Field Notes

State in Western India Allows Guards to Shoot Tiger Poachers On Sight

Online Editors — Thu, 24 May 2012 09:58:54 -0400

--Chad Love

If you're a tiger poacher in India, you might want to invest in some body armor, make sure your will is up-to-date, or maybe just give it up altogether, because you're likely to get shot.

From this story on npr.org:
A state in western India has declared war on animal poaching by allowing forest guards to shoot hunters on sight in an effort to curb rampant attacks on tigers and other wildlife. The government in Maharashtra says injuring or killing suspected poachers will no longer be considered a crime. Forest guards should not be "booked for human rights violations when they have taken action against poachers," Maharashtra Forest Minister Patangrao Kadam said Tuesday. The state also will send more rangers and jeeps into the forest, and will offer secret payments to informers who give tips about poachers and animal smugglers, he said.

According to the story, tiger poachers have become increasingly bold in India's tiger reserves, where guards are often armed with nothing more than sticks. There are only about 3,200 wild tigers left in the world, and India has about half of them. Fourteen tigers have been killed just this year, and eight of those have been killed in the province where it's now legal to kill poachers.

Author Jean Craighead George Passes to Her Side of the Mountain

Online Editors — Wed, 23 May 2012 13:04:44 -0400

by Chad Love

For those of us who grew up in the B.D. epoch (before digital), reading was the primary way to stoke our young imaginations. There were few books that fired my pre-adult synapses more thoroughly than Jean Craighead George's "My Side of the Mountain."

This classic adventure/survival/nature tale about a boy named Sam, a falcon and their woodland adventures spurred many a childhood fantasy of mine. There were two people I wanted to be in 1979: Luke Skywalker and Sam Gribley. I knew, even at that tender age, that I'd never be able to make it into the cockpit of an X-wing, but Sam's world was wondrously real, tangible and right outside my back door. Reading "My Side of the Mountain" was a huge factor in sparking my lifelong interest in hunting, fishing and the natural world.

So it was sad to read (via Stephen Bodio's always awesome Querencia blog) of George's passing.

From Bodio's blog:
Old friends and heroes are dying faster than I can write about them. Jean Craighead George, author of one of my favorite childhood books*, My Side of the Mountain, and sister to the even better- known conservationists and falconers , the twin brothers Frank and John, died last week at 92. NYT here, Wiki here, her own home site here.

The New York Times obit gives some detail of George's life and career...

From The New York Times:
Jean Craighead George, a Newbery Award-winning writer for young people whose books brought the natural world from the Catskill Mountains to the Alaskan tundra to wild, luminous life, died on Tuesday in Mount Kisco, N.Y. She was 92. The author of more than 100 fiction and nonfiction titles that have collectively sold millions of copies, Ms. George was best known for two novels for older children, “My Side of the Mountain” (1959), which she also illustrated, and “Julie of the Wolves” (1972), illustrated by John Schoenherr. That book won the Newbery Medal — considered the Pulitzer Prize of children’s letters — in 1973. “My Side of the Mountain” tells the story of Sam Gribley, a youth who forsakes a life of quiet desperation in New York City to live on his own in the Catskills wilderness. There, he survives by virtue of the deep sympathy with nature that animates all of Ms. George’s protagonists, until the modern world closes in again.

The rest of the obit and the links in Stephen Bodio's blog post are worth a read, as Ms. George led a pretty fascinating life. If you haven't yet read "My Side of the Mountain" do yourself a favor: go find a copy and read it. Then do your children a favor and give it to them.

Did anyone else read and become inspired by "My Side of the Mountain"? What were some of the other nature-themed children's and young adult books that influenced you growing up?

Wanted: Samples for DNA Testing to Prove Bigfoot's Existence

Online Editors — Wed, 23 May 2012 12:31:04 -0400

--Chad Love

Are you in possession of a suspected Bigfoot turd? Maybe a giant fingerprint? Perhaps a clump of fur or some other bit of physical or forensic evidence from the time when that group of suspected Sasquatches broke into your cousin Earl's single-wide while he was gone, drank all his Natty Lite, ate everything in the fridge, tore up the place and then left a big, steaming parting gift on his coffee table before disappearing back into the woods?

If you (or your cousin Earl) do happen to have evidence of The Hairy One's existence, then Oxford University wants to talk to you...

From this story on Wired.co.uk:
Supposed yeti remains are being put under the microscope in a collaboration between Oxford University and the Lausanne Museum of Zoology. The Oxford-Lausanne Collateral Hominid Project has been created to try and entice people and institutions with collections of cryptozoological material to submit it for analysis. Anyone with a sample of organic remains can submit details of where and when it was collected, among other data.

Once a reasonable database has been collected, the team will select the most interesting samples (hair shafts are particularly desirable, apparently) and ask the owners to submit them for rigorous genetic analysis. The results of these analyses will be published in peer-reviewed journals.

According to the story, the project seeks to determine, once and for all, whether Bigfoot, Yeti and company truly exist, and they want your evidence to help them do it. So if you've got that unidentified "spoor" sitting on your mantle in a baggie, British scientists would love to put it to the sniff test. For more info, visit the project's website. Have anything to donate to science?

Scientists Develop Robot Fish to Improve Pollution Monitoring

Online Editors — Tue, 22 May 2012 11:55:19 -0400

--Chad Love

Landing one of these babies is pretty much a catch-and-release-only proposition. I hear they're not good eating and extremely difficult to fillet. Not to mention the fact that they thrive in some pretty nasty water...

From this story on therepublic.com:
Robot "fish" developed by European scientists to improve pollution monitoring moved from the lab to the sea in a test at the northern Spanish port of Gijon on Tuesday. The developers hope the new technology, which reduces the time it takes to detect a pollutant from weeks to seconds, will sell to port authorities, water companies, aquariums and anyone with an interest in monitoring water quality...The fish, which are 1.5 meters (5 feet) long and currently cost 20,000 pounds ($31,600) each, are designed to swim like real fish and are fitted with sensors to pick up pollutants leaking from ships or undersea pipelines. They swim independently, co-ordinate with each other, and transmit their readings back to a shore station up to a kilometer away.

So, if they can make robot fish to do this, why can't they make one that chases down and takes a lure, then fights like whatever gamefish has been programmed into its brain? Say you've never caught a bluefin tuna and probably won't ever get the chance, because they're doomed -- instead, you could charter a trip to "catch" robot bluefin.

Who knows, maybe in a few years we might not even need real fish in the oceans anymore, what with their annoying and expensive requirements for clean water and a suitable environment. Now we can repeal all our water quality and anti-pollution laws and start cranking out loads of these suckers, 'cause they'll live anywhere...

CA Bill to Ban Hunting Bears and Bobcats With Dogs Passes Senate

Sarah Smith — Tue, 22 May 2012 09:28:22 -0400

--Chad Love

California is one step closer to banning hunting bears and bobcats with dogs after this bill passed the state senate yesterday.

From this story on sfgate.com:
The state Senate voted Monday to ban the use of dogs to hunt bears and bobcats, a practice the bill's author compared with shooting animals in a zoo. State Sen. Ted Lieu, D-Torrance, introduced the legislation after a California fish and game commissioner posed for photos with a mountain lion he killed during a legal hound hunt in Idaho.

Before the vote, Lieu described the practice in which packs of dogs chase the animals until they are exhausted and climb trees, holding them until the hunter arrives. "It's been likened to shooting a bear at a zoo," Lieu said. "It's simply not fair." He also noted that dogs are sometimes injured or killed and called the practice inhumane and unsportsmanlike.

Thoughts? Reaction? Anyone want to place odds on the next low-hanging fruit anti-hunters try to grab are gundog field trials? Or even hunting with dogs altogether?

Chinese Angler Hooks Gigantic 1,360 lb. Kaluga Fish

Sarah Smith — Mon, 21 May 2012 11:58:26 -0400

--Chad Love

Ever heard of a "Kaluga Fish?" Me, neither. But they apparently get very, very big...

From this story on 11alive.com:
The classic line when someone says they've caught a big fish is "pics or it didn't happen." Well this one did happen. A 1,360 pound sturgeon was caught by fishermen in China's Heilongjiang River this week. The type of sturgeon, known as a Kaluga, or is sometimes called a river beluga, and is claimed to be the largest freshwater fish in the world.

It is found in the Amur River basin in the border areas of northeastern China and eastern Russia. The Kaluga has a maxiumum size of about 2,200 pounds and can grow up to 18 feet long. The fish was caught Tuesday at Tongjiang, a city that borders Russia in northeast China.

Wow. That's a "Hook Shots" episode just waiting to happen.

Too Many Deer Destroying Bird Nesting Habitats?

Sarah Smith — Mon, 21 May 2012 11:18:01 -0400

--Chad Love

Are too many deer in the woods hurting biodiversity? That's the thought-provoking argument set out in this New York Times op/ed piece, which argues there are so many deer in the United States today that they are literally eating critical migratory bird habitat into oblivion.

From this story in the New York Times:
"...But one of the biggest contributors to the decline in migratory bird populations has gone largely unnoticed: white-tailed deer. By 1900, deforestation and unregulated hunting had reduced deer populations in the Eastern United States to tiny remnant clusters surviving in remote sanctuaries. But subsequent protective laws and aggressive habitat management allowed deer to bounce back. To this day, wildlife managers slice intact forests into sunny woodlots that maximize the number of deer and the frequency of encounters between deer and hunters. Private landowners are encouraged by wildlife agencies to crisscross their forest acreage with tasty plantings of clover and wheat in support of what is now a burgeoning population of perhaps 50 million white-tailed deer — in some places as many as 75 deer per square mile.

According to the piece, deer are basically turning the nation's woodlands into one giant, sterile and barren browse line, which destroys the nesting habitat for many ground-nesting and near-ground nesting birds.

From the story: Take a quick drive through forested terrain and see for yourself the stark browse lines, missing orchids and denuded shrubbery. The conclusion is inescapable: There are too many deer, and they are endangering the rest of our flora and fauna, including valuable timber and invaluable songbirds.

The author does mention hunting, but argues deer hunting is becoming less effective as fewer young people take up the sport because the deer population is growing larger than the population of hunters charged with controlling it. One suggestion was to fence off large tracts of land from deer so that vegetation can recover.

Thoughts? Are there too many deer out there for the number of hunters hunting them? Do state wildlife agencies need to take a look at changing their management philosophies? Or do we need to focus on getting more hunters in the woods?

NE Hunters to Compete with Non-Residents for Muley Tags

Sarah Smith — Mon, 21 May 2012 10:31:45 -0400

--Chad Love

Nebraska hunters are not happy about a proposal to allow non-resident hunters to shell out cash for a bonus mule deer tag while forcing residents who didn't manage to grab one of the first 1,500 resident tags to play the lottery game for those same tags.

From this story on omaha.com:

Nebraska is among the easternmost states with a stable population of mule deer. Last year, a special mule deer hunting unit in the southwest part of the state was the first to sell out of permits. This year, if more than 1,500 resident hunters want one of the $30 permits, the Game and Parks Commission plans to use a lottery to distribute them.

Out-of-state hunters who want the same permit, however, won't need the luck of the draw — just a credit card with an available balance of $521. The plan has prompted a few Nebraska hunters to accuse the state of cashing in on nonresidents at the expense of residents...The commission says its plan should satisfy all or most of resident demand but also will give nonresidents a chance at a big buck for big bucks.

Thoughts? What say you, Cornhuskers? Is this a fair and equitable arrangement or is it as bad an idea as Nebraska leaving the Big 12 for the Big 10? Discuss...

CO Teen Who Caught 31lb State Record Striper Lied About Location

Sarah Smith — Thu, 17 May 2012 11:38:56 -0400

--Chad Love

Remember the story about the 18-year-old Colorado teen whose 31-pound striper shattered the state record?

In what is becoming a depressingly common theme this year, the record catch has been nullified because the boy apparently lied about where it was caught.

From this story on timescall.com:

A Longmont teen lied about where he caught a hefty striped bass last month, he admitted Wednesday night, so he can't claim the state record for the 31-pound, 8.4-ounce fish he landed. "It was a different lake, a different place," said 18-year-old Isaac Sprecher. He said it was "stupid and immature" for him to have originally contended that he'd caught the striper on April 20 at northwest Longmont's McIntosh Lake, when he'd actually reeled it in that afternoon from one of the ponds at Pella Crossing, a Boulder County Open Space area at North 75th Street south of Hygiene.

Pella Crossing has catch-and-release rules for large and smallmouth bass, and Sprecher said Wednesday that he hadn't immediately been able to reach a Colorado Parks and Wildlife officer to see whether he'd be able to check whether the striped bass he'd caught could somehow officially be weighed before freeing it to swim away.

According to the story, Sprecher wasn't sure if he could keep the fish, but since it was almost dead, anyway, he decided to take the fish home. When wildlife officers arrived to verify the catch, Sprecher told them he had caught it at McIntosh Lake.

"I wasn't honest," Longmont High School student Sprecher said on Wednesday. "I'm greatly sorry for all this." "It's a good life lesson," he said. "It wasn't right for me to lie about it."

All's well that ends well, I guess, and it seems that Mr. Sprecher, as he acknowledged, will take away some wisdom from the experience, but what I really want to know is... where are these Boulder County ponds that hold 30-pound stripers and why isn't Tim Romano catching them on the fly?

Is There Room For Wild Bison on Montana's Public Land?

Sarah Smith — Thu, 17 May 2012 10:44:01 -0400

--Chad Love

Is there a more iconic species of the great American frontier than the mighty bison? Many people would argue no, and many are now arguing that this prairie scion should stop being what amounts to livestock and once again become a wild animal, at least in Montana.

From this op/ed in the Great Falls Tribune:
Most ranchers feel that the "no livestock grazing on public lands" position espoused by some environmental groups is extreme. Those of us at the National Wildlife Federation agree. But we conservationists feel that the "no bison on public lands" position taken by the livestock industry is equally extreme.

Saying there's no room for wild bison anywhere in Montana's 147,000 square miles defies common sense. Bison — once one of North America's most plentiful and, arguably, most valuable animals — escaped extinction, but have survived almost exclusively in captivity.

Slaughtered by the millions in the 19th century, bison today are raised by ranchers as livestock or corralled as a sort of shaggy exhibit behind high, solid fences as at the National Bison Range in Moiese. No bison can be found in their native prairie habitat anywhere in the United States. That's about to change. Montana has begun the process of restoring at least a modest herd of truly wild bison. The state Department of Fish, Wildlife & Parks has begun holding a series of meetings statewide as the first step in developing an environmental-impact statement and comprehensive plan for managing wild bison.

Would you love to see wild, untamed, un-ear-tagged bison thundering across the prairie? More importantly, would you love to get the opportunity to hunt those wild, untamed, un-ear-tagged bison?