Category: Wildlife

Goldfinch

Dozen Zoo-Born Mexican Wolf Pups Find New Homes in Wild

ALBUQUERQUE – Twelve Mexican wolf pups are now being cared for and raised by surrogate wild wolf parents after successful efforts to introduce them into existing wolf litters in Arizona and New Mexico.

The young wolves were placed in their foster dens by scientists from the Mexican Wolf Species Survival Plan group and Interagency Field Team (IFT). The cross-fostering is part of an effort to restore the rare gray wolf subspecies to its former range and increase genetic diversity in the wild population.

Watch a video on cross-fostering from 2017

Five Mexican wolf pups were placed into wild dens in Arizona and seven pups were placed into wild dens in New Mexico from April 18 to May 10, 2019, in accordance with the Mexican Wolf Recovery Plan. Cross-fostering is a proven way to introduce pups into the litter of an experienced wild female. Typically, survival rates using this technique are higher than other wolf release methods.

Six of the pups came from the Endangered Wolf Center in Missouri, three from the Mesker Park Zoo in Indiana, two from the Sedgwick County Zoo in Kansas, and one from the Wolf Conservation Center in New York. In addition, three wild-born pups were removed from the Frieborn Pack in New Mexico and placed at the Endangered Wolf Center. Read more

Wildlife

Michigan Wetland Wonders Photo Contest

Scattered across the state, Michigan’s wetlands provide great year-round recreation opportunities like birding, boating, fishing, hiking, photography and hunting. Now through July 14, the DNR’s Wetland Wonders Challenge offers even more reasons to visit. Stop by one of the 14 Wetland Wonders locations at state game and wildlife areas around Michigan, snap a picture next to the official sign, and you could win a Cabela’s gift card valued at up to $1,000.

But Michigan’s wetlands offer more than amazing recreation and prize opportunities. They’re key to improving and maintaining the state’s environmental health.

“Michigan’s wetlands are beneficial to humans and to wildlife,” said Holly Vaughn, DNR wildlife communications coordinator. “They provide important flood control functions, especially important when communities are experiencing a great deal of rainfall, and help to filter water, making our groundwater cleaner. Wetlands also provide nesting areas and resting spots for migrating birds to stop and refuel for their long migrations.” Read more

Wildlife

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to Propose Downgrading or Eliminating Federal Protections for Some Species

GW:  Let the whining begin.  Critters can be listed for protection but never, never, never let them be considered as having recovered.  The radical lefties always use the same playbook:  If it means an animal could be hunted, then radical groups like Defenders of Wildlife will be against it.  Period.

WASHINGTON – The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Service) released its three-year plan to propose removing 25 threatened or endangered species currently listed under the Endangered Species Act, including the delisting of species that are not yet recovered like the gray wolf in the Lower 48 States, Key deer and Canada lynx. These changes also include downlisting or delisting the red cockaded woodpecker as threatened or recovered; and downlisting 24 endangered species to threatened status. Premature downlisting from endangered to threatened could also be particularly harmful given the Trump administration’s impending regulatory changes that will reduce basic protections for newly threatened animals.

The news of these proposed changes is sobering, particularly in the wake of the recently released international assessment on the potential loss of up to 1 million species threatened with extinction in the coming decades.

Jamie Rappaport Clark, president and CEO of Defenders of Wildlife, issued the following statement:

“These proposed changes could worsen our nation’s biodiversity crisis. The Key deer is a prime example: proposing to delist the deer is premature when this species continues to suffer from habitat loss, vehicle collisions and the effects of sea level rise due to climate change. At this critical time, we should be doing everything that we can to save imperiled species and their habitat, and fully funding and implementing the Endangered Species Act to defend against extinction.

“We call on the Fish and Wildlife Service to make delisting and downlisting decisions based on sound science. The Endangered Species Act is our strongest conservation law, and one of our nation’s most successful laws ever enacted. Species like the Foskett speckled dace, pulled back from the brink of extinction thanks to the Endangered Species Act, are a testament to the effectiveness of this visionary legislation.”

Wildlife

Gypsy moths numbers are rising in southern Michigan

Gypsy moths are an invasive species, a term for non-native pests that can cause harm to native species and ecosystems. In its caterpillar life stage, the insect caused widespread defoliation in Michigan from the mid-1980s to the early 1990s. A large population in 2018 has led to more caterpillars hatching this spring.

Current defoliation is heaviest in Barry, Ionia and Washtenaw counties, but Department of Natural Resources forest health experts say it’s likely that gypsy moth caterpillars are causing similar problems on a local scale in other areas of the Lower Peninsula. Heavy defoliation likely will become visible within the next few weeks in localized outbreak areas and persist through mid-July.

“Gypsy moths rarely kill trees in Michigan,” said James Wieferich, DNR forest health specialist. “Only stressed trees suffering from problems like drought, old age or root damage are at high risk. In most cases, gypsy moth caterpillars are more of a nuisance in residential areas than in the woods.” Read more

Wildlife

Michigan: DNR Announces Recipients of Iron Belle Trail Funding

More than two dozen projects along different parts of Michigan’s Iron Belle Trail will get a boost this year, sharing $1.4 million in public and privately raised funds to help build connections along the state’s showcase trail.

Stretching more than 2,000 total miles, the Iron Belle Trail is the longest state-designated trail in the nation. Currently just over 70 percent completed, the trail runs along two separate routes: a hiking segment that mainly follows the North Country National Scenic Trail on the west side of Michigan, and an 800-mile bike trail running between Belle Isle in Detroit all the way to Ironwood in the western Upper Peninsula.

This year, the Michigan Department of Natural Resources has awarded $815,884 in mini-grants, while the private Iron Belle Trail Fund has added another $650,000 to support multiple projects on the trail. Grants from these two sources will leverage a matching $3 million in Iron Belle Trail projects. Read more

Wildlife

Watch Live As a Wild California Condor Chick Grows Up

Ithaca, NY & Fillmore, CA— People across the world can get up-close-and-personal with an endangered California Condor chick in real time through live streaming video of a cliff-side nest in Pole Canyon on the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Hopper Mountain National Wildlife Refuge in Ventura County, California. California Condor chick California Condor chick #980 (left) hatched on April 10. Its parents are 9-year-old female condor #563 and 19-year-old male condor #262. This is the pair’s first nesting attempt together and their first year on the live streaming Condor Cam as a pair. This is female condor #563’s second attempt at raising a chick, and the chick’s father, condor #262, fledged one other chick in the past with a previous mate.

Followers of the California Condor Cam watched a chick hatch live in the wild for the first time in history from another cliff-side nest on Hopper Mountain NWR in 2015. Since then, live streaming video of California Condor chicks attracted hundreds of thousands of viewers from all over the world.

“Today’s technology allows researchers like us to observe nests in remote locations without having to trek into the backcountry and wait for days, sometimes weeks, at observation blinds for a glimpse of the condors,” says Dr. Estelle Sandhaus, the Santa Barbara Zoo’s director of conservation and science. “With this live stream, the public can share in the thrill of seeing these rare and highly endangered birds care for their chick, and follow its development before it takes its first flight. What was once only seen by a few scientists is now available to anyone with an Internet connection.” Read more

Wildlife

Protect Grassland Birds by Mowing Later

Photo caption: Landowners with 10-plus acres of field can help protect grassland birds such as bobolinks by delaying mowing til mid-August. (Courtesy VFWD/Hall).

MONTPELIER, Vt. — From bobolinks flushing up from a grassy field to the beautiful song of an eastern meadowlark, grassland birds greatly enrich summer in Vermont. But many of these species are in decline due to the loss of appropriate grassland habitat.

Landowners can make a difference by altering the times of year they mow fields that are 10 acres or larger. The Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department and Audubon Vermont are encouraging landowners to help promote these beloved species by waiting a little longer to mow and give these birds a chance to complete their nesting season. Read more

Wildlife

RMEF Supports Returning Gray Wolf Management to State Wildlife Agencies

MISSOULA, Mont.—The Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation fully supports removing the gray wolf from the list of endangered and threatened wildlife as proposed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS).

“Gray wolves have exceeded recovery goals in many states, including Idaho, Montana, Wyoming and the western Great Lakes region,” Blake Henning, RMEF chief conservation officer, wrote in a public comment submitted to the USFWS. “RMEF maintains that where wolves exist, they should be managed by state wildlife agencies just as they manage elk, bears, deer, mountain lions and other wildlife. “

RMEF has been a long-time advocate for state management of gray wolves, which is in line with RMEF’s support of the North American Wildlife Conservation Model, under which state management of wildlife along with the financial contributions from hunters dramatically increased wildlife populations across the United States over the last century.

Wolves are currently above objective in Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin and are spreading into California, Colorado, Oregon, Washington and other states. The species is already under state management in Idaho, Montana and Wyoming where populations range anywhere from 150 to 400 percent above minimum recovery goals.

USFWS is not calling for the delisting of the Mexican gray wolf which is found in Arizona and New Mexico.

“The recovery of the gray wolf in the Northern Rocky Mountains and the western Great Lakes has exceeded all expectations. Gray wolves are no longer in danger of extinction, and it is time for wolf management to be turned over to the states,” wrote Henning. Read more

Wildlife

Endangered Mussels to Gain Protected Habitat in 18 Eastern, Midwestern States

WASHINGTON— The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service today agreed to designate critical habitat for four endangered freshwater mussels found in 18 states in the East and Midwest, marking a major legal victory for the species and for the Center for Biological Diversity.

The four colorfully named mussels — snuffbox, spectaclecase, sheepnose and rayed bean — range from Wisconsin and New York to Alabama and from Kansas to Virginia.

“Freshwater mussels are America’s most endangered group of animals, so it’s fantastic that these four incredibly important creatures will get habitat protection,” said Tierra Curry, a senior scientist at the Center. “Those safeguards will benefit these mussels along with the health of rivers across 18 states.”

The mussels were protected under the Endangered Species Act in 2012, but the Fish and Wildlife Service took no action to designate critical habitat for them until after the Center sued the agency in July 2018.

Under the agreement the agency must propose protected habitat areas for the mussels by Nov. 30, 2024. That protection will require anyone conducting a federally funded or permitted project in the mussels’ habitat to consult with the Service to ensure the area is not damaged. Species with federally protected critical habitat are more than twice as likely to be moving toward recovery as species without it. Read more

Animal Rights, Wildlife

$1 million in Michigan Wildlife Habitat Grants available; apply by July 26

Converting farm land into pheasant and small game habitat, conducting prescribed burns to restore native grasslands, cutting and planting oak trees to restore forest land – these are just a few examples of past Wildlife Habitat Grant Program-supported projects. Those interested in securing grant dollars from this DNR program for future projects are encouraged to apply for the next round of funding. Projects to enhance game species habitat will be given priority.

“This is an exciting opportunity to partner with others in the state to increase the habitat available for game species in Michigan and to enhance the existing habitat for the benefit of hunters, trappers and wildlife viewers,” said DNR Wildlife Division Chief Russ Mason.

Local, state, federal and tribal governments, for-profit and nonprofit groups, and individuals all are welcome to apply through an open, competitive process. The minimum grant amount is $15,000. The maximum is the total funding available for the current grant cycle. This year that amount is approximately $1 million. A minimum match of 10% is required. Read more

Wildlife
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