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Wichita, Kansas – At its 14th annual conference the Professional Outdoor Media Association awarded its top national book award to J. Wayne Fears new book The Scouting Guide to Survival, published by Skyhorse Publishing. The 2019 Pinnacle Award for books was announced by Kevin Tate, Vice President of Media Productions at Mossy Oak, the presenting partner of the Pinnacle Awards since the program’s inception. This is the third book written by J. Wayne Fears to win the coveted award.
The Scouting Guide to Survival is a 168 page full color illustrated book which teaches the reader over 200 essential skills to staying alive when lost or stranded in the backcountry. The book is a Boy Scouts of America licensed book and a detailed guide to earning the wilderness survival merit badge. The book was written to be a survival guide to outdoor travels of all ages.
It can happen at any time – even in broad daylight, as one unlucky motorcycle driver has learned. With a loud bang, attention was turned to the dirt road, where an unfortunate young man came sliding by. He had just demolished a whitetail doe, a motorcycle, and parts of himself. The slide measured some 150 feet and concluded in front of me.
After the paramedics left with the driver and the county police did their paperwork, a dead deer lay mere feet from the road’s edge. It was time for me to “carry on” with the clean-up detail, because leaving the animal in place was not a good option for various reasons.
I dragged the carcass to an open field, where it could be spotted from the air, and that’s exactly what happened. As I motored to inspect the site a week later, several turkey vultures were spooked and landed atop a hunting shack waiting for me to clear the area. They were doing the dirty work of recycling the spoiled meat.
According to one of our abundant governmental agencies, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, some quarter million crashes annually are blamed on animals – certainly not oblivious drivers. That’s a lot of road kill and that’s a good enough reason for increases in numbers of turkey vultures – sometimes referred to as buzzards.
They are easily recognized up close by their bald red heads, although juveniles have black heads. When in flight, one can distinguish them from other large birds, such as hawks, by a tipping or rocking motion when soaring with their outstretched wings in a V-shape. One can also notice that the outline of their wing tips against the sky appears similar to fingers.
Interestingly they are well designed for doing the work of consuming rotted meat by poking their bald heads well inside body cavities. The head comes out virtually clean, because not much can stick to the skin; that which does is easily baked off in the sun.
They are not birds of prey and are the only scavenger birds having no ability to kill for their meals, although I have seen them picking off insects in newly mowed hay fields.
In a 1986 study in Panama, Turkey Vultures found 71 of 74 chicken carcasses within three days. There was no time difference between finding concealed and unconcealed carcasses, and the only carcasses the vultures seemingly had trouble finding were the freshest ones. Even though the older carcasses emitted a stronger odor, the vultures showed a definite preference for eating fresher carcasses.
Before you write off vultures as disgusting oddities, hear out our last fun fact. Dead animals are a breeding ground for infectious disease, including those that can pass to humans. Vultures, all species, not just turkey vultures, have strong acid in their stomachs that destroys these toxins. By eating carrion, vultures prevent the spread of rabies, botulism, anthrax, cholera, and more.
They are large birds measuring up to 32 inches in height with a wingspan of six feet and have a life expectancy of 20 years or more. However, what makes them such fantastic soaring birds is their light weight of only three pounds. They will find thermals and soar for hours without flapping their wings at heights beyond 4 miles. When migrating, they have been known to travel 200 miles in one day.
With faces only a mother can love, the vultures’ dirty work is the epitome of recycling – even if we can’t stomach the thought.
City and township officials and others from across the state interested in learning about options to reduce the negative effects of deer in their communities are invited to attend an urban deer management workshop Monday, July 22. Hosted by the Michigan Department of Natural Resources and the city of Rochester Hills, the free workshop will run 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the Rochester Hills Museum at Van Hoosen Farm, located at 1005 Van Hoosen Road.
The workshop will include an overview of various methods other communities have used to manage deer populations, and attendees will hear from city leaders who have used those methods.
Attendees also will be able to take part in broad discussions with DNR staff members and others on how to address deer management in urban areas.
“We understand that deer management in communities can be extremely polarizing and challenging,” said DNR deer management specialist Chad Stewart. “By engaging in a broader conversation on this topic, we hope to not only highlight some of the options currently available to communities, but also identify some of the obstacles they may face so that we can evaluate our approach toward deer management in these areas.”
Lunch will be provided. Space is limited, so registration is required. Read more
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.
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
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
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.”
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
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
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 #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
