seen anything like this,” said Jamie Rappoport Clark, a former director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and now president of Defenders of Wildlife. “There is a vendetta against wolves that is not only unseemly, it’s reckless” and “bordering on a vigilante movement.” Instead of seeking to moderate it, political officials have been egging it on. “This is politics gone rogue, and in the gun sights are wolves, who don’t deserve it,” she said.The newly authorized slaughter follows the killing of more than 1,000 wolves in Idaho since 2009, when the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service first removed wolves from the endangered species list. This February alone, Idaho Fish and Game, together with the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Wildlife Services, used helicopters to gun down 23 wolves. In December, it sent a hired gun to kill nine wolves in the federally protected Frank Church–River of No Return Wilderness Area. (The U.S. Forest Service, never a profile in political courage, pretended not to notice what was going on in an area Congress directed it to keep “untrammeled by man.”) Also that month, in the nearby town of Salmon, an Idaho hunting and gun rights group sponsored awolf-killing derby.  

In one remarkable example of institutionalized lawlessness, Idaho County Sheriff Doug Giddings in 2011 sponsored what he called the “308 SSS Idaho County Sheriff's Wolf Raffle.” He claimed that the abbreviation SSS stood for “safety, security, and survival.” But in rancher parlance, “SSS” means “shoot, shovel, and shut up”—that is, kill the wolves, bury the evidence, and never mind what the law says. To drive home the point, Giddings posed with a Winchester .308, a shovel, and a smile.  

Since then, much of Idaho seems to have turned to shooting, shoveling, and shouting about it. The decision to abet this process with $400,000 a year in taxpayer funds comes in response to confirmed killings by Idaho wolves of 46 cattle and 413 sheep in 2013. Even taking top market rates of $900 for cattle and $150 for sheep, that adds up to just $103,350 in losses, for which the federal government now provides compensation funding. In the 25 years from 1987 to 2011, compensation paid to ranchers in Idaho for wolf losses totaled $1.4 million—less than the state now plans to spend in the first four years of its new killing program. So much for fiscal responsibility for Idaho Republicans like Otter.

The vendetta against wolves is particularly odd because wolves are vastly outnumbered in Idaho by other predators, including 30 grizzly bears, 3,000 mountain lions, 2,000 black bears, and 50,000 coyotes. The coyotes alone kill up to 10,000 sheep annually, said Suzanne Stone, a Boise resident and the wolf specialist at Defenders of Wildlife. That’s up to two dozen times as many as wolves kill. While ranchers with their .308s certainly fight back, their animosity toward these other predators doesn’t come anywhere close to the irrational hatred and spite they feel toward wolves. The policy also ignores what science is learning about the outsize role wolves play in maintaining healthy ecosystems.

Why not invest in that success? Or why not make wolves the basis for new jobs in the tourism economy, as has happened at Yellowstone National Park? Idaho’s political leadership, caught up in fairy-tale notions about wolves and a fanatic determination to oppose anything, even a native species, with the taint of the federal government on it, seems determined instead to drive this magnificent state down in a self-destructive cycle of hatred and killing.  Instead of exterminating wolves or paying compensation, Stone argued that it would be far cheaper to prevent killings in the first place. At the Wood River Valley Project, on 1,000 square miles of federal land in the Sawtooth Mountains, sheep grazers, government agencies, and Defenders of Wildlife collaborate to keep wolves away from livestock with nonlethal methods, including guarding dogs, sound devices, lighting, and flagging. One participant, Lava Lake Land and Livestock, boasts of “grazing a band of 1,000 sheep for a month in the immediate daily presence of a wolf pack with no losses of sheep or wolves.” Over six years, according to Stone, the program has lost just 30 sheep—about 1 percent of herds grazing there—without killing a single wolf.

For Idaho’s many wildlife-friendly residents, this may bring ruefully to mind a recent remark by comedian Stephen Colbert: “Idaho has just raised its speed limit to 80 miles an hour. Now you can get out of there even faster.” Instead, state residents should sign a Defenders of Wildlife petition demanding that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service begin an immediate status review of Idaho’s wolves. (So far, the nation’s premier wildlife management agency has been timidly looking in almost any other direction.) Then state residents should get to work electing a government that enacts policies that accurately reflect their conservatism.

The second-longest land migration in North America. and the longest mule deer migration ever recorded occurred during the winter of 2011 up in the Red Desert in Wyoming.............Mule Deer decided to trot 100 miles north from the low elevation desert to the high elevation summer range of Hoback Basin near Yellowstone..............Biologist Hall Sawyer of Western Ecosystems Technology states that "a migration like this could take hundreds or even thousands of years to shape" ..............“It leads them(the Mule Deer) to a place to maximize their fitness and reproduction...............The information regarding this migration will be shared with traffic and resource managers so as to mitigate difficult road crossings, fences and other barriers that can stymie the Deer in their marathon to the high country

http://www.laramieboomerang.com/articles/2014/04/26/outdoors/doc535b4c6c3724f392611987.txt

Group documents new mule deer migration corridor

BY EVE NEWMAN / EVEN@LARAMIEBOOMERANG.COM • SATURDAY, APRIL 26, 2014

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A mule deer buck travels south near Boulder Lake in Sublette County along a newly discovered deer migration corridor. The Wyoming Migration Initiative recently released an assessment of risks along the route. Photo courtesy of Joe Riis

When biologist Hall Sawyer set out to track the movements of a herd of mule deer that winter in the Red Desert near Rock Springs, he figured the project was pretty straight-forward.

Working for environmental consulting company Western Ecosystems Technology in the winter of 2011 on a study funded by the Bureau of Land Management, Sawyer equipped 40 mule deer with GPS collars designed to drop off in two years.

A few months later, as spring arrived, Sawyer returned to the Red Desert to look for the deer.

“We thought they resided here,” he said.

He was wrong.

“We were in for a big surprise,” he said. “The surprise was the deer weren’t there.”

Researchers eventually found the deer more than 100 miles north. They had left the low-elevation desert — where they spent the winter — for high-elevation summer range on mountains surrounding the Hoback Basin near Yellowstone National Park.

It’s the second-longest land migration in North America.the longest mule deer migration ever recorded

“This incredible migration story was revealed to us,” Sawyer said.

Sawyer discussed the migration during a presentation Tuesday evening at the University of Wyoming.

As the mule deer gain more than 3,000 feet in elevation in their yearly journey from the plains to the mountains, the group grows to almost 5,000 animals. They pass through sand dunes and cross lakes and rivers. They also cross highways and more than 100 fences as they move through public and private land.

“A migration like this could take hundreds or even thousands of years to shape,” Sawyer said. “It leads them to a place to maximize their fitness and reproduction.”

As spring breaks across Wyoming, pronghorn, moose, elk and mule deer start to move. According to Matthew Kauffman, who directs the Wyoming Migration Initiative, more than 90 percent of ungulates migrate. In the spring, they move from low elevations to high, following the new growth of grasses and forbs.

“This is one of the things that makes Wyoming one of the truly wild places left in the West,” said.

Kauffman also heads the Wyoming Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit and is an associate professor at the University of Wyoming. He founded the Wyoming Migration Initiative together with Bill Rudd, a retired biologist with the Wyoming Game and Fish Department.

The goal of the initiative is to connect the latest migration science with decision-makers and the public.     The migratory paths followed by big-game herds are usually the same paths they’ve followed for generations. When animals encounter man-made obstacles, they either detour around or hurry through, sometimes losing foraging opportunities along the way, Kauffman said.

The Migration Initiative conducted an assessment of the Red Desert-to-Hoback mule deer migration. Scientists identified the top risks, such as road crossings, fences and bottlenecks. They hope that identifying potential problems will help land managers, landowners and other agencies better direct their conservation efforts.

Already, the Wyoming Department of Transportation has plans to modify fencing and install gates along a highway this summer, he said.

If we want to continue to enjoy the deer herds that we have today, we need to protect these migration routes,” Sawyer said.

While conducting the assessment, the Migration Initiative enlisted National Geographic photographer Joe Riis to document the movement of the herds. Riis, a recent UW graduate, earned a reputation for wildlife photography while following a pronghorn migration several years ago.

Riis began working on the project in the summer of 2012 and captured his best shots the following summer and fall.

He uses motion-triggered camera traps for many shots, which requires predicting where the deer will be and anticipating their movements.

He also made a short video that includes footage of a herd crossing a stream.

 “It’s a dream for me to get a shot like that,” Riis said.

Photos of the migration are included in the assessment, which is available on the Wyoming Migration Initiative website.

A video is also available for viewing. A photo exhibit will travel the state this year and next year as part of further outreach efforts.

For more information, go to www.migrationiniatiative.org.

Unfortunately, the uninformed at local newspapers, tv networks and tv stations constantly take the "no change in numbers" information from state game agencies as PROOF POSITIVE that the hunting management plans in place are benign and positive for Wolves, Bears, Coyotes and Pumas.................What is not on their radar to dig deeper on is the social disruption that Carnivore killing brings onto the remaining population as well as the trickle down out-of-whack variables that negatively impact the entire natural system..........In a Wolf Pack, when older wolves are killed, packs structures are often disrupted............. Territories become less defined and younger wolves may be left to fend for themselves too soon............ Without the guidance of more experienced wary adult wolves, they may not learn to avoid livestock and humans............ Full-sized packs with a natural distribution of age groups, and intact social systems will not resort to killing livestock as often as packs that have been hunted, nor will they kill as many wild elk or deer................Disruption of social organization and management based only on numbers has important consequences............ If the “cultural knowledge” of where to hunt and/or the ability of a pack to effectively hunt is destroyed by loss of key pack members, social systems may destabilize and the remaining pack member may be more prone to conflict with humans and livestock............ Smaller wolf packs – typical in the Western US - may be particularly susceptible to such impacts as odds are higher that any adult killed is a breeder making social disruption much more likely...."............"AIN'T" IT ABOUT TIME THAT OUR MEDIA SEEK TO GET EDUCATED ON THIS CRITICAL ASPECT OF CARNIVORE ECOLOGY????????????

http://abc10up.com/wolf-population-decreases-but-no-significant-change-from-2013/

Wolf population decreases, but no significant change from 2013

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April 23, 2014

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The results of Michigan’s 2014 wolf population show no significant change in the number of wolves in the Upper Peninsula.

According to the Department of Natural Resources, wildlife biologists estimate there is a minimum of 636 wolves in the state.

In 2013, the population was estimated at 658 wolves.

“Based on the 2014 minimum population estimate, it is clear that wolf numbers in Michigan are stable and have experienced no significant change,” DNR furbearer and bear specialist Adam Bump said in a press release.  “We also did not see a significant difference in the number and average size of wolf packs as compared to 2013.”

The DNR says in the past few years the minimum population stands between 600 and 700 wolves.

The DNR primarily used a track survey to count the number of wolves, but also used radio-collared wolves and aerial observations.

About 63% of the U.P. was surveyed.

This winter, a wolf management hunt resulted in 22 wolves taken from three hunt units.  The target harvest was 43 wolves.

“The fact that the 2014 estimate is 22 animals lower than the 2013 estimate is purely a coincidence,” Bump said. “We are using an estimate rather than counting all individual wolves on the landscape. In addition, wolf numbers vary greatly within a single year due to the birth of pups in the spring, and deaths from many causes of mortality other than hunting. What the estimate tells us is that the population has remained stable.”

For more on wolf management in the state, visit michigan.gov/wolves.

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www.oregonwild.org/fish_wildlife/.

..wolves.../wolves-misunderstood‎

Hunting wolves does not reduce conflict.

Agencies and wildlife managers that rely upon active management often promote wolf hunts as a way to reduce wolf-livestock conflict, protect prey animals, and increase social tolerance. However, research has begun to show that hunting wolves disrupts pack structure and instead often increases such conflicts

For wolves, pack structure typically constitutes an unrelated breeding pair, their offspring, and close relatives, but intense harvest may increase adoption of unrelated individuals into packs (. When older wolves are killed, packs structures are often disrupted. Territories become less defined and younger wolves may be left to fend for themselves too soon. Without the guidance of more experienced wary adult wolves, they may not learn to avoid livestock and humans. Full-sized packs with a natural distribution of age groups, and intact social systems will not resort to killing livestock as often as packs that have been hunted, nor will they kill as many wild elk or deer

Disruption of social organization and management based only on numbers has important consequences. If the “cultural knowledge” of where to hunt and/or the ability of a pack to effectively hunt is destroyed by loss of key pack members, social systems may destabilize and the remaining pack member may be more prone to conflict with humans and livestock. Smaller wolf packs – typical in the Western US - may be particularly susceptible to such impacts as odds are higher that any adult killed is a breeder making social disruption much more likely

There is little evidence to back up the specious claim that allowing wolf hunts increases human social tolerance of the species (91). There is plenty of anecdotal evidence to suggest otherwise (57). Old prejudices die hard, and it’s difficult to demonstrate that the wolf hunts that took place after wolf delisting have increased social tolerance amongst those opposed to wolf recovery.

Like the YELLOWSTONE TO YUKON INITIATIVE in the Rocky Mountain West which seeks to create large protected wild habitat with continuous wildlife safety corridors linking those habitats, the HARVARD FOREST WILDLANDS AND WOODLANDS PARADIGM is laser focused on protecting 70% of New England's remaining forests in a matrix of both working forests(Woodlands) and forever wild forests(Wildlands)...................Our friend and head of the HARVARD FOREST, David Foster is tirelessly collaborating with land trusts, industry and private landowners to make this vision a reality over the next 50 years

W&W at a Glance

Wildlands and Woodlands calls for conservation of 70% of New England as forests—while we still have this spectacular chance. W&W celebrates the many committed people conserving land today.

And offers new ways to collaborate to double the pace of conservation.

Together we will sustain the forested and natural landscapes that in turn sustain us. 

From: Meril, Rick
Sent: Wednesday, April 23, 2014 10:26 AM
To: 'Foster, David'; Harvard Forest
Subject: RE: Wildlands and Woodlands

David…………..you and your colleagues and partner groups are to be commended for "walking the walk" and not just "talking the talk"……………I always think about fantastic it would be for some of  successful hi-tech entrepreneurs(Facebook/Google/Amazon, etc, etc) to do a "Roxanne Quimby" and donate $50 to $100 million a piece to get land preservation accomplished in a connected, one fell swoop move…………………All of the Tech guys verbalize their concern for the environment,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,where is their "walk the walk" on the foundation pinning of biodiversity,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,land preservation?

Best to you David……………….

Rick

From: Foster, David
Sent: Wednesday, April 23, 2014 10:07 AM
To: Meril, Rick
Subject: Wildlands and Woodlands

Rick

Hope all is well with you.  And, thanks very much for your recent support of W&W.  I was just up in Orono, Maine  for a PhD thesis exam where the student had analyzed the history of land protection in the three northern New England states.  He estimates that if efforts continues as they have for the last two decades that the W&W goal of 70% of the landscape conserved will be reached in 85 years (as opposed to the 50 projected in W&W).  But, if we can make the same kind of increase in land protection that we have three times in history we will reach the goal in 45 years.  Wonderful to see folks working with a vision as a goal.

Best, David

David R. Foster   978.724.3302

Director, Harvard Forest, Harvard University

324 N. Main Street   Petersham, MA 01366
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How might the New England landscape change in 50 years, and what consequences might follow for people and the environment?

A groundbreaking study released in mid-December, led by the Harvard Forest and the Smithsonian Institution, examined four possible scenarios for the future of the Massachusetts landscape depending on land-use decisions we make today. The researchers' most significant finding indicates that recent forest loss trends, if they continue unabated, will undermine land conservation gains, damage water quality throughout the state, and limit the ability of the landscape to protect against climate change. 

The results of the study are summarized in a new report, Changes to the Land: Four Scenarios for the Future of the Massachusetts Landscape. In the study, Harvard Forest and Smithsonian scientists brought together a diverse group of eight natural resource professionals to develop four plausible land-use futures, and used sophisticated computer models to conduct a 50-year, acre-by-acre analysis of how each alternative would affect the valuable ecosystem benefits currently provided by the Commonwealth's forested landscape.

The four landscape scenarios developed and analyzed for Massachusetts are Recent Trends, Opportunistic Growth, Regional Self-Reliance, and Forests as Infrastructure. The scenarios reflect different amounts and intensities of land development, timber harvesting, farmland expansion, and forest conservation.

Scenarios are not predictions but they can showcase important ways that our land use decisions today can have tremendous consequences for the world we live in tomorrow.

One central finding of the study is that the Forests as Infrastructure Scenario, which 1) increases the pace of conservation, 2) focuses on far more clustered development, and 3) expands sustainable forestry, ranks the highest overall in terms of protecting the many water, climate, wildlife, flood control, and other benefits provided to people and nature by our forested landscapes. 

As noted by lead author Jonathan Thompson, Senior Ecologist at Harvard Forest, "What we found is that land-use decisions have immediate and dramatic impacts on many of the forest benefits people depend on…The results of the study show that sprawl, coupled with a permanent loss of forest cover in Massachusetts, create an urgent need to address land-use choices."

Given the major transitions the Commonwealth is facing today—not only in forest cover but also in state leadership and public policy—it is important to consider the policy implications of this study. The Executive Summary includes a short Policy Addendum that highlights key areas where Massachusetts can help conserve nature's vital benefits through 1) recommitting to land conservation, 2) redoubling land use policy and planning, and 3) promoting sustainable forestry. 

The researchers have received National Science Foundation funding to extend the study throughout the rest of New England over the coming decade.