LOOMIS, Calif. — “The scarcity of food in the wild has been blamed for unusual animal activity during California’s drought including a recent bear attack, mountain lion sightings and an uptick in orphaned animals.
“But the devastating four-year drought that’s dried up streams and vegetation isn’t the sole cause, state officials and experts say. Instead, they say the drought is exacerbating long-term trends and natural animal behaviors in a state that is becoming increasingly developed.
“Pools and lush gardens in residential areas are attractive to animals forced out of their normal homes. The construction of roads and business developments, along with man’s increased movement into rural areas, had begun fragmenting habitats before the drought.
“You have a longer-term trend exacerbated by this acute change in water availability,” said Dick Cameron, a scientist who studies habitat fragmentation for The Nature Conservancy in California.” Sourced through Scoop.it from: www.thonline.com
GR: Drought is adding to wildlife woes in some places, but everywhere wild animals are suffering from human progress. Our bulging population is using up the food that wild animals need, and our wastes are ruining wild habitats.
Correction: I left out a part of the sentence:”….but little if any discussion about how these climate issues are found in the general “media about how climate changes are affecting the wild life.
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Absolutely –I am so glad to see this written. So much discussion about how humans are impacted by these climate extremes, but little, if any, in the general “media.” We are putting out water to birds and others around us here, and I hope others in the West are doing so–or will. The animals are suffering and dying in silence, because of our species. We will share this on our site, too.
http://www.foranimals.org
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And as you pointed out, Rosemary, the wildlife tragedy is rarely mentioned by the media. The press and the people are going along as if the consume-and-pollute society of the early 21st Century will last forever.
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