Category: Wildlife

Goldfinch

SCI Supports USFWS Proposed Improvements To ESA

Safari Club International supports major proposed revisions by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to its Endangered Species Act regulations that were announced today.
“Today’s announcement ushers in a major move forward for the FWS.  At long last, we have leadership that recognizes the importance of flexibility in the conservation of federally listed wildlife and the recognition that different approaches, including sustainable use, can be used to recover and sustain the world’s wildlife,” said SCI President Paul Babaz.
Of the many proposed changes, SCI generally supports the proposals to provide more flexibility to the management and recovery of threatened species and to modify how the agency establishes the “foreseeable future” when making threatened listing decisions.
Under one proposal, the FWS would decide on a species-by-species basis what, if any, ESA prohibitions would apply to each species listed as threatened.  The ESA itself applies these prohibitions (e.g., regarding take and import) only to endangered species.  Congress envisioned that the FWS would decide individually what prohibitions applied to each particular threatened species.
But the FWS long ago adopted a blanket rule that the statutory prohibitions would automatically apply to all threatened species, unless the FWS adopted a “special rule” specific to a particular species that spelled out what restrictions applied.
The FWS’s sister agency in implementing the ESA, the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), followed Congressional intent and did not adopt the blanket rule.  The FWS’s proposal would align it with NMFS and Congressional intent. Read more

Wildlife

AZGFD: Misinformation only stalls successful Mexican wolf recovery

PHOENIX – Scientists involved in Mexican wolf recovery say environmental groups distributing old and faulty data that calls for the release of captive adult wolves are not helping the recovery of the  endangered subspecies. Biologists at the Arizona Game and Fish Department (AZGFD) say maintaining a savvy wild-born population and limiting introductions of naïve captive-raised adult animals have been the keys to the ongoing success of the recovery program.

“This period of strong population growth has happened with almost the entire population being wild- born wolves,” said Jim Heffelfinger, a University of Arizona research scientist, AZGFD wildlife science coordinator and co-author of multiple peer-reviewed scientific studies on wolf recovery. “We’ve also learned that releasing captive singles and pairs that have spent their lives in a zoo setting has been ineffective in enhancing genetic diversity. The sobering truth is that in the last decade, no captive-raised adult wolf released in the wild has subsequently raised pups in the wild to contribute to the gene pool.”

The Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) and other environmental fundraising organizations have been pushing a narrative that captive-raised adult wolves should be released into the wild.  A July 12 news release from the groups called for the release of three packs of zoo-raised wolves. The piece also misstated the number of wolves already released and omitted an entire year of successful cross-fostering data from their analysis.

Contrary to the incorrect information issued by these organizations, AZGFD and its conservation partners have released 20 wolves from captivity since 2014 through “cross-fostering,” or selectively placing genetically valuable pups from captivity into wild packs to be raised by wild parents and with wild siblings. The latest wolf survey (2017) documented an all-time record number of 114 Mexican wolves in 22 packs, with 26 potential breeding pairs and 88 adult wolves in the wild population. Read more

Wildlife

Bird Groups to Testify Against Icebreaker Wind Energy Project

(Cleveland, Ohio, July 18, 2018) Bird conservation groups will be raising concerns about the impact on birds from Lake Erie’s first proposed offshore wind project, “Icebreaker,” tomorrow at a public hearing before the Cleveland City Council. Black Swamp Bird Observatory and American Bird Conservancy found numerous problems with the project’s environmental assessment (EA); the inadequacy of the EA’s science and process will be the basis for the joint testimony to be submitted by BSBO’s Don Bauman and Mark Shieldcastle.

“We reject the EA’s claim that this wind energy facility would have ‘little to no impact’” on birds, said Kimberly Kaufman, BSBO’s Executive Director, citing the critical importance of Lake Erie to migratory birds such as the endangered Kirtland’s Warbler. Read more

Wildlife

Ranew’s Firminator Accu-Seed System: Simple Solutions for the Land Manager

When it comes to whitetails, the most effective habitat management plans are those that provide proper year-round nutrition through planting a variety of crops for different seasons. The variety of plant species that whitetail prefer can have vastly different seed sizes and planting prescriptions. That presents a problem if you’re not properly equipped, and it can lead to costly waste.

The Accu-Seed System, just one of the many great features of The Firminator all-in-one food plot implement, addresses that by handling seeds of all sizes, from the tiniest clovers up to corn, soybeans, peas and sunflowers, and everything in between. You can even sow different sized seed simultaneously. This versatility makes the Firminator an ideal choice for the modern land manager, whether you’re installing food plots, filter strips, pastures, lawns or other conservation plantings.

Begin by filling the seed hopper and adjusting the metering openings by moving the linkage handle on the back of the seed box. An indicator on the handle shows seed size selections in one-sixteenth inch graduations. Set the size for the largest seed in the hopper and the metering system will automatically dispense seed at the generally accepted rate. When you are ready to dispense the seed, open the small access door on the side of the frame, pull and turn the small pin one-quarter turn and release. This engages the metering shaft allowing seed to fall as the Firminator rolls. Read more

Wildlife

Dry conditions across Michigan increase the risk of accidental fires

Even if the grass near you looks green, Michigan’s recent hot, dry weather has sucked most of the moisture from this year’s grass and completely dried last year’s growth, greatly increasing the risk of fire.

That means we should all take extra precautions to prevent accidentally starting fires, such as waiting to burn debris and not using all-terrain vehicles, lawn mowers or other outdoor machinery, according to the Michigan Department of Natural Resources.

“The layer of decomposing leaves and grasses in the ground has dried out,” said Paul Rogers, fire prevention specialist with the DNR. “That means fires that do ignite will burn down into the soils layer, making it harder, and more time-consuming, to put the fire out.”

In very dry conditions, heat from even a lawn mower or the exhaust pipe of an all-terrain vehicle can ignite dry grass, Rogers said. Things like a trailer chain dragging on pavement also can create sparks. Read more

Wildlife

Piping Plovers Nest Again On Presque Isle

Common terns also nest on historic beach

For the second consecutive year, a pair of federally endangered piping plovers are raising chicks on Presque Isle State Park’s Gull Point.

Further heightening this breaking conservation news is the nesting of a pair of state-endangered common terns on the same beach, maybe the first time both species have nested there since the mid-20th century.

That these nestings have occurred on Gull Point’s 300 or so acres in the easternmost reaches of Presque Isle is gratifying. Much work had gone into making this area, already considered one of Pennsylvania’s best birding areas, even more attractive to nesting shorebirds and avian migrants.

But the forces of nature that helped create Gull Point – erosion and deposition of sand – continually threaten its size and stability. It is a veritable living landmass, fluctuating in size and other ways with each incoming wave, which is why state and national conservation agencies banded together several years ago to eliminate vegetative cover on its shores for the greater good of wildlife, but particularly migratory birds. Read more

Wildlife

Study finds crow mobbing is a key strategy against a bigger bird

American Crows may not literally stack up against Common Ravens, but they do stack up in numbers before mobbing the larger bird. Illustration by Cornell Lab Bartels Science Illustrator Phillip Krzeminski.

Ithaca, NY— New research is adding validity to the adage “Birds of a feather flock together.”

A citizen-science-based report published in The Auk: Ornithological Advances suggests that when crows team up to take on a bigger foe it can be a highly successful strategy. Crows and many other birds resort to “mobbing” to drive off a predator. Even though a Common Raven is two to three times heavier than a crow, when crows band together against a single raven they usually succeed in driving it away.

“Our data show that when there are chases between crows and ravens, 97 percent of the time it is crows chasing ravens, not the other way around, a much higher rate than we expected,” says study co-author Eliot Miller, a postdoctoral researcher at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology.

A Common Raven being harassed by a mobbing American Crow. Photo by Kevin McGowan. Download larger image.

In the study, researchers from the Cornell Lab and the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, combed through thousands of voluntary citizen scientist comments describing interactions between crows and ravens submitted to the eBird online database. eBird is the world’s largest biodiversity-related citizen-science project, with more than 100 million bird sightings contributed each year by from around the world. Crow mobbing was reported in 67 percent of the behavioral comments used in the study. Read more

Wildlife

The Dwindling Doe Harvest

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The year was 1999. We were on the cusp of a new century. The Yankees won the World Series for the 25th time. The Denver Broncos won the Super Bowl for the second time, and more importantly from a deer management perspective, hunters shot more antlerless deer than antlered bucks for the first time. That was definitely cause to follow Prince’s advice and “party like it’s 1999.” That was a landmark year in the history of deer management. Decades of legal and cultural protection of antlerless deer produced harvests dominated by antlered bucks. This strategy worked well during the early and mid-1900s as sportsmen and managers worked to restock decimated deer herds. However, it was counterproductive to healthy herds and healthy habitats once deer herds recovered.

In 1999 the QDMA was 11 years old. For just over a decade, QDMA founder Joe Hamilton and other early Quality Deer Management (QDM) pioneers taught hunters the benefit and need of increasing the antlerless harvest, and in 1999 deer hunters changed the tide of deer hunting history (see the chart on the facing page). The white-tailed deer harvest in the chart is from the 37 states east of the Rocky Mountains in the Midwest, Northeast and Southeast. These states are home to 97 percent of the whitetails and 97 percent of the hunters in the U.S., and they provide an accurate account of whitetail harvests in the U.S. from 1989 to the present.

During the next decade, the QDM philosophy grew, and so did the antlerless harvest. From 1999 to 2009 hunters shot far more antlerless deer than antlered bucks on an annual basis. The next decade started the same, as the ratio of antlerless deer to bucks remained similar through 2013, but the 2014 hunting season marked the start of a significant three-year slide in antlerless harvests. From 2011 to the present, the antlered buck harvest has fluctuated some, but it has been fairly similar over those years. Conversely, the antlerless harvest has declined by 17 percent during this time period, reaching a low point in 2016. In fact, in 2016, for the first time since the 1990s, we nearly harvested more antlered bucks than antlerless deer! The 2016 antlerless harvest was the lowest it has been in nearly 20 years, and the difference in the antlerless and antlered buck harvest was only 11,693 deer. This was a difference of less than 0.5 percent out of the 5,648,835 deer harvested.

From 2003 to 2016, the antlered buck harvest remained nearly identical (2,820,586 vs. 2,818,571 bucks), while the antlerless harvest declined 24 percent (3,701,814 vs. 2,830,264 antlerless deer). This is a difference of 870,842 antlerless deer and over 174 million venison meals! This is a huge deal for hunters, deer managers, herds and habitats everywhere. It also places an even larger reliance on American agriculture to feed society. The protein from those 174 million venison meals needs to be replaced with increased beef, pork, poultry or soybean production, and the additional acreage needed for this often results in habitat loss for deer and other wildlife species.

What’s causing this change in antlerless harvest? Several factors own a piece of the blame. There are fewer deer today than a decade ago. Many states have purposely reduced deer herds through expanded antlerless opportunities and bag limits, so the extreme antlerless harvests of the early 2000s aren’t as necessary today.

Fawn recruitment rates plummeted from an average of 0.81 fawns per doe in 2000 to 0.58 fawns per doe in 2015. That means it takes nearly two does to recruit one fawn today. Fawn recruitment rates are impacted by predator numbers, habitat quality, herd management programs, and other factors. We could debate which factor is most important, but the reality is there are significantly fewer fawns recruited today than a decade or two ago, so deer herds don’t need to be harvested as aggressively to keep them in balance with what the habitat can support.

We’ve also had two “100-year” hemorrhagic disease (HD) outbreaks in the past 11 years: 2007 and 2012 went down as two of the worst HD years in history, and impacts were noticeable to deer herds in several states. Other factors such as severe winters, droughts, and habitat loss are at play too, but one last significant factor is hunter willingness to shoot antlerless deer.

There’s been an increasing trend over the past few years of hunters in numerous states shooting more antlered bucks than antlerless deer annually. This is expected in places like New England, but not in our productive “heartland.” In the 2016-17 deer season, over half (six of 11) of the states in the Southeast shot more bucks than antlerless deer. This should not be happening in deer-rich Louisiana, South Carolina or Tennessee. Even worse, in the Midwest eight of 13 states shot as many or more bucks as antlerless deer. States like Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan, Nebraska and Wisconsin should be shooting far more antlerless deer than bucks, but that’s not the case today. In 2016-17, hunters in Michigan, Minnesota and South Dakota shot three bucks for every two antlerless deer. This has to stop. I’m fully aware there are areas today with deer herds below what the habitat can support, but there are numerous places with states urging hunters to shoot more antlerless deer that we’re not taking advantage of and pulling the trigger. In the 2016-17 season, 21 of 37 states (57 percent) shot more bucks than antlerless deer, and we need to reverse this trend. Read more

Hunting, Wildlife
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