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View From Kaktovik, Alaska on Polar Bears and Global Warming

courtesy of Alaska Dispatch
by Will Rose and Kajsa Sjölander

Beaufort Sea polar bears find themselves in the crosshairs of global warming, forced to adapt to less and less ice that’s critical to the way they hunt and survive.

As Arctic sea ice retreats up to 700 miles from the shoreline during summer months, bears must either head north or swim south to land as the ice breaks up. In 2011, U.S Fish and Wildlife Service scientists working in the area have counted 49 bears within 10 miles of Kaktovik, the largest concentration of the estimated 70-80 spread along the coastline.

Those bears represent up to 10 percent of the southern Beaufort population, estimated at 1,500 animals five years ago by U.S. Geological Survey.

The number of polar bears coming to land is increasing over the past decade but scientists are unsure why. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service says the primary threat to polar bears is the loss of sea ice habitat due to climate change. Whale remains left by local substance hunters may be another factor.

“A lot of bears showed up just after a big wind storm,” said polar bear guide Robert Thompson of Kaktovik. “Biologists said they saw eight dead polar bears floating in the water. We believe the thin ice broke up beneath them so they had to sink or swim.”

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Wandering Wolf Now Too Famous to be Shot?

Courtesy of MSNBC

A young wolf from Oregon has become a media celebrity while looking for love, tracing a zigzag path that has carried him hundreds of miles nearly to California, while his alpha male sire and a sibling that stayed home near the Idaho border are under a death warrant for killing cattle.

Backcountry lodge owner Liz Parrish thinks she locked eyes with the wolf called OR-7 on the edge of the meadow in front of her Crystalwood Lodge, on the western shore of Upper Klamath Lake in Oregon, and hopes someday she will hear his howls coming out of the tall timber.

“I was stunned — it was such a huge animal,” said Parrish, who has seen her share of wolves while racing dog sleds in Alaska and Minnesota. “He just stopped and stared. I stopped and stared. We had a stare-down that seemed like a long time, but was probably just a few seconds.

“He just evaporated into the trees. I stayed there awhile, hoping he might come back. He didn’t.”

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Should State Approve Wolf-Control Measures on Alaska’s Kenai Peninsula?

Courtesy of Alaska Dispatch
by Rick Sinnot

Near the end of the movie “Season of the Witch,” a small band of medieval adventurers is surrounded by howling wolves. The monk says, “Wolves.” Another character asks, “What’ll we do?” Nicolas Cage, playing a knight in tarnished armor, says, “Kill as many as you can.”

Welcome to wildlife management as it is currently practiced in Alaska. Not so different from the way it was practiced in the Middle Ages.

I am not opposed to reducing numbers of wolves to increase numbers of prey animals — wolf control — so long as wolves constitute a serious problem and the program is scientifically justified, temporary and cost effective. Wolf control for the sake of killing wolves is none of the above.

This week, in Barrow, the northernmost city in the United States, the Alaska Board of Game was scheduled to consider wolf control proposals for two game management units on the Kenai Peninsula: 15A and 15C.

Why was the board considering wolf control plans for the Kenai Peninsula at a meeting in Barrow?

When the board adopts a predator control plan, it takes 60 days before a program can be implemented. Ted Spraker, a board member from the Kenai Peninsula, was bound and determined to start shooting Kenai wolves this winter. But the board tabled both proposals until their Anchorage meeting, scheduled Jan. 13-18, 2012.

Board members, including Spraker, found serious flaws in the Alaska Department of Fish and Game’s documentation and expressed concern that a required feasibility plan wasn’t completed before the meeting.

Now most Alaskans wouldn’t get a chance until next year to examine the reasons why the department believes wolf control is justified on the Kenai Peninsula. The reasons are not persuasive.

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Does Science Back up Alaska’s Policy of Killing Grizzly Bears?

courtesy of Alaska Dispatch
by Rick Sinnot

Four years ago the Alaska Legislature offered Gov. Sarah Palin and the Alaska Department of Fish and Game a special deal: $400,000 to “educate” voters on predator control. The money — spent mostly on a video, glossy brochures and public presentations — was meant to persuade and reassure Alaskans that predator control is essential and effective.

Firmly convinced he’s doing the right thing, the new director of the Division of Wildlife Conservation at Fish and Game, Corey Rossi, is taking predator control to new levels. For the first time since statehood, Alaska has targeted grizzly bears for large-scale population reductions, not by hunters but by agents of the state.

The publicity campaign, Rossi, Governor Sean Parnell and the Alaska Legislature would like you to believe that scientific experts on predator and prey populations — particularly the professional wildlife biologists and researchers with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game — unanimously support killing bears to increase numbers of moose and caribou.

But some of those experts have questioned the efficacy and advisability of reducing numbers of grizzly bears in a peer-reviewed article in the latest edition of the Journal of Wildlife Management.

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Michigan Man Killed by Grizzly in Yellowstone

courtesy of MSNBC
by Matthew Brown

Wildlife agents were trying to capture a grizzly bear in Yellowstone National Park on Monday after it killed a Michigan hiker in the second fatal bear attack this summer at the famed park.

The body of John Wallace, 59, was discovered Friday in a backcountry area known for its high population of bears. An autopsy concluded he died from injuries sustained in a bear attack.

After a fatal mauling last month — the first inside the increasingly crowded park in 25 years — authorities let the responsible grizzly go because it was protecting its cubs.

This time, rangers have set traps with the intent to capture and kill the bruin that attacked Wallace. Its guilt would be established through DNA analysis connecting it to evidence found at the mauling scene, park officials said.

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Groups Seek Protection for Wolf Subspecies in Southeast Alaska

courtesy of Anchorage Daily News
by Becky Bohrer

Environmental groups want special protection for a subspecies of gray wolf found in Southeast Alaska old-growth forests.

The Center for Biological Diversity and Greenpeace say the Alexander Archipelago wolf is threatened by unsustainable logging and road building in the Tongass National Forest.

The groups have petitioned the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for Endangered Species Act protection for the wolf. An agency spokesman hadn’t seen the petition Wednesday.

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Bears Trapped in Downtown Juneau

courtesy of Anchorage Daily News

State biologists have trapped a black bear in downtown Juneau, but they say it’s not the nuisance bear they were looking for.

Fish and Game biologist Ryan Scott says the agency received reports of a mother and cub causing disturbances in the area. He says the wrong female bear was caught Wednesday.

Scott says that bear will be relocated out of town and that the agency will continue looking for the mother bear.

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Wolf Recovery Leader Not Your Average Bureaucrat

courtesy of High Country News
by Ray Ring

Ed Bangs has long been a lightning rod for the controversy around the return of wolves to the U.S. Northern Rockies. Based in Helena, Mont., he led the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s wolf-recovery effort from 1988, when the region had only a few naturally occurring wolves, through the reintroduction of Canadian wolves in 1995 and ’96, until his retirement in June 2011. During those years, the number of wolves in the region increased to more than 1,700. A plethora of lawsuits, alarmist headlines and political maneuvers culminated with Congress removing most of the region’s wolves from the Endangered Species List (an action also being challenged by lawsuits) just as Bangs retired.

Throughout the wolf battles, people on all sides of the issue respected Bangs for his unusual frankness and good humor. HCN’s senior editor, Ray Ring, talked with the 60-year-old biologist on July 1 about his lifelong interest in wildlife and his reflections on wolves and human society in general.

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Chicken Coops Prove Irresistible to Urban Bears

courtesy of Anchorage Daily News
by Casey Grove

Chicken coop raids by local black bears are on the rise, just as Southcentral moves into its peak season for bear activity, according to an Anchorage biologist.

In July alone, at least five black bears caught pilfering poultry have been shot, either by homeowners or police, said Anchorage area Fish and Game biologist Jessy Coltrane, who said she suspects more bear kills go unreported.

“Chickens are one of our biggest attractants, aside from garbage and bird seed, and it’s growing because the number of chickens is growing,” Coltrane said.

Coltrane attributes the jump, in part, to a recent city ordinance that makes it easier to keep chickens within the municipality, from its northern boundary in Chugiak and Birchwood south to Girdwood.

Mostly, though, the problem stems from residents’ ignorance about bear deterrence in Anchorage, she said.

“I get, on average, a call a day about a bear getting into chickens,” Coltrane said. “They’re thinking I’m going to come do something about the bears. But what I really want is for them to secure their chickens.”

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UAF Tests Unmanned Aircraft to Study Wildlife

courtesy of Anchorage Daily News
by Dan Joling

Greg Walker is looking to fly in places where blue sky and runways are in short supply.

Walker is manager of the unmanned aircraft program at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. He’s at the beginning of a project to evaluate how unmanned aircraft can be used to monitor endangered Steller sea lions as they haul out on remote rocky outcroppings of the Aleutian Islands hundreds of miles between airports.

The project is a technology development experiment, evaluating manufacturers’ claims versus researchers’ needs, Walker said from his office at Poker Flat Research Range northeast of Fairbanks.

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Biologist Shoots Motherless Bear Cubs; Neighbors Upset

courtesy of Anchorage Daily News
by Casey Grove

A state wildlife biologist shot and killed two orphaned black bear cubs Wednesday on the Anchorage Hillside, upsetting some residents of the neighborhood.

The cubs’ mother was killed about three weeks ago when a resident shot the animal to protect his property, said Jessy Coltrane, Anchorage area biologist with the Department of Fish and Game. Without their mother, the cubs would have eventually been killed by another bear or died of starvation, Coltrane said.

“The most humane thing is to put them down,” she said. “It is hands-down the least favorite part of my job.”

Coltrane received numerous phone calls about the cubs in the weeks after the sow’s death, she said. But the calls always came in too late to provide accurate information on the cubs’ whereabouts. Then, Wednesday morning, Coltrane said, a caller reported the cubs were in a tree near his house in a subdivision south of Rabbit Creek Road and above Golden View Drive.

“Unfortunately, because black bears are very common in the Lower 48 and up here, there’s not a lot of facilities that want them,” Coltrane said. Any facilities that might have taken the cubs were already full, she said.

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Anchorage Police Shoot Black Bear Attempting to Break Into Home

courtesy of Anchorage Daily News

Anchorage police shot and killed a young black bear that was trying to get into an East Anchorage home Friday afternoon.

The bear weighed about 50 or 60 pounds and was probably a yearling born last year, police Lt. Dave Parker said. It was crawling on a porch trying to get into a home on the 2400 block of Glenkerry Drive around 5:15 p.m. Friday, Parker said. That’s just north of Northern Lights Boulevard near the Anchorage Baptist Temple.

State Department of Fish and Game officials have instructed police to shoot bears that are trying to break into houses, Parker said. They are associating people with food.

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Click here to watch a video of the bear before it was killed

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Judge Backs Scientists in Polar Bear Ruling

courtesy of Anchorage Daily News
by Dina Cappielo

A federal judge on Thursday backed a finding by government scientists that global warming is threatening the survival of the polar bear.

U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan ruled that a May 2008 decision by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to place the bear on the endangered species list as threatened because of melting sea ice was rational given the facts and best available science. Environmental groups had sued, saying the polar bear needed more protection under the Endangered Species Act. The state of Alaska, under the leadership of then-Gov. Sarah Palin, and hunting groups argued that the listing was unnecessary. They say the bear is protected by other laws and that the scientific case is shaky when it comes to predicting global warming’s toll on the mammal.

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Juneau Man Cited for Feeding Black Bears

courtesy of Anchorage Daily News
by Casey Grove

Alaska Wildlife Troopers recently cited a Juneau man they say has been illegally feeding dog food to as many as 15 black bears at his home.

Arnold W. Hanger, 66, is accused of spreading AttaBoy! dog food on rocks and logs around his property near Tee Harbor, north of Juneau, for years, troopers said. As a result, 10 to 15 bears had been hanging around the area and scaring neighbors, some of whom have small children, trooper Sgt. Matthew Dobson said.

When Dobson drove to Hanger’s house earlier this month to investigate an anonymous tip, he found two of the bears strolling up the longtime Juneau resident’s driveway, the trooper said. Dobson said the bears paid him no mind.

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Scientists Debate ‘Magic Number’ of Wolves Needed for Species’ Survival

courtesy of The Missoulian
by Rob Chaney

One of the biggest arguments left unresolved by last year’s wolf lawsuit was the most obvious: How many wolves are enough?

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service took the gray wolf off the endangered species list in 2009, with the caveat that at least 150 wolves and 15 breeding pairs endure in each of the three states in the northern Rocky Mountain population (Montana, Idaho and Wyoming). Recent surveys found at least 1,700 wolves in that area – more than enough to justify delisting.

But a coalition of environmental groups sued the government, claiming those numbers were wrong. To survive and thrive, they argued, the population needed at least 2,000 and preferably 5,000 wolves.

FWS biologists said they used the best available science to pick their number. Coalition members cited the well-established rules of conservation biology to justify their threshold. While the scientists dueled, U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy decided the case on a technicality and Congress reversed him with a budget rider.

Wolves in the Northern Rockies are now delisted, but almost nobody’s happy.

Continue reading “Scientists Debate ‘Magic Number’ of Wolves Needed for Species’ Survival”

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Be Bear Aware When Camping

courtesy of the Colorado Division of Wildlife

Memorial Day Weekend marks the traditional start to the camping season, and the Colorado Division of Wildlife reminds campers to be “bear aware” when enjoying the outdoors.

The most important tip for all campers is to keep a clean campsite to avoid attracting bears or other wildlife.

Bears go into campgrounds because food is often available around tents, camp trailers and dumpsters. The potential for conflicts increases when food brings bears and humans into close contact.

“Bears are built to eat and their sense of smell is incredible,” explained Ron Dobson, a district wildlife manager in the Salida area. “They can smell food from miles away, they’ll travel to find it and that’s when they get into trouble.”

In a natural setting, bears would just as soon avoid people, but bears that learn to associate humans with food begin to lose their natural fear of people. “Food conditioned” bears can become aggressive and often end up being euthanized.

Dobson says black bears are not naturally aggressive toward humans, but are actually very shy creatures.

“However, bears are on a mission to find food,” he explained. “Campers need to take precautions to avoid problems for themselves, for nearby campers and the next people who use the same camp site.”

He suggests campers never leave food or garbage behind and always pack out their trash.

Here are a few other tips for campers in bear country:
* Keep a clean site and clean up thoroughly after every meal;
* After grilling, allow the fire to completely burn food scraps and grease off the grill.
* Do not eat in your tent or keep food or items that smell of food in your tent;
* Store unused food and garbage in secure containers out of the reach of bears and away from your sleeping area;
* Secure pet food as you would human food.
* Don’t leave food that would attract birds or any wildlife in campgrounds. If you see others in the campground feeding wildlife, contact the campground host.
* If you see a bear in a campground, report it to the local DOW office as soon as possible.
* If you come in close contact with a bear, talk to it firmly and make yourself look as large as possible. Back away slowly, but do not run.
* Teach children and others who might be unfamiliar with bears about bear safety.

For more information about camping in bear country, go to: http://wildlife.state.co.us/WildlifeSpecies/LivingWithWildlife/Mammals/HikeCampBearCountry.htm.
Additional information about coexisting with bears can be found at http://wildlife.state.co.us/WildlifeSpecies/LivingWithWildlife/.

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Mountain Lion Charges Girls in Wheat Ridge, Colorado

courtesy of the Denver Post

A mountain lion charged two young girls and their dog as they walked West 44th Avenue and Robb Street near Prospect Park this morning, Wheat Ridge police said.

The girls were in a wooded area near the park, and there were no injuries, but authorities are telling residents to stay out of the park until further notice.

Wheat Ridge police and community services officers, as well as Division of Wildlife officers, tried unsuccessfully today to track down the animal.

Small children, dogs and cats in the area should be kept indoors, Wheat Ridge said in a media release.

Police advised anyone who encounters a mountain lion not to approach it, make a lot of noise but stay calm, and back away slowly.

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Coyote Attack in Aspen Prompts DOW Warning

courtesy of the Colorado Division of Wildlife

A pack of coyotes attacked and killed a pet dog in Aspen Friday afternoon, prompting the Colorado Division of Wildlife to remind residents to take precautions in areas where conflicts with wildlife are possible.

An Aspen resident said she and her dog were on a hiking trail on Smuggler Mountain when the attack occurred. The woman reported that she was walking her six-month old Labradoodle in an area where it is legal for pets to roam off-leash when one or more coyotes attacked the puppy after it apparently approached them in a playful manner.

“This is a very unfortunate incident and I feel very badly for this lady,” said Area Wildlife Manager Perry Will. “It is also a sad reminder that pet owners need to keep their pets on a leash and take precautions whenever they walk their pets in areas where they could encounter wildlife.”

Although coyotes are typically shy and reclusive, they are also intelligent creatures that learn to adapt to changing conditions in their surroundings. As Colorado’s growing population continues to encroach on coyote habitat, coyotes can lose their fear of people. Once that happens, coyotes can learn to target pets as prey items and in rare cases, become aggressive in the presence of people.

Division officials also caution that at this time of the year, many coyotes are rearing their young and can be especially aggressive and territorial.

Continue reading “Coyote Attack in Aspen Prompts DOW Warning”

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To Shoot, or Not to Shoot, at Rocky Mountain National Park

courtesy of High Country News
by Larry Keller

The elk of Rocky Mountain National Park are wildlife’s couch potatoes. Rather than roam widely throughout the 415-square-mile park and the land outside it, they are content to laze around in meadows, eating, sleeping and mating.

With no predators, they can afford to be slackers. Many of them saunter into the tourist town of Estes Park outside the eastern entrance. There, they mosey along city streets and loiter on golf courses.

Their inertia has created problems in the park, however. Aspen and willow stands are denuded where the elk do much of their grazing. That habitat is vital to a variety of birds and butterflies, park officials say. The damage has also driven out most of the beavers that once populated the area, which in turn has caused a nearly 70-percent decline in surface water that helps nourish the very habitat being damaged.

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Montana Tribes Ready for Historic Return of Buffalo

courtesy of Yahoo! News
by Laura Zuckerman

For the first time in nearly 140 years, the Indian tribes of northeastern Montana are preparing for the return of wild buffalo that are descended from herds that once thundered across the vast American West.

The Sioux and Assiniboine tribes of the Fort Peck Indian Reservation in coming months will claim dozens of buffalo originating from Yellowstone National Park, home to the last free-roaming, purebred bands of buffalo, or bison, in the United States.

On Monday, Montana wildlife officials plan to inspect 5,000 acres at Fort Peck that have been readied for the arrival of the native buffalo, which for centuries provided food, clothing and spiritual sustenance to American Indians.

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Rebel, Rebel

courtesy of the Missoula Independent
by Erika Fredrickson

Black Wolf Yields a Wild Hero

In the next few weeks—from May 7 through May 14—the 34th annual International Wildlife Film Festival screens 100 films that attempt to tell wildlife stories that are both entertaining and accurate. Among those, The Rise of Black Wolf is at the top, as a film that tells a good, solid story without resorting to melodrama. The Montana-made documentary, by Emmy Award-winner Bob Landis, follows almost the entire life of one wolf as he breaks from his pack and lives to be nine-and-a-half years old—one of the oldest wolves documented in Yellowstone National Park. This particular black wolf, known by scientists and wolf enthusiasts as Black Wolf, Casanova, and 302M, has been the protagonist in other Landis films, including In the Valley of the Wolves, and was monitored by the Yellowstone Wolf Project because of his unique behavior.

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Lawsuit Challenges Constitutionality of Anti-Wolf Rider

courtesy of the Center for Biological Diversity

Challenge Says Congress Illegally Lifted Wolf Protections in Northern Rockies, Pacific Northwest

The Center for Biological Diversity today filed a challenge in federal district court in Missoula, Mont., arguing that a congressional rider requiring removal of Endangered Species Act protections for wolves in the northern Rocky Mountains is unlawful because it violated the separation of powers in the U.S. Constitution. The rider was attached to last month’s must-pass federal budget bill by Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.) and Rep. Mike Simpson (R-Idaho) and marked the first time an animal or plant has been removed from the endangered species list by Congress.

“The wolf rider is a clear example of overreaching by Congress that resulted in the wrongful removal of protections for wolves,” said Noah Greenwald, endangered species director at the Center for Biological Diversity. “The rider is not only a disaster for wolves but for any endangered species that a politician doesn’t like. Congress has set a terrible precedent that we hope to overturn.”

Click here to read the rest of the press release

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Brisk Sales of Permits for Planned Idaho Wolf Hunts

courtesy of Reuters
by Laura Zuckerman

Permits for planned wolf hunts sold briskly in Idaho on Thursday, as most wolves in the Northern Rockies were officially removed from the endangered species list and conservationists sued over the unprecedented removal of protection by Congress.

The end of federal protection means that the roughly 1,200 wolves in Idaho and Montana will be managed by state wildlife agencies. The two states are seeking to kill hundreds of wolves, mostly through public hunting to begin in the fall.

Hunters were lining up in Idaho to purchase “tags” priced at $11.95 to help fill a hunting quota expected to be set at 220 of the state’s 700 wolves. Montana is likely to set the same quota for its 550 wolves.

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Salazar Presents National Strategy for Wolf Recovery

courtesy of The Idaho Statesman
by Rocky Barker

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar wasn’t satisfied Thursday with simply carrying out Congress’s mandate that he take gray wolves in the Rocky Mountains except for Wyoming off the endangered species list.

Salazar used the occasion to propose delisting in the Western Great Lakes and to unveil a national strategy for wolf recovery that wildlife groups have been pushing for many years. That strategy is bold and challenges the way many people have looked at the issue in the past.

The biggest change is that gray wolves that wander into 29 eastern states will no long be protected by the Endangered Species Act. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s scientists determined that gray wolves, canis lupus, never really lived there.

Instead, the agency will begin a status review of the wolf they say did live there, the canis lycaon or Eastern Canadian wolf. This smaller version is similar to red wolves that have been reintroduced to the Southeast. Some scientists say this subspecies used to live in Maine, the Adirondacks and even the Catskills famous for Borscht belt comedians like Henny Youngman who might have said, “take our wolves…please!”

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Wyoming Game & Fish Catches First Bear of Season

courtesy of trib.com
by Christine Peterson

It’s a big old bear. Wyoming Game and Fish officials caught the first grizzly bear of the season this morning in a snare outside of Meeteetse. The bear weighs 520 pounds, one of the largest bears Bear Conflict Management Supervisor Mark Bruscino has seen in the spring. Bruscino estimates it’s 20 years old and near the end of an average bear lifespan.

It was caught on the third morning of trapping after frequenting a pit with several dead cow carcasses. Because he’d never been caught causing problems before and is healthy, Bruscino is driving him to a release site in the mountains outside of Dubois. The distance puts as much wilderness between the bear and the ranch as is possible with deep snow still covering most of the mountains in northwest Wyoming.

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