January 2012
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Wolf watching in Yellowstone over the winter holidays far surpassed my expectations. In fact, it turned out to be some of the best ever, at least in terms of numbers. The fact that the Mollie’s pack of 19 wolves unexpectedly turned up in the Northern Range definitely helped! Mollie’s pack is named after Mollie Beattie,…
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Several recent discussions on The Wildlife News have focused on trends in wolf depredations (i.e. killing of domestic animals), and pondered what they mean for the future of wolves’ management. The notion that per capita depredations (i.e. depredations per wolf) should increase with time is implicit in the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s (FWS) 2009…
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The days of Disney-like wildlife film documentaries may be over- Better equipment (that means digital) and perhaps a new breed of wildlife cinematographers are serving to make what the public sees more real. This is very hard because real might not look realistic to audiences raised on special effects. Cinematographers also depend on a number of…
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Is there any real news in this story, or is it speculation over a minor matter? There is a journalistic adage, “if it bleeds, it leads.” And near Jospeph, Oregon, in the NE corner of the state, we learn from the Oregonian newspaper on the other side of the state that a mule might have bled.…
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The effort to list the Greater Sage-grouse via the Endangered Species Act (ESA) has been an uphill battle. However, even as the end-game has yet to be realized, the effort itself has been remarkably successful at prompting bureaucratic backflips and a whole lot of paper-shuffling to accommodate consideration of the species. Unfortunately, many of the existing and developing…
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Recently the Idaho Department of Fish and Game announced that they are planning a “Wildlife Summit” to be held at the Riverside Hotel in Boise, Idaho. It was originally scheduled for September but after some concerns were raised about the timing it was moved forward to August 24-26th so as not to coincide with the…
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Ethics, safety, and fair chase hunting demands people should not be able to bait coyotes and engage in “recreational” hunting from their easy chair next to their window- On this blog we have often talked about the disproportionate favoritism that hunters generally receive over other users of wildlife. Well, recently one of my radio-collared eastern…
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The next bloody bag of “mystery meat” from overseas could contain a virus that will ravage our native wildlife population or indeed ravage us- “Bush meat” is the name euphemistically given for things killed in the (generally African) “bush,” and consumed by hard pressed natives who either don’t care or can’t be choosy about what…