Category Archives: arizona-wildlife

VERY IMPORTANT! PLEASE SIGN AND SHARE ~ WWF’s International President and USAID: End your Partnership with the USA Pro-Hunting Lobby G

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The desperate search for funding drives politicians and nonprofits into relationships harmful to the welfare of their constituents.

Call for greater protection of endangered lynx in the US

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New rules reduce rare wild cats critical habitat despite extending legal protection in 48 states, conservationists say
Continue reading…

Source: www.theguardian.com

GR:  Human demand for land for growth and profit gradually overcome the needs of wildlife.  Nature suffers gradual wasting in tiny steps.  Over times long for us, and short for Earth the beauty of nature is disappearing. We have to stay engaged–sign the petitions, send the emails, make the calls.

350 New Bird Species; More Than 25% Threatened

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From Birdlife
One tenth of bird species flying under the conservation radar
More than 350 newly recognised bird species have been assessed by BirdLife International for the first time on behalf of The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species™.

Source: naturalhistorywanderings.com

GR:  Perhaps the real surprise is that more aren’t threatened.  In my home state, wildlife biologists consider more than half of the 451 native species vulnerable or imperiled, many critically imperiled.

 

Deer at Coldwater Farm

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Deer Birth Announcement

We have two new fawns! They were probably born Sunday night, July 27, 2014. Both appear normal and healthy.

Last year we regularly saw a doe in our fallowed cow pasture, and in July, she bore a fawn. Last winter several deer began visiting. The group included two yearlings, a pair of two-year olds, and several doe. One of the does looked pregnant. I didn’t see her on Monday, she came alone on Tuesday, and this morning she brought two tiny fawns.

1-IMG_1955The fawns are tiny dynamos. The one on the left didn’t have time for milk, only time for running, jumping, and running some more. Awkward, but quite fast. The other fawn made a few short sprints and jumps, but was too hungry to do more just now.

Mule Deer are showing up in yards and gardens across the western U. S. Our continuing drought is limiting forage production, and combined with our incessant pumping, the drought is drying up some springs. We are happy to have deer visit. They are eating our weeds, pruning all of our shrubs and trees, and eating unfenced garden vegetables. They love to help the birds and squirrels clean up the sunflower and millet seeds I scatter each morning.

Western U. S. deer populations are shrinking. Well-known causes include livestock grazing, farming, construction, and hunting.  We know that the causes of deer decline including hunting will not stop.  These two small creatures could be shot and killed within the next two or three years.  Nevertheless, we will continue to provide our bit of support to the deer and we are encouraging our neighbors to do so as well.

 

How fussy pandas maintain a balanced bamboo diet

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(Phys.org) —Pandas are famously fussy eaters, but new research suggests there is method to their madness, with the animals switching between different species and parts of bamboo plants to maintain a balanced diet and reproduce.

According to the research – led by academics at the Chinese Academy of Sciences and co-authored by Professor David Raubenheimer from the University of Sydney’s Charles Perkins Centre, Faculty of Veterinary Science and School of Biological Sciences – migrate long distances to switch between the shoots and leaves of two different bamboo varieties. The four distinctive diets provide different levels of key nutrients, with shifts between the diets enabling the pandas to balance their calcium, phosphorus and nitrogen needs to successfully reproduce.

“We were surprised to discover that pandas arrange their migratory and reproductive habits around the nutritional qualities of two specific bamboo varieties, arrow bamboo and wood bamboo,” said Professor Raubenheimer, Leonard P Ullmann Chair in Nutritional Ecology at the University of Sydney’s Charles Perkins Centre and a co-author of the research.

The findings have profound implications for the conservation of China’s iconic species, particularly given the accelerating environmental changes that threaten to transform the prevalence and location of the two bamboo species.

“Pandas in the Qinling Mountains of China move from valleys up mountains in spring, and then move back again in autumn,” said Professor Raubenheimer.

“The summer forage contains high levels of protein, needed for muscle growth, but is very low in calcium, which is required for milk production and bone growth. By contrast, the winter forage has high levels of calcium but is low in protein.

“It is only by migrating seasonally, therefore, that pandas can obtain enough of both essential nutrients to breed.”

Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2014-07-fussy-pandas-bamboo-diet.html#jCp

The Sacred Snake

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Today is world snake day: maybe you should run out and do something nice for our scaly limbless friends (though don’t hug them—they don’t like that)! Sadly though, many people do not appreciate sna…

Source: ferrebeekeeper.wordpress.com

 

GR:  Interesting article.

Cristina Eisenberg on Large Predators, Large Landscapes and Coexistence

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Cristina Eisenberg interview by Matt Miller. Photo: Trevor Angel.

Cristina Eisenberg has emerged as a leading voice for large predator conservation in North America. Her research has investigated on trophic cascades and the effects of predators on landscape health and biodiversity. Currently a post-doctoral fellow in Oregon State’s School of Forestry, she is a frequent speaker and writer on predator conservation. She is the author of two books, most recently The Carnivore Way: Coexisting with and Conserving North America’s Predators, published this year by Island Press.

Source: blog.nature.org

GR:  Not knowing how ecosystems work, we can’t predict the consequences of our “management” actions.  We introduce animals and plants that we discover are destructive invaders of local habitats.  We invent pest control chemicals that we discover kill  the species that maintain ecosystem productivity.  We eradicate dangerous predators and then discover that we needed the predators to regulate prey populations.  We learn so very slowly because we do these things and rarely study the consequences.

Predator-prey cycles are an old story (e.g., Leopold 1949). Managers often ignore the little we do know out of fear and avarice, the regulators of bureaucracy.

Friday 5: Good Week

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This last week was a great one for me bug-wise!  I did several insect themed citizen science programs and presentations with a variety of groups, from leading lessons for a summer camp for middle s…

Source: thedragonflywoman.com

The Hunt for the Golden Mole review of Richard Girling’s ‘entertaining and provocative’ quest

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Richard Girling’s tale of an elusive burrowing mammal turns into a compelling study of humankind’s devastating cruelty to animals. In 1964, in Jowhar, Somalia, zoologist Alberto Simonetta stumbled on a disused bakery oven in which barn owls had made…

Source: www.theguardian.com

GR:  The majority of Earth’s creatures have not been identified.  The unknown species tend to be the smallest, but some belong to familiar groups.  For example, lepidopterists estimate that only about 10% of moth species have been identified.  Human impacts will extinguish many of them and there will be no evidence, not even a tiny pile of bones, to show that they ever existed.