Faunal Force

Bear and Parents

Black bear females and their cubs are a small social network, just two. When undisturbed, they stay together for several years. (Grizzly bears stay for three). This in not for fun but there is some of that. There is survival value in the inherited behavior ... for bear cubs and thus for bear populations. The cubs learn by watching and listening, and on occasion from a physical rebuff. Learning is essential. The cub does not inherit major chunks of knowledge as do birds and insects. Being taught is essential.

Allen R. Stickley's research cub, Virginia Tech, 1956

I learned years ago of a tagged adult live bear that was found in the winter within an opening within the forest. It was covered with  snow and sleeping (perhaps hibernating) in the open a balled-up position. I surmise that it had not been taught what to do in the winter by its mother. I surmise also that it had been separated from the female and other cub(s) and have never had a demonstration of a desirable survival strategy - when to eat abundantly, where to go, and what logs, debris, or rocky caves to use for survival...to hide from people and other creatures.

I think of the sleeping bear often when I see children doing unexpected things. Perhaps they just haven't had enough time with their "mother bear," enough pointed observation, enough small mistakes, enough tumbles, and huddled warmth in the rain and snow.

Black Bear : A Walk in the Woods

Mark Wiley, Radford, Virginia, shares this near-noon photo with us of a black bear taken June 6, 2009,in Floyd County Virginia

There is abundant information about the black bear and much more has been added in the past 20 years by Dr. Michael Vaughn and his graduate students and colleagues at Virginia Tech.

I continue to explore business potentials for a black bear related group within the designed Rural System.

Feral Cats

There's a good new comprehensive article on feral cats now available.

I've seen their effects on birds and small mammals. I bought a rural place that was once a dumping ground for unwanted cats. I work in my garden, disgusted by signs of their presence. I've stopped feeding the birds in the back yard because the feeder became a killing-place. I may remove the bird bath; it too has become a hunting blind for the "cat-children" of "neighbors."

I have information on my web site but it probably needs new numbers from studies to become more convincing: there is no place for free-ranging house cats in urban and border areas. House cats need to be kept in houses where people love their cats. Cats are very effective killers of all small reptiles, birds, and mammals. Most are food and energy subsidized by people and cannot be equally compared to "wild" populations. Urban ecologists, if ever they are to include being "managers," need to tackle this problem

Habitat's Looming Cloud

I rarely use "wildlife habitat" and replace it with "faunal space." "Habitat destruction" is the wildlife manager's mantra for cause of losses of animals or reduced populations. Much of that loss in the past has been to spot developments, the changing fallow field, the change in fence rows and cultivation practices. Some species have been affected by conversions of one forest type to another.

There's looming on the near-time horizon another undesirable change in faunal space, nation wide and world wide. As readily available and economically accessible oil supplies dwindle, more and more attention will be given to alternative energy sources and much more to alternative oil sources for it is the stuff of plastics, solvents, and fertilizers. There is much attention now, but that will pale to energy-starved conditions coming soon (say pre-2030). We're already turning to biomass (grasses, pulpwood, and wood debris) for energy wood and as a replacement for crude oil. Chemists have learned how to convert plant biomass directly into a chemical building block that can not only be used to produce fuel, but also plastics, polyester and industrial chemicals cheaply and efficiently.

That plant biomass ... whatever its uses ... is the form and function of wildlife. It needs water and nutrients. Every removal of a plant removes nutrients. Unless there is planned replacement (unheard of in most forest, rangeland, and wildlife conditions) that is mineral mining. In the US we have been doing this for years. The supplies have seemed unlimited. Elsewhere the losses have already occurred and history books are there for the lessons, yet unlearned.

The faunal system manager now has to step up to seek alternatives, slow the pace of conversion to biomass from wild sources, understand the soil and its hunger for decaying biomass, prepare for stable biomass farms on select areas, restore abused lands for a new role, require mineral replacement of that which is extracted as biomass, and slow oil and its chemical-cousin usage. The challenges for the wild faunal system managers of the future are truly exciting and worthy of the best efforts.

Academia Expanded

Handshake 2.0 posted about Academia.com. The ecological and faunal resource community can gain from participation within this new social network.

Bobcat

Mark Wiley, Radford, Virginia, using remote cameras got this excellent picture of a bobcat in Floyd County, Virginia, 4:13 am, May 15, 2009.  He said, "I've seen a bobcat in Floyd on 2 occasions - once while climbing the ridge while I was hunting and another time ambushing a turkey." Mark's about 50 so such sightings, even clear pictures, are rare.

I have dreams of a rural enterprise related to bobcats. They are scarce and with coming land use changes, they are likely to need intensive management. We know much about them now but a major  sustained research program is needed for them to clarify their population status, likely impacts from housing and industrial development and carbon storage and biomass production, their disease relations (rabies, etc.), effects of an increasing coyote population and the effects of hunting and trapping on the state population.

Carbon on the Land

“Coarse woody debris” is wood in the forest from dead limbs and fallen trees. It’s a lot of stored carbon and that’s a good thing as society tries to deduce the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. The trees themselves are stored or bound carbon and their fallen parts are part of the cycle that releases carbon and minerals. In the healthy forest floor, there is long-term build up of organic matter, carbon and decaying plant parts … all habitats for a great diversity of plants and animals … microscopic to giant bears. Such soils protect tree roots, stabilize moisture and mineral flows, and prevent erosion. The trees, plants, and “mulch” of the forests are the re-charge platform for our water supplies.

Trees, all parts of them, now look good for fuels to replace losses from the high costs of fossil fuel. A different look suggests that what you see in a forest is production of a few years. Oil is that from hundreds of years. A different look suggests we might take wood for fuel (chipping, bundling, or even converting it to a liquid fuel) and lose our water supply. An historical look will convince us that other societies have excessively harvested their forests and lost their land to wind and water erosion. It will be as important to prevent taking too much coarse woody debris from the forest as it is to prevent over harvesting the trees for lumber, pulp, and other products. It will be very difficult to balance the total amount of carbon removed from each forest tract against the total amount of carbon stored within the trees there AND the amount of carbon in the coarse woody debris essential for the long-term health and lasting productivity of that tract. Without balancing done well, taking trees and debris is “mining” by the current society.

What’s an Atlatl? Primitive High Tech

I just have to call spear points “arrowheads.”  That’s the way I was “brought up.” It probably does not make any difference. The arrow is a much more modern invention than the spear. Sharpening a long stick was a major advance by primitive people over using a rock for collecting fish, reptiles, and small birds and mammals. Tying a sharp rock onto a stick must have been a great day for the remembered praise for the inventor. The practice surely spread rapidly, regionally, and only by personal demonstrations. Before people added rocks to sticks they were throwing spears with incredible force using the atlatl (pronounce it at-ul-at-ul)

The atlatl was a throwing stick, a device with a hook at the end that went into the end of the spear. The device added distance to the thrown projectile and force against large prey.

It was a spear “handle” that effectively gave the thrower a longer than natural arm. Later a doughnut shaped stone was added to the atlatl. With each throw, the stone slid from the hand up the atlatl toward the spear. These had to have been the first delvings into applications of ideas about centrifugal force.

A sport has emerged and there are pockets of interest.  An association exists and I think new interests will be gained from people traveling less, becoming more attached to their past, and becoming more interested in primitive weapons and survival techniques and surviving.   

I have plans for a Spear-Throwing Group within my dream of Rural System.

 

Protect or Manage?

The New York Times, May 6, 2009, in an editorial asked "Who Will Protect the Forests?" Their's is a title, I know, but the wrong questions invariably produce the wrong answers.

The National Forests (within the US Department of Agriculture) have wilderness and related areas and these are "set aside" to be preserved and protected from major uses such as timber cutting. Hunting and recreation are permitted and protection of a sort is provided but in general these areas are following their natural processes.

It seems lame to continue to make these distinctions in such areas but the needs are real when it come to citizen input, the understanding of Congressional staff, and judicial bodies. The needs are understand that these National Forests are very different. I contend that every 10 x 10 meter square area of them is unique. It takes supremely educated foresters to analyze and prescribe for each such area. That action is part of their management, a type of control to achieve diverse citizen benefits from the lands and waters for this and next century ... then beyond. Preserving and preventing uses is at one extreme of the decision options. The decisions can be sequenced. There are thousands more of other options between that and the other extreme ... to burn, to doze, to trade, to sell.

Intensive site-specific management (and the legislation and budgets that supports it) is needed (often with GIS and computer assistance), not sweeping set-asides. Failing to get the needed management, then the  set-asides" (call them "protection") may be all that can be achieved. Protecting forests from fire, trespass, insects, diseases, erosion, vandalism, air pollution, visual blight, and thieves are all part of management. Protecting them from wasteful or inefficient tree removals is also good management. Preservation efforts can reduce some protection, add significant, often-essential other protection. The decisions on what to do on the land need to be in the hands of the resource managers.  (of course informed by the public about their ever-changing objectives). Modern sophisticated National Forest management includes protection.

Layer Perspective

Years ago I climbed trees to sample insects high in the canopy. Here is a picture of (part of my boot and) colleague Tim Dilworth, now a PhD. We suspended sampling devices (sticky boards) a different levels and recorded species at each level through an Ohio hardwood. We found unknown insects.

Importantly, the experience gave me true “new perspective.” I had lectured on "the world from 5-feet up," a common human viewing height. To understand the natural world requires snorkeling and digging in earth pits and laying prone on the forest floor for extended periods for things change rapidly. It requires seeing the blended layers of the forest canopy for just as mammals and some birds defend territory and are area and habitat specific, many insects, bats, and birds are layer specific. The world is not flat to them but three dimensional and they know the bounds inside of their “box.”

Animal density, the numbers per unit area, may not be the appropriate expression for analyzing populations animals per unit of available quality volume may be the measure. Its use will reduce variation in studies and help understand and predict future populations.