Outdoor commentary and legislative issues.
Goldfinch
Idaho Fish and Game, in cooperation with the USDA Wildlife Services, has completed another wolf control action in northern Idaho’s Lolo elk zone near the Idaho/Montana border to improve poor elk survival in the area.
In February, Wildlife Services agents killed 23 wolves from a helicopter. Details here…
The two chickadee species meet and hybridize in a narrow zone that has shifted northward 7 miles in the last decade.
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Ithaca, N.Y.-The zone of overlap between two popular, closely related backyard birds is moving northward at a rate that matches warming winter temperatures, according to a study by researchers from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Villanova University, and Cornell University. The research was published online in Current Biologyon Thursday, March 6, 2014.
In a narrow strip that runs across the eastern U.S., Carolina Chickadees from the south meet and interbreed with Black-capped Chickadees from the north. The new study finds that this hybrid zone has moved northward at a rate of 0.7 mile per year over the last decade. That’s fast enough that the researchers had to add an extra study site partway through their project in order to keep up. Read more
Two Midland, Mich., men have been arrested on charges of the illegal buying of Michigan black bears and black bear parts. The charges, authorized by the Midland County Prosecutor’s Office, are the result of an undercover investigation by the Department of Natural Resources’ Law Enforcement Division’s Special Investigations Unit. Read more
GW: All I can think of when I see those logs is firewood. And, I don’t care what kind of wood it is.
Rabbits and other small creatures will have some new homes at Fulton State Game Area now that a handful of volunteers – working on a Michigan-On-the-Ground program – spent a Saturday building brush piles at the Kalamazoo County site. 
The program, a partnership between Michigan United Conservation Clubs and the Department of Natural Resources, recruits volunteers to help the DNR improve fish and wildlife habitat across the state. On-the-Ground has attracted the attention of sportsmen and others who want to help increase the productivity of state game areas, rivers and lakes.
Last Saturday, volunteers felled pre-selected trees to build lattices, which could be piled high with brush to provide nesting and escape cover for small game – like rabbits – and other critters. By noon, the crew had built 10 brush piles along the edge of an agriculture field on the area. Read more
This from www.HumaneWatch.org
Whenever we point out that the independent watchdog CharityWatch gives the Humane Society of the United States a C-minus grade, HSUS usually retorts that it gets four stars (out of four) from Charity Navigator, a different evaluator. No more.
Today we learned Charity Navigator has downgraded HSUS from four stars to three. The reason? After we filed an IRS complaint against HSUS last fall, alleging that HSUS had improperly inflated its revenue for several years, HSUS filed amended tax returns. (Independent experts, such as CharityWatch and a Minnesota tax attorney, also thought HSUS was in the wrong.) Based on this amended data, Charity Navigator has revised its rating of HSUS and downgraded the group. Read more
Though the weather is decidedly wintry, spring is coming and with it the turkey hunting season. The Department of Natural Resources (DNR) reminds hunters to check their spring turkey drawing results and the availability of leftover licenses, now online at www.michigan.gov/huntdrawings. Read more
Because there is no dispute that the wolf populations in the Great Lake states have met and exceeded all recovery goals, HSUS has advanced baseless legal theories that, if accepted, would make it extremely difficult to ever take any species off the lists of endangered or threatened species.
Over the last six months, the U.S. Sportsmen’s Alliance Foundation (USSAF) has been hard at work defending against a lawsuit brought by the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) seeking to return the recovered wolf population in the Great Lakes states to the Endangered Species List (ESA). Just last week, USSAF submitted its last brief in the case and is now awaiting the judge’s decision. Read more
The International Game Fish Association (IGFA) has compiled a list of what it considers to be the “best” record catches of the past year, which includes a 
world-record Great Lakes muskellunge caught in Michigan.
The muskie is part of the IGFA’s 10 of the Best Catches of 2013 effort, which is now asking anglers to vote for their favorites. The voting contest launched on March 1 at www.igfa.org/contests/
Fish and Game prefers to manage wolf populations using hunters and trappers and only authorizes control actions where harvest has been insufficient to meet management goals.
Idaho Fish and Game, in cooperation with the USDA Wildlife Services, has completed another wolf control action in northern Idaho’s Lolo elk zone near the Idaho/Montana border to improve poor elk survival in the area.
In February, Wildlife Services agents killed 23 wolves from a helicopter. The action is consistent with Idaho’s predation management plan for the Lolo elk zone, where predation is the major reason elk population numbers are considerably below management objectives. Read more
Current CWD prevalence is near 25 percent for adult male white-tailed deer, 10 percent for adult female deer, about 7 percent in yearling males and about 6 percent in yearling females. Prevalence has increased in all categories.
MADISON – Through 12 years of ongoing surveillance efforts, Department of Natural Resources officials are able to maintain a current picture of trends and prevalence of chronic wasting disease within the area previously known as the CWD management zone [PDF] in southern Wisconsin. Read more