Wildlife

So here’s a piece of worrying news for anyone concerned with wildlife conservation: these very birds of prey now face a poisoning threat from a veterinary drug which has already wiped out millions of vultures in India. - Halil

"A fox is stealing dozens of shoes in a Leeds suburb and dumping them outside a woman's house. The problem has become so bad that Elaine Hewitt has been forced to put a shoe rack outside her home in Horsforth so neighbours can reclaim their missing footwear. Ms Hewitt said the vulpine crimewave began a few months ago when she found a single shoe in her back garden. The fox is now leaving a shoe a day, ranging from sandals to work boots." - Jessie

:D - Halil

Check your closet, Halil! :-P - Jessie

:)) - WoH: Professor MOTHRA

"Oregon’s celebrity wolf, OR-7 has a mate and new pups, according to wildlife biologists. They've photographed two pups and believe there could be as many as six out in the wild. In May, biologists suspected that OR-7 had found a mate, after remote cameras in the Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest captured images of a black female wolf in the area. US. Fish and Wildlife and the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife biologists returned to the Cascade Mountains of southwest Oregon on Monday and took pictures of two wild pups that they believe are the offspring of OR-7 and his new mate." - Jessie

"With threats of disease, malnutrition and even inbreeding, the deck can be stacked against a Mexican gray wolf pup. Federal wildlife managers have long been troubled by the survival rates of wild-born pups, so they’ve started experimenting in an effort to boost the population as they reintroduce the endangered predator to the American Southwest. Biologists earlier this month transplanted a pair of 2-week-old pups born in a large litter to another pack of wolves with a smaller litter and more rearing experience. The cross-fostering technique has worked with red wolves on the East Coast. This marks the first time it’s being tried with Mexican gray wolves. Benjamin Tuggle, head of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Southwest Region, said the goal is not only to grow the population, but to have wolves that are genetically diverse and can steer clear of trouble while living in the wild. "Cross-fostering is just one of the management tools we can use to improve the genetic health of the wild population," he said." - Jessie

A consultation by Natural England, the body that advises the government on the natural environment, has made the case for allowing people to destroy the birds‘ nests and remove their eggs, amid growing concerns that they threaten health and safety. - Halil

I bet we see an increase in bugs and mosquitoes now! Not sure what health and safety risks they pose, but we need birds to eat the mosquitoes etc. - Halil

That's right up there with our government putting a call out to hunt barred owls because they're threatening spotted owls. Or killing sea lions because they're eating endangered salmon. Never mind that humans are the reason that spotted owls and salmon are endangered to begin with. The stupidity with which people act out against nature is appalling at best. - Hookuh Tinypants

The article only really cites them as 'pests' to homeowners and farmers because they nest under roofs and eat crops and crop residue. Not really a health and safety problem, in my opinion. More of a nuisance issue. Sometimes when animals have sufficient populations and are lobbied as pests, the governing body will allow people to kill them indiscriminately. It is very common in the US with both birds and mammals. - Jenny H.

"But what about tertial replacement? As my post title suggests, perhaps we need to revisit this feather group: Do 1st cycle Ring-billeds replace their tertials in the first plumage cycle? If so, through what molt? Traditionally, the literature has held that 1st cycle Ring-billeds rarely, if ever, replace tertials. About two years ago, I began to suspect differently as I was finding more and more individuals with juvenile primaries that showed one or two, and sometimes all of their tertials renewed." - John (bird whisperer)

The internal magnetic compasses of migratory birds can be disrupted by weak, man-made electromagnetic interference, according to a new study carried out by researchers in Europe. The unexpected effect was seen in European robins, which were unable to orient themselves in the presence of broadband, radiofrequency noise believed to be caused by AM radio and electronic signals. - Halil

"The wandering wolf OR-7 appears to have a mate. Remote cameras in the Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest have captured several images of a black female in the same area as OR-7, who has been on the move since 2011 in search of new territory and a mate to form a new pack. The images were recovered Wednesday by John Stephenson, wolf biologist for the U.S. Department of Fish and Wildlife, as part of an ongoing wolf monitoring program by state and federal wildlife biologists. "This information is not definitive, but it is likely that this new wolf and OR-7 have paired up," Stephenson said." - Jessie

"U.S. biologists and the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife will wait until June or later to confirm whether there are pups. If the two have produced offspring, they would be the first wolves known to breed in the Oregon Cascades since the early 20th century." - Jessie

"According to ABC affiliate WCIV, a South Carolina lawmaker was driving away from Sandy Island in South Carolina when a large gator crossed the road in front of his car. The alligator was long enough to stretch from one side of a two-lane road to the other. The gator was headed toward one tree line when it turned around and slowly started to make its way to the other. After the turn around, the alligator slithered into a nearby waterway and out of the camera’s view." - Jessie

From these bones the study revealed that there was much more genetic diversity in that region than there is today. This lets scientists and historians know that some knowledge about whale behaviours in that area has been lost forever with the decimation of whale populations as a result of whaling. - Halil

“The waters around South Georgia Island were productive feeding grounds for great whales before whaling,” he said. “Yet they have not returned here in any numbers, despite nearly 50 years of protection. That suggests the possibility that the local population was extirpated, resulting in the loss of some cultural knowledge about the habitat.” - Halil

"During their annual Winter Study at Isle Royale National Park, scientists from Michigan Technological University counted nine wolves organized into one breeding pack and a second small group that is a remnant of a formerly breeding pack. In the Isle Royale Wolf-Moose Study's annual report released today, the researchers say that over the past three years, they have tallied the lowest numbers of wolves ever: nine in 2011-12, eight in 2012-13 and nine in 2013-14. During the same period, predation rates -- the proportion of the moose population killed by wolves -- also dropped to the lowest ever recorded, while the number of moose doubled, to approximately 1,050 moose. Wolves are the only predators of moose on the remote island national park in northwestern Lake Superior. The moose population has been increasing because wolf predation has been so low." - Jessie

"In a paper just published in the journal Conservation Genetics, Peterson, Vucetich, Philip Hedrick of Arizona State University, Jennifer Adams of the University of Idaho and Michigan Tech's Leah Vucetich report on their study of the effects of this new genetic input. The Isle Royale study is significant, they write, because "few documented instances of genetic rescue have been observed long enough or in sufficient detail to understand how long one can expect the beneficial effects of genetic rescue to persist."" - Jessie

Great timing by Mark! - Halil

Ideas discussed recognised the various ways in which public behaviour could be changed and a fully integrated approach was recommended that encompassed reducing consumer demand in concert with strengthened efforts to reduce the supply of goods into the market and protect species at source. - Halil

Meeting delegates identified key reasons why illegal wildlife goods are consumed, such as for corporate gift-giving, as health care tonics and treatments and as monetary investments. To address the drivers of such trade, mutual co-operation across a wide range of diverse sectors would be needed. - Halil

"Two rare wolf pups born this month at a South Carolina wildlife refuge are so popular with biologists that they’ve been named after comedian Stephen Colbert and U.S. Interior Secretary Sally Jewell. “Colbert” and “Jewell’’ are growing healthier each day and are expected to be on public display in several weeks, according to managers at the Cape Romain National Wildlife Refuge in Charleston County. “Secretary Jewell came here last year and we were so impressed with her, and she was such a supportive secretary, we felt it was a great honor to name one of the pups after her,’’ refuge project leader Raye Nilius said. “We also really enjoy Stephen Colbert.’’" - Jessie

:) - Jenny H.

Puppies! :D - Jessie

"But perhaps the most amazing crow nests are the ones built around Tokyo, Japan. Twigs and other natural materials are hard to come by in the busy metropolis, so the birds settle for the next best thing, and that seems to be coat hangers. You have got to see pictures to believe it! A blogger had posted some of these images way back in 2005, after solving the mystery of the missing hangers from her back yard. But it isn’t just the one nest – it seems that Japanese Jungle Crows are compulsive collectors of hangers!" - Jessie

"Remember the H1N1 flu that spread across the planet in 2009? It was the same flu strain that was predominant during this winter's flu season. Now it's turned up in sea otters living off the coast of Washington state, and researchers don't know how it got there." - Jessie

:( - Jenny H.

sad. and to make it worse some otter somewhere got molested by a pig. - Steve C, Team Marina

"Dog owners in the Caucasus Mountains of Georgia might want to consider penning up their dogs more often: hybridization of wolves with shepherd dogs might be more common, and more recent, than previously thought, according to a recently published study in the Journal of Heredity. Dr. Natia Kopaliani, Dr. David Tarkhnishvili, and colleagues from the Institute of Ecology at Ilia State University in Georgia and from the Tbilisi Zoo in Georgia used a range of genetic techniques to extract and examine DNA taken from wolf and dog fur samples as well as wolf scat and blood samples. They found recent hybrid ancestry in about ten percent of the dogs and wolves sampled. About two to three percent of the sampled wolves and dogs were identified as first-generation hybrids. This included hybridization between wolves and the shepherd dogs used to guard sheep from wolf attacks." - Jessie

"The shepherd dogs studied are a local breed used to guard livestock. "Ironically, their sole function is to protect sheep from wolves or thieves," Kopaliani explained. "The shepherd dogs are free-ranging, largely outside the tight control of their human masters. They guard the herds from wolves, which are common in the areas where they are used, but it appears that they are also consorting with the enemy."" - Jessie

the wolfs are getting cunning..rather then fight the sheep dogs,.,. they make love to them !! assimilate and conquesr - Peter Dawson

"A number of netizens yesterday responded to an online call to rally in front of the Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) in Taipei this afternoon to protest against several development projects that are to threaten the endangered leopard cats of Miaoli County. The call was initiated by the Taiwan Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (Taiwan SPCA) on Facebook. The Taiwan SPCA said the endangered leopard cats — with a population estimated to be less than 500 in Taiwan — are facing a survival threat, because their important habitat in Miaoli’s Sanyi Township (三義) would likely be damaged by planned development projects, including a bypass road for Provincial Highway No. 13, a cemetery and a park, and the expansion of Yulon Motor Co’s plant in the area." - Jessie

"The term “pass by” is an allusion to a statement made by the Taipei City Police Department earlier this month when it said an unauthorized rally held by former gang leader Chang An-le (張安樂) in support of the cross-strait service trade agreement was legal, because the demonstrators had been merely “passing by.”" - Jessie

"According to the Taiwan SPCA, the road would cut through the species’ most important habitat, causing the leopard cat population to be split in two in two separate areas. This would cause the cats’ natural reproduction to become even more difficult, because studies have shown that leopard cats do not like asphalt roads, so they seldom cross a road and when they do, they often get killed by vehicles. The road project’s previous report to the EIA did not even mention the species and the county government only recently mentioned a plan to buy another piece of land for the cats to live in, the Taiwan SPCA said, but whether the cats will move to the new area is not known." - Jessie

"Of all the myths that dog the wolf, none is more widely accepted than the idea that wolves howl at the moon. Images of wolves with their heads upturned, singing at the night sky, are as unquestioned as a goldfish’s three-second memory or a dog’s color-blindness (both also myths). There are countless depictions of moon howling in faux Native American tchotchkes; the scene also appears in Jack London novels and at least one Los Angeles piano bar. This curious fiction has become so quotidian that even The New Yorker’s legendary fact checkers let “a long, lamenting howl at the orange moon” slide into print without a second thought. The truth is that wolves—the real-life, Canis lupus variety—don’t howl at the moon. Scientists have found no correlation between the canine and Earth’s satellite, except perhaps an increase in overall activity on brighter nights. So how did the idea gain such traction, and what do wolves howl at?" - Jessie

"A hidden camera has captured an image of a wolf crossing a wooded clearing in the Czech Republic, a hundred years after the predator disappeared from the area, it's been reported. There have been some signs near the town of Doksy suggesting a wolf may be in the region, Radio Prague reports. But wolves haven't roamed free in Bohemia since the late 19th Century. Right now, there is probably just one wolf or maybe a pair, says environmental expert Miroslav Kutal. The animal is likely to have strayed into Bohemia from the border regions of Germany and Poland, where the wolf population has been thriving." - Jessie

"But Kutal tells Radio Impuls the conditions in Bohemia - especially in former military zones and in the mountainous border regions - seem to be good for breeding. This is something to be encouraged, he adds, since wolves can regulate the deer population and draw tourists to the area. But the arrival of poachers could become a concern." - Jessie

"If the captive-breeding programme succeeded in its mission of raising birds that didn’t depend on humans for food, shelter, or any other basic necessity of condor life, it failed in other ways. The zoo-bred birds refused to adopt the manners we demand of wild animals. They weren’t scared of humans; they weren’t even willing to politely ignore us. Rather, they seemed fascinated by us. Critics of the condor-reintroduction programme – including Reid – were quick to point fingers. The blame, they said, lay with the birds’ shoddy parenting. The condor’s wild essence had not been passed down to this new generation, and now it was gone forever. For, you see, these birds had never met their biological parents. Instead, they were raised by puppets." - John (bird whisperer)

"Condor parenting is ‘not super cuddly’, Utt told me, and a big part of learning to perform the role of adult condor was to stop being so gentle with the zoo-hatched chicks. In the wild, if a chick gets too clingy or does something else its parents deem not-condor-appropriate, it will get a smack. Later on, parents will sometimes push chicks off ledges to teach them to fly. Learning to mimic this wild behaviour was no doubt challenging for the keepers, especially when every condor chick born in the zoos seemed like a tiny, fragile miracle. But roughing up the chicks early in life, Utt said, ‘seems to actually produce birds that behave more like wild birds’. What’s more, these condors will now know how they are supposed to treat their own offspring when the time comes. There’s still only so much a hand puppet can do, however, and the condor keepers realised they needed to bring in reinforcements. The chicks’ pens now have windows through which the chicks can see real, live adult condors. Hopefully, Mace says, that gives them a sense of identity, an idea of what they are going to be when they grow up. (Something similar is done with whooping cranes at Patuxent.) At around five months, the chicks are moved to live with an older ‘mentor’ condor. These mentors teach their charges how to live with other birds and respect the condor hierarchy. And now, condors do sometimes see humans in the zoo: the growing birds are occasionally ambushed and tackled by zookeepers, to train them to be afraid of people." - John (bird whisperer)

" the growing birds are occasionally ambushed and tackled by zookeepers, to train them to be afraid of people." And all I can picture is someone yelling out, "Tickle monster!" and then a Calvin and Hobbes rough and tumble. - bentley

It's amusing to imagine. :-) - John (bird whisperer)

"While the Houston Ship Channel is open and fishermen have mostly resumed activities in the bay, officials say they are at least several weeks away from fully containing the fuel oil, and its devastating effects on shorebirds are becoming increasingly apparent. The effects of the spill, Newstead said, are particularly troubling in the ecologically sensitive area in which the birds have already been in peril from human activity. Newstead and Coast Guard officials said birds affected by the spill include ducks, herrings, herons, brown and white pelicans, sanderlings, loons, willets, black-bellied plover and the piping plover, which is classified as threatened under the Endangered Species Act. As of Thursday, the Coast Guard said it had recovered 329 oiled birds from Galveston Bay to North Padre Island. Nearly all of them were dead. But Newstead said he has surveyed Mustang Island, about 200 miles southwest of the initial spill site, and observed at least 500 more birds with some traces of oil. The soiled birds came into contact with the contaminated water as it washed ashore." - John (bird whisperer)

"Federal authorities announced Friday that the geographically isolated Alexander Archipelago wolf of southeast Alaska’s Tongass National Forest may need protection under the Endangered Species Act to survive the impact of logging, hunting and trapping in its old-growth habitat. Populations of the rare subspecies of gray wolf are in steep decline in portions of the heavily logged region, where they den in the root systems of western hemlock and Sitka spruce and hunt black-tailed deer, which also rely on the ancient trees to shield them from harsh winters. The wolf, which scientists know as Canis lupus ligoni, relies on the deer for 90% of its diet during the winter months. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is expected to determine within a year whether protecting the wolf as endangered or threatened is warranted." - Jessie

"A recent study by David K. Person, a wildlife scientist and expert on wolves and deer in southeast Alaska, says that continued old-growth logging on the island “will likely be the collapse of a sustainable and resilient predator-prey ecological community.” “That community includes deer, wolves, black bears and people,” the study says. “Because of pressures to sustain subsistence deer hunting as habitat is lost, there will be immense public and political pressure to kill wolves and bears.”" - Jessie

"The 2013 official Washington State wolf report is out today. It shows a very slight population increase from 2012 — from 51 to 52 wolves. Because random effects loom so large in small populations, it is most reasonable to call the situation “no growth,” “stable.” Because there is often a lot of shouting about actual or suspected wolf depredations on livestock and pets, 2013′s numbers show a case for silence on the matter. Only one cow calf died from wolves and none were injured. Three dogs sustained injuries from wolves." - Jessie

Cloaked in the snows of California’s Sierra Nevada, the 3,200-year-old giant sequoia called the President rises 247 feet. - Halil

Mystrium species have unique features such as long, spatulate mandibles that snap together (Gronenberg et al. 1998); wingless queens that in some undetermined species are even smaller than workers (Molet et al. 2007); and large, wingless individuals intermediate between workers and queens, which behave like queens (Molet et al. 2012). - Halil

“Our team has explored Madagascar and its surrounding islands for 20 years and collected thousands of specimens to solve the mysteries of Mystrium,” said Fisher, an expert on Malagasy ants. - Halil

Although it has been eliminated from some of its historic native area in Great Britain due to habitat loss, dense populations of the downy emerald can still be found there in spots where its ideal habitat remains. - Halil

"The wolf will get a lawfully protected status. This will enable the Faunafund to grant compensations in damage caused by wolves if this will occur, writes Secretary of State Dijksma from the Ministry of Economic Affairs in a reaction to the advice from Alterra (Wageningen University) to the House of Representatives on the anticipation on the return of the wolf in The Netherlands. Wolves are inter alia coming from Germany, getting closer and closer to our borders. A possible return of the wolves after over 150 years to The Netherlands is not excluded. The Faunafund and Dutch provinces are involved with the advice from Alterra. Provinces are significantly responsible for the implementation of the policy, also in relation to possible damage to cattle and compensations in this regard via the Faunafund. A considerable part of the advice is on doing research. Particularly provinces will have to decide which research recommendations will be preformed short-term. Within Europe, genetic reference material from wolves need to be shared more. This way, identifying wolves will become significantly easier. In The Netherlands, the joining of wolf knowledge will not take place via a wolf office, but will have to find a way via already existing organizations." - Jessie

Gathered together in a book published this Spring, and aptly titled "The Oldest Living Things in the World," the collection of age-old organisms serves as a stunning visual history of Earth's extreme inhabitants. The collision of art and science is hardly just a visual feast of the past, it's also a reminder of what the future might leave behind, as climate change and human endeavors threaten the existence of these millennia-old characters. - Halil

"A fox in the hen house is usually a recipe for disaster. But having crept into a coop while its eight residents were pecking about outside, this cunning customer just curled up on a nest of their eggs for a nap. Maybe he was tired and it was the closest thing he could find to a feather bed, or perhaps he was slyly dreaming of a chicken omelette for tea." - Jessie

Maybe he hatches the eggs and then lets his food supply follow him home. - April Russo (FForever!)

Warning: Contains graphic images - Halil

human depravity at its worst - Halil

extra link: European Association of Zoos and Aquaria spokesman David Williams-Mitchell told CNN that across the European zoos governed by the body, about 3,000 to 5,000 animals are killed each year under programs to manage zoo populations. This includes "everything from tadpoles and insects up to charismatic megafauna like giraffes and lions," he said, adding that it represents only 0.06% of the zoos' overall animal population. Exact figures are hard to come by, but a few hundred of those killed by the zoos each year would be large animals, he said. Williams-Mitchell added that members of the public and animal rights groups tend to object only when zoos kill "cute, storybook animals," rather than rodents or tadpoles. http://edition.cnn.com/2014... - Halil