Category: Wildlife

Goldfinch

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

Share your opinions on future Michigan bear management

Michigan is home to an estimated 12,000 adult black bears. To guide bear management throughout the state, the DNR, with assistance from tribes and many others interested in maintaining a healthy black bear population, developed the state’s first bear management plan in 2009.

Now, the DNR is working to revise that plan and is encouraging the public to help. A questionnaire (available at https://www.research.net/r/BearPlan) has been developed to capture opinions, which will be accepted until July 31, 2018.

“The plan we have been operating under for almost 10 years has been a great tool,” said DNR bear specialist Kevin Swanson. “We want to make sure that the plan is still meeting the state’s and others’ needs, or determine if changes are needed to ensure a thriving bear population for future generations.” Read more

Hunting, Wildlife

National Leaders From USFWS Unveil New Federal Duck Stamp

Monday, July 2, 2018

Bob Ziehmer, Bass Pro Shops Senior Director of Conservation; Rayen Kang, Junior Duck Stamp artist; Robert Hautman, Federal Duck Stamp artist; Greg Sheehan, Director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

BALTIMORE, Md.  — Mallards in flight adorn the 2018-2019 Federal Duck Stamp that goes on sale today. The 85th Federal Migratory Bird Hunting and Conservation Stamp made its debut at a special event hosted by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service at Bass Pro Shops Outdoor World in Hanover, near Baltimore, Maryland.

The 2018-2019 Federal Duck Stamp features a pair of mallards landing in a marsh painted by Robert “Bob” Hautman. This is Hautman’s third Federal Duck Stamp; he also created the 1997-1998 stamp, featuring a solitary Canada goose, and the 2000-2001 stamp, featuring a northern pintail. He was named Ducks Unlimited Flyway Artist of the Year in 2018.

The Junior Duck Stamp features the emperor goose painted by Rayen Kang, a recent graduate of Northview High School in Johns Creek, Georgia.  Kang enjoys drawing in her free time and she has taken art lessons from the age of 10, learning how to accurately portray still life, people, and nature from her observations. Her emperor goose painting was her third submission to the Junior Duck Stamp Contest.

The Federal Duck Stamp plays a critically important role in wildlife conservation. Since 1934 sales from the iconic stamp have raised more than $1 billion to acquire and protect more than six million acres of wetlands habitat on hundreds of national wildlife refuges spread across all 50 states and U.S. territories. First petitioned by sportsmen and women who banded together to protect wildlife habitat, the stamps continue to be fueled by waterfowl hunters required to buy a Federal Duck Stamp each year. In addition to hunters being required to buy the stamps, the stamps are very popular among collectors and many birders, wildlife photographers and other outdoor enthusiasts buy them to support wildlife and habitat conservation. Read more

Wildlife

Fighting the Biting

By Glen Wunderlich

As home gardeners know, producing successful vegetable gardens doesn’t come without a fight.  If it’s not wildlife such as deer, raccoons, rabbits or the like, it’s insects that’ll take a bite from your plants long before any human has an opportunity to do so.  However, before getting into what may have become a revelation to repel bugs, instead of various treatments after their presence and disappointing effects on plants, let’s look at how voracious insects find food in the first place.

A mosquito expert from Baylor University sheds light on just how their meals of blood are located. Jason Pitts, Ph.D., assistant professor of biology in Baylor University’s College of Arts and Sciences, studies “host seeking”—how mosquitoes find their next blood meal. He said odor is a major factor why mosquitoes bite some people more often.

“Many insects find their way around the world through their sense of smell, even more than vision,” Pitts said. “Mosquitoes and other insects really are adept at finding places to lay their eggs or finding flowers on which to feed or finding people on which to blood feed just by the sense of smell.”

“Females are able to track upwind. They literally track,” Pitts said. “Once they get that stream of odor, they fly in and out of the stream of odor to orient themselves to try get to the host.”

It is not just odor. Heat—at very close range—also is very attractive for female mosquitoes.

“Mosquitoes are exquisitely sensitive to differences in temperature on surfaces. When it comes to heat or carbon dioxide, both can be beacons for mosquitoes as well,” Pitts said.

“Once a mosquito lands on the skin, they taste the skin to decide whether this is a good host or not,” Pitts said. “They can actually taste DEET, which is long-range repellant. They can smell it and avoid it. When they taste it, they will also fly away. Therefore, we know that taste is also important in some ways. Taste is the final choice before blood feeding.”

Mr. Pitts goes on to mention that reducing breeding area sources can help, but heck, Shiawassee County has more than its share of low ground – even swampland – and if all those smart folks in Washington D.C. can’t drain the swamp, just how are we going to do it?

Use DEET and cover exposed skin.  DEET is some nasty stuff and in concentrated formulas can melt plastic!  Yuk!  And, wearing long-sleeved shirts in this heat is about as tortuous as bites themselves.  Or, we can just stay indoors during the peak biting times of dawn and dusk.

Relative to the home garden, I may have stumbled onto the answer to repel animals and insects that sample my homegrown vegetables.  Without fencing of any type, there are plants animals do not prefer such as onions, garlic, pumpkins, and melons.  The secret with melons may be landscaping fabric that seems to spook wild game.   Although I can’t be sure definitively, I do know they don’t mess with our watermelons and cantaloupe surrounded by the black plastic.

Now, let’s consider insects and their uncanny sense of smell.  I’ve often wondered how Colorado potato beetles find potato plants – plants that are otherwise left alone by other critters.  In the past, we’ve been inundated with them and I’ve learned to spot the egg masses on the underside of leaves.  But, with about 40 potato plants thriving this season, not one egg mass has been seen.

Garden Potatoes

In fact, a mere total of 4 adult beetles have been picked off.  The difference this year in technique attributable to minimizing these destructive pests may just be the fertilizer:  Milorganite – an non-burning organic fertilizer that stinks.  The plants are bigger and healthier than ever and virtually no bugs.

We’ll keep you posted later in the season but a stinky garden may be the best repellant yet.

Wildlife

The HSUS Wildlife Land Trust: 25 Years of Waste and Pointlessness?

On Monday, the Humane Society Wildlife Land Trust, an affiliate of the D-rated Humane Society of the United States, celebrated its 25th anniversary. The Trust’s goal is to take donated land and “[prohibit] commercial and recreational hunting and trapping, a promise that no other national land conservation organization makes.” In fact, there is good reason to suspect this $12 million organization has a bankrupt track record on conservation.

The HSUS Wildlife Land Trust boasts about 20,000 acres of protected land—which is next to nothing to accumulate over two and half decades. In reality, this is very little when compared to other organizations or many of the wildlife refuges in the United States. One of many examples is the Stillwater National Wildlife Refuge in Nevada, one of the most important sites for birds in North America, which contains nearly 80,000 acres of land.

And just how are the funds being used? A quick look at the Wildlife Land Trust’s 2016 Form 990 (its most recent available) shows that of all its expenses, it is not conservation projects that eat up the lion’s share of the budget.

Rather, it is “education,” direct mail, and payroll which come in at a whopping $1,137,267—or 70 percent of the funds spent. It seems the priorities of the Wildlife Land Trust lie more with their headquarters in Washington rather than with meaningful conservation efforts.

As to the WLT’s prohibition on hunting, this comes from an ideological position and not a practical one for conservation. One of the most significant sources of conservation funding in the United States comes from something contrary to the agenda of the Wildlife Land Trust–hunting. As NPR reports, “Money generated from license fees and excise taxes on guns, ammunition and angling equipment provide about 60 percent of the funding for state wildlife agencies, which manage most of the wildlife in the U.S.”

Hunting and trapping have an intertwined and symbiotic relationship with conservation efforts in the United States, and this has been the case for a long time. This sort of relationship helps maintain a thriving ecosystem and can bring about chaotic conditions for man and beast when left unattended. Delaware has seen a decline in hunters and the state is now having to confront an out of control deer population, which is proving more and more disastrous for farmers, as the deer damage crops and spread diseases to livestock, thus having a real impact on the local economy.

Why then, should anybody give their money to a wildlife conservation organization that not only has aims contrary to conservation but also has very little impact?

Wildlife

Guided bike tours take cyclists through U.P. countryside into Michigan history

Registration is now open for the Michigan Iron Industry Museum’s popular Iron Ore Heritage Trail bike tours. Offered July 13, 20, and 27, the tours take cyclists on an approximately five-hour, 16-mile journey to explore historic sites and discover stories of the Marquette Iron Range.

Tours begin and end in Negaunee at the Michigan Iron Industry Museum, site of the Carp River Forge, where iron mined on the Marquette Range was first forged in the 1840s. Led by museum historian Troy Henderson, the tour pedals to the Jackson Mine, and then continues into Ishpeming, making several stops along the way, including Old Towne Negaunee and the site of the Pioneer Furnace.

 

Details and registration information are available on the Michigan Iron Industry Museum webpage at michigan.gov/ironindustrymuseum.

Wildlife

Planting Trees and Weed Control

One of the key advantages mast orchards have over food plots is that once established, they require far less effort.  Maximizing the growth potential of your trees does require occasional regular maintenance, particularly in the early stages of growth. That maintenance includes reducing competition.

Grass and weeds are the biggest competitors of young trees, stealing water and soil nutrients away from your new plantings. That’s why you should establish and maintain a 2 – 3 foot circle clear of weeds around the base of each tree. You can begin simply by physically removing grass and weeds down to the bare soil. Next, add mulch or mats within the weedless circle. This moderates soil temperature extremes, improves soil moisture retention and retards subsequent weed growth.

Herbicides are even more effective but require extra care as they can be absorbed by the trees you’re trying to protect directly through the bark. If you use herbicides like Round-Up, Chestnut Hill Outdoors recommends you apply them only when there is no wind, that you use a colored dye mixed in the herbicide so you can see it being applied and that you us a shield or hood on the sprayer wand to better control where it is being applied.

Another option is to use grow tubes. In addition to preventing herbicide contact, the tubes trap and hold even more moisture, raising relative humidity and ambient temperature inside the tube They also protect trees from animals like small mammals that may chew the bark, or deer that may rub the bark with their antlers. Tubes also protect trees from insect pests and wind desiccation.

If site conditions allow, you can also reduce weed competition outside the 2-3 foot circle by herbicide spraying, mowing and if properly done, controlled burning. Read more

Wildlife

2018-2019 federal duck stamps on sale Friday, June 29

MEMPHIS, Tennessee –  The new 2018-2019 federal duck stamp goes on sale Friday, June 29. The stamps, which cost $25, are valid from July 1 through June 30, 2019. Purchased by millions of waterfowl hunters, wildlife enthusiasts and collectors every year, duck stamps help raise money to purchase and protect wetlands for ducks, geese and other wildlife species.

“Duck stamps are one of the traditional ways hunters and others invest in wetland and waterfowl conservation,” said DU CEO Dale Hall. “We encourage everyone, whether they hunt waterfowl or not, to buy one or more duck stamps to help conserve our precious wetland resources. The federal duck stamp is a powerful tool for conservation in the United States. Every year the program raises more than $38 million used to purchase and protect wetlands in the National Wildlife Refuge System. These habitats benefit waterfowl and numerous other species of wildlife. It’s an incredibly successful program we should support and be proud of.” Read more

Hunting, Wildlife
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