OVANDO – On the morning of July 6, the Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks’ Wildlife Human Attack Response Team responded to a fatal bear attack in Ovando.

The incident happened early Tuesday morning.

FWP biologists, conflict specialists and game wardens are on the scene and searching for the bear.

A video camera from a local business caught footage of a grizzly bear Monday night, and a bear also got into a chicken coop.

Grizzly bears are common in the Blackfoot Valley where Ovando is located.

More details on the incident will be released as they are available.

Technology Provides Environmental Data for Offshore Wind

The Maryland Department of Natural Resources (DNR), Maryland Energy Administration (MEA), University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science (UMCES), and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution have launched an ocean buoy that monitors and provides daily reports of whales detected off Maryland’s Atlantic coast.

A wide range of whales, dolphins, and porpoises call the ocean offshore Maryland home or visit during their annual migration along the Atlantic coast. The buoy supports the state’s ongoing efforts to expand our understanding of marine mammals and to support research that will aid environmental assessments such as those conducted for offshore wind development. This buoy will provide information about these species and the time of year they are present.

The buoy was deployed about 23 miles offshore and is sited within US Wind LLC’s MarWin lease. A U.S. Coast Guard notice to mariners was issued to alert ocean-going vessels and the boating community to its location.

The buoy system has an underwater listening device called a hydrophone that will record marine mammal calls. A detection algorithm will then analyze these calls and determine the presence of humpback, fin, sei, and the critically-endangered North Atlantic Right whale species. These data will be transmitted to shore, and the records will be verified by UMCES scientists and shared on a daily basis. Anyone interested in which species are detected off our coast can access the daily reports on the buoy website. Read more

The California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) has undertaken the largest wildfire protection and resiliency effort in its history, working to safeguard nearly all of its wildlife areas, ecological reserves and the surrounding communities from wildfire ahead of peak wildfire season this summer and fall.

Wildfire resiliency work is underway at dozens of CDFW-owned properties statewide. These efforts include creating fire breaks, removing brush and other wildfire fuel, thinning overgrown vegetation, expanding livestock grazing and conducting controlled burns when conditions safely permit.

The unprecedented undertaking is the result of SB 85, the “Wildfire Forest and Resilience Early Action Package,” state legislation signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom in April that authorized $536 million in wildfire protection and resiliency spending in the current fiscal year. CDFW is budgeted to receive $15 million of those funds to better protect its lands, which total about 1 million acres. Additional wildfire funding is expected in the 2021-22 state budget.

“This is a huge moment for the department, and we’re really striving for smart projects that will benefit wildlife habitats and the communities surrounding department lands,” said Stafford Lehr, CDFW Deputy Director for Wildlife and Fisheries. “We’ve already identified more than 40 projects, many of which have been started and a few already completed. We’ll be able to hire some new people and buy some new equipment that will not only help protect our own properties but better protect our neighbors as well. In many instances, this wildfire work has the added benefit of improving native plant and wildlife habitat on our properties.” Read more

By Glen Wunderlich

Charter Member Professional Outdoor  Media Association (POMA)

It’s been utterly fascinating to learn about wild turkeys’ tendencies and habits over the past few years.  That’s because we enjoy good numbers of them and that makes live education available.  One of the oddities I’ve noticed – yet one crucial to the big birds’ survival – is how the hens can disappear from what was previously common ground.  And, so it has been for the past month or so.

Three males – one young longbeard, one jake and one double-bearded jake – have been stealing the show without any help from the females anyway.  Pecking order has become defined and dominance is part of life, no matter what position a given bird assumes.  Watching them chase each other around a tree is pure no-cost entertainment!  All this “nonsense” helps to define their own hierarchy, which is separate from that of the females.  And, that brings me to my next observation this drizzly morning:  The hens are back!

At first thought, one may assume something’s amiss, when hens that were commonly seen in the springtime seem to vanish.  That’s because all the breeding behavior we see when hunting is over.  Not only are the gobblers not gobbling, but the hens had become most secretive locating nesting sites.

Now the family groups are scavenging together in familiar, safe territory known well to the mother hens.  It was eye-opening to watch the little ones scratch in the pine straw – something programmed in their computer chip.  But, these young birds had been away from the nest for weeks and by the looks of them, they’ve already experienced flying to some degree.  They leave the nest a day or two after hatching and a mere two weeks later can fly short distances.  Add another week and they’re flying to higher roosting levels and have changed diets from mostly insects to more plant matter.

And, oh how they love a clover field.  It typically offers the best of insects and vegetation, but not right now; hens are still going to be protective and cautious guarding their respective families.  Accordingly, the mother hens seem to know their groups are still susceptible to both airborne and ground attacks from predators.  And, although I spotted several hens with over 20 combined offspring, they were distinct families religiously controlled by the mother hens in familiar conifer cover.

Already, more food is falling from above as mulberries hit the ground in huge numbers, courteous of the spring-long, stress-producing drought.  These sweet morsels are a bane to homeowners who allow them to grow too close to anything they don’t want to become purple.  But, in the field, the trees (not bushes like in the nursery rhyme) grow relatively fast and strong.  Not only do they make super firewood, but myriad wildlife – including young and adult turkeys – enjoy the abundant, nutritious feast.

Various groups of turkeys can be seen within a mile or so of their home range, which is how much they tend to walk in their daily routines.   It sure was uplifting to see the circle of life unfolding, as the young turkeys were shown their new territory.