PHOENIX — As Arizonans get out to experience the trails and outdoors, it is important to remember that Arizona is home to 13 species of rattlesnake. The ones encountered most often are the Western diamondback, Mojave, black-tailed and sidewinder.

Thomas Jones, amphibians and reptiles program manager for the Arizona Game and Fish Department, said: “Arizona has more rattlesnake species than any other state, and we can all celebrate that amazing biodiversity.”

In warm deserts, rattlesnakes are most active March through October. During the spring, rattlesnakes are most active in the daylight hours. As the days become increasingly hot, usually around early May, rattlesnakes become more active at night.

April is typically when the most rattlesnake bites are reported in Arizona. So far, there have been 39 bites reported in 2020 to the Arizona Poison and Drug Information Center, 19 of those in April. Read more

LITTLE ROCK — Birdhouses shaped like cabins and decorated like a Hilton may be nice yard ornaments, but many go unnoticed by the songbirds people are trying to attract. The best bluebird houses often are crafted by hand, and rarely take more than a single 6-foot board, a handful of nails and some quality time with family members.

The AGFC has an easy nestbox plan available at www.agfc.com/brochures ideal for an afternoon or weekend project. It takes minimal skills with a saw and hammer, and will be a fun addition to your yard for many years to come. A few cuts, some nails and one drilled entrance hole is all it takes to put together this basic home that will invite songbirds to stay a while and raise a family. Read more

Now, birders can monitor three different species of owls at their nests – Great Gray Owls, Great Horned Owls, and Barred Owls – thanks to live-feed cameras and internet streaming. In fact, you can observe the Great Gray and Great Horned nests simultaneously at their Montana locations. The Great Gray Owls are incubating eggs at their picturesque snag-top nest site, while the Great Horned Owls already have three large feathered nestlings. The Barred Owl pair is caring for three downy nestlings in their infamous nest box in Indiana.

The nest sites of the Great Gray and Great Horned Owls can be viewed live at https://www.owlresearchinstitute.org/ provided by the Owl Research Institute (ORI) and Explore. ORI also promises a new nest cam to monitor a Long-eared Owl nest soon, plus they will provide their annual view from the Arctic live cam at a Snowy Owl nest site when local conditions permit. In the meantime, you can review some remarkable video highlights from last year’s Snowy Owl nesting season as a bonus to the on-going live owl camera feeds. Read more

Bozeman, MT — The Wild Sheep Foundation (WSF), in partnership with Sitka Gear, has produced a new film that, for the first time, takes an in-depth look at what has been killing wild bighorn sheep since the 1930s, and has been slowing efforts to enhance populations of this iconic species.

The culprit is called Mycoplasma ovipneumoniae, or M.ovi for short. It is a bacterium carried by some domestic sheep and goats that can lead to respiratory complications and death in wild sheep. M.ovi is not a problem everywhere, or everywhere domestic and wild populations come in contact with each other, but M.ovi has been identified as a pathogen in bighorn sheep pneumonia outbreaks. These outbreaks have resulted in sporadic and, in some places, large-scale all-age die-off events in bighorn sheep, in some cases with mortalities of 70% or more of a given population. What’s exacerbating the problem is these disease episodes also result in low lamb recruitment often for decades. Read more

If you have oak trees – especially red oaks – now is the time to be wary of oak wilt spores carried by flying beetles.

From April 15 to July 15, oak trees are at high risk for oak wilt, a serious fungal disease that can weaken white oaks and kill red oak trees within a few weeks of infection.

“The guidelines against pruning oak trees during this period are a way to help prevent the spread of the disease,” said James Wieferich, forest health specialist in the DNR’s Forest Resources Division. “Unfortunately, many people learn not to prune or otherwise wound trees from mid-April to mid-July only after they lose their oaks to oak wilt.” Read more

Washington — Safari Club International CEO W. Laird Hamberlin recently brought attention to the looming threat to wildlife conservation as a result of COVID-19 in an op-ed that appeared in The Daily Caller.

Americans are rightly focused on the threat that COVID-19 poses to humans. We are all thankful for the first responders and health care workers who are on the front lines of this crisis, and we mourn the senseless loss of human life. We are all cheering on the scientists and researchers who are working feverishly to develop and test possible treatments and a vaccine, while the rest of us remain at home and practice social distancing to limit the spread of the pandemic.

But the coronavirus poses another threat – to our nation’s wildlife. The threat does not rest in direct transmission of the virus to animals, but in an economic chain reaction that could deny the states billions of dollars in vital funding for the conservation of wildlife and habitat. Read more