Category: Wildlife

Goldfinch

Ultimate Game Call System On Your Mobile Device with iHUNT App

There’s a very good reason iHUNT by Ruger remains the best-selling hunting app for smartphone users. Featuring high-quality animal and hunting calls with no audio noise, iHUNT brings the ultimate hunting call system right to a user’s mobile device.

To further increase the value of the premiere hunting call app available on Android and iPhone, iHUNT by Ruger has added the very popular Solunar Times, Activity log, Weather and Photo Sharing features that had previously only been available to iTunes users. Hunter’s can now plan their hunt using the Solunar times and weather, record the results on the activity log and share photos of their trophy with the iHUNT community. All this plus the ability to create an infinite number of playlists using the 600 sounds from 47 species and the ability to connect via Bluetooth with the iHUNT by Ruger speaker ensures a successful hunt.

A thoughtful design and presentation of feature options makes the iHUNT incredibly easy to navigate and use. With iHUNT by Ruger, hunters carry a high-quality calling system afield with the convenience of a smartphone.

The iHUNT by Ruger app features an unmatched selection of more than 47 animals and 600 hunting calls. The app has 40 different deer calls, 54 coyote calls, 37 turkey calls and 29 duck calls. There are even 26 alligator and crocodile calls on the iHUNT app. And that’s just a sample of the calls and variety of animal species. Read more

Hunting, Wildlife

Birding Opportunities Abound Now in Michigan State Parks, Trails and Nature Areas

Spring means bird migration, and that makes for prime birding opportunities in Michigan’s woods and waters. The Department of Natural Resources has pulled together some tips on enjoying this special time of year in state parks, trails and natural areas:

  • May is the best month to be on the lookout for colorful warblers (more than 40 species of warbler have been observed in Michigan). Songbird (passerine) migration peaks in mid-May in southern Michigan and shortly afterward in northern parts of the state.
  • Watch the weather. Strong southerly winds can result in good overnight flights of birds (most passerines migrate at night – in fact, in a dark campground, birders might even be able to hear the flight calls and see birds passing in front of the moon). When southerly winds run into storm fronts at night, this can create “fall-out” conditions where migrating birds are forced to land. Fall-out can result in heavy concentrations of birds in their respective habitats.

    • Read more

Wildlife

Mexican Wolf Biologists Look for Cross-Fostering Opportunity

Mexican wolf biologists remain vigilant for cross-fostering opportunity

Technique promises to improve genetics of wild population

PHOENIX — The Mexican Wolf Interagency Field Team (IFT) is observing from a distance the potential denning behavior of Mexican wolf packs in the wild looking for a cross-fostering opportunity. Cross-fostering is a technique to move very young pups from one litter into a different, similar-age wild litter with the hope that the receiving pack will raise them as their own. Cross-fostering is undertaken to introduce genetically-desirable pups into the litter of an experienced female and wild-proven pack.

Last year, two pups were successfully cross-fostered from a wild, but inexperienced female, into the den of the proven Dark Canyon pack in New Mexico – a first for the Mexican wolf recovery program. A key to cross-fostering is timing. Donor pups and the litter of a receiving female must be whelped within days of each other.
This year, that requires close coordination between captive rearing facilities in the binational Species Survival Plan rearing facilities and packs in the wild. Read more

Wildlife

Maple River State Game Area Update

 

Things are shaping up nicely at the Maple River State Game Area Wetlands Unit this spring!

The last two springs have brought excessive amounts of rain, which caused the Maple River to remain at flood stage well into the late spring/early summer. The Maple River State Game Area Wetlands Unit, located north of St. Johns on U.S. 127, is a designated flood storage area.

“Things are looking pretty good so far this spring. It was pretty dry until we received about 3 inches of rain in early April,” said Chad Fedewa, DNR wildlife biologist for Gratiot, Clinton, Ingham and Shiawassee counties. “That heavy rain flooded some of our crop units, but the river has already receded enough that we should be able to start pumping out water soon.” Read more

Wildlife

NSSF Recognizes Sen. Inhofe for Shining Light On Anti-Hunting Group’s Misleading Fundraising Tactics

WASHINGTON, D.C-The National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF), the trade association for the firearms and ammunition industry, this week recognized Sen. James M. (Jim) Inhofe (R-Okla.) for his success in bringing attention to the misleading fundraising tactics of the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS).

During a recent U.S. Senate Environment and Public Works Subcommittee hearing on the Bipartisan Sportsmen’s Act of 2015, Senator Inhofe questioned HSUS CEO Wayne Pacelle about the organization’s fundraising activity, citing the group’s animal-focused advertising. Senator Inhofe pointed out that although HSUS raised $1.7 million from Oklahomans from 2011 to 2013, largely through ads implying the funds raised would be used to help animals displaced by tornadoes, legitimate Oklahoma animal welfare organizations received only $110,000.

“Sen. Inhofe deserves great credit for taking the opportunity afforded by the hearing on the Bipartisan Sportsmen’s Act to point out that HSUS clearly has a different agenda than they want the public to understand,” said Larry, Keane, NSSF senior vice president and general counsel. “While HSUS masquerades as an animal welfare organization, the group has as its ultimate goal the ending of all hunting nationwide. HSUS opposition to the Bipartisan Sportsmen’s Act is only one example. This radical group takes any opportunity it can find at the federal and state levels to diminish Americans’ opportunities to exercise their hunting traditions. We thank Sen. Inhofe for working to expose the ongoing duplicity of the Humane Society of the United States.”

Animal Rights, Hunting, Wildlife

Pair of Mexican Wolves Released into Apache-Sitgreaves National Forests


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PHOENIX — The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Service) and the Arizona Game and Fish Department (AZGFD) released a pair of Mexican wolves into the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forests yesterday.

The Mexican Wolf Interagency Field Team (IFT) conducted a “soft release” of wolves M1130 and F1305 (F indicates female and M indicates male), meaning the wolves will be held in an enclosure until the animals chew through the fencing and self-release.

The female is the Rim Pack breeding female that was taken into captivity in January to be paired with M1130, a more genetically-diverse male. M1130 was whelped at the California Wolf Center in 2008 and eventually moved to the Service’s Sevilleta Wolf Management Facility in New Mexico.

The wolf pair was observed breeding and biologists believe the female is pregnant. The pair was released near the Rim Pack’s old territory in Arizona on the Alpine Ranger District. Read more

Wildlife

Spring weather has bears, other wildlife on the move

Spring is here, which brings warmer temperatures, longer days and wildlife emerging from their winter homes. The Michigan Department of Natural Resources reminds residents that black bears are among those animals that are now awake and have left their dens.

At this time of the year, wildlife officials receive many calls about bear sightings and bears damaging bird feeders, trash cans and grills.

thumbnail photo of DNR Bear Essentials video“Bears are hungry,” said DNR bear specialist Kevin Swanson. “They are looking for food after spending months in their dens. While we might not think of bird feeders and trash cans as food sources, a hungry bear certainly may.”

Bird seed especially is attractive to bears because of its high fat content and easy accessibility. Once bird feeders are discovered, bears will keep coming back until the seed is gone or the feeders have been removed. Read more

Wildlife

Tree Fertilizing Tips From Chestnut Hill Outdoors

Spring brings forth new growth for trees on your whitetail food plot, and this is an excellent time to give your producers of mast and fruit a good shot of nutrition. We’re talking, of course, about fertilizing your trees.

Chestnut Hill Outdoors, propagators of a wide range of trees for land managers, including their signature disease-resistant Dunstan Chestnuts as well as oaks, pears, persimmons and apples, has some important advice about proper fertilizing. Read more

Wildlife

SCI Updates Sportsmen’s Issues

Hunters are making progress in the nation’s capital this month, but strong crosswinds are blowing. Even while the Congress is moving forward with the top SCI legislative priority – the Bipartisan Sportsmen’s Act, designated in the Senate as S. 405 – Obama administration bureaucrats are lobbing new regulations at hunters’ guns and ammunition.

First, the good news. The U.S. Senate is moving out smartly with consideration of S. 405.   Hearings have already been held in two Senate committees, with the majority of witnesses testifying in support of the bill. Representing the scant opposition to the bill was none other than Wayne Pacelle, CEO of the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS.)   Pacelle attempted to mollify the Senators by starting off with an outright lie, claiming that HSUS “is not opposed to hunting.” This statement came despite the group’s lengthy record of working to ban hunting at both the state and federal level, and Pacelle’s own remarks to the contrary.

But the members of the panel would not be so easily fooled. Read more

Hunting, Wildlife

Spring birding tours set for early May at Michigan’s Wetland Wonders

trumpeter swan on the waterThe Michigan Department of Natural Resources reminds wildlife watchers that spring birding tours – coming up Saturday, May 2 and 9 – are a fun way to celebrate the warmer weather and explore the state’s Wetland Wonders.

Birding tour highlights may include diving and dabbling ducks in full breeding plumage, trumpeter and tundra swans, osprey, bald eagles, sandhill cranes and many more. The tours will be led by DNR wildlife biologists and technicians and will include a sneak-peek driving tour into refuge areas that normally are closed.

Michigan’s Wetland Wonders are the seven premier managed waterfowl areas in southern Michigan: Fennville Farm Unit at the Allegan State Game Area, Fish Point State Wildlife Area, St. Clair Flats State Wildlife Area on Harsens Island, Muskegon County Wastewater Facility, Nayanquing Point State Wildlife Area, Pointe Mouillee State Game Area and Shiawassee River State Game Area.

Spring birding tours are set for the following dates, times and locations:
Read more

Wildlife
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