Faunal Force

Energy for Faunal Management?

It is unlikely that there will be energy (or the money to pay for it) for faunal managers to actively manage wild fauna except for furs, down, and for reducing crop and livestock damage. This is clearly and convincingly put in a paper and videoclip by the Postcarbon Institute.

Energy Source System

As a nation we run on fossil fuel. That’s 72% of the national electric energy budget. Of that 51% comes from coal. We’re running out of low-sulfur coal and coal not-too-deep (because getting it is too costly and dangerous). All other energy sources are important, but relative to coal, they’re pikers (20% natural gas, less than 2% for oil). We’re in trouble. We have to replace most of that source of energy soon. We have to get CO₂ levels to below those of 1990 to slow major climate change … and that means reducing coal use, the massive great use, greatly. It can only bring great hardship to the complex industry mining and delivering coal to power-plants and to others affected throughout society. Demand for electricity is increasing. Costs to produce it will be increasing. Costs to restore land will increase. The means to supply it are decreasing. Risks for new technology to reduce CO₂ remain high. International cooperation remains uncertain, similar risk.

We need to work on a system of alternatives geothermal, solar, biological, wind, small-stream hydro, human and animal motion, tidal, modified coal, alternative coal, and nuclear, and widespread “deep” conservation of energy.

Where rivers once specified where there would be human settlements, in the near future access to low-cost, low-waste energy transmission away from coastal flooding zones in mid-temperature climates (mapped degree days) will be the new places for the structures and main routes of society.

Wildlife Law Enforcement Officer Patrols

 

 I was asked recently, which was better, using marked or unmarked vehicles in patrols by wildlife law enforcement officers? I studied with graduate students wildlife law enforcement problems for many years. Such studies are rare, especially considering the great costs of  enforcement to the wildlife resource agencies.

I knew of no related studies but suspected that some had been attempted. I suggested that if they could be found or if one was to be designed, then the following should be done:

1. Decide why? What is the purpose of the patrol: displaying presence, education, deterrence, apprehension, quantifying the number of violators by season and time of day, density of violators? All of these? [I expected several and so suggested numerically weighting each relative to the most important one.]
2. Decide on the areas of concern and make a computer map(s) of them. [It's not all area in the region, only the areas where there may be game, only near violator access by roads and trails, not near certain things like power plants, and not near the agents' homes.]
3. Narrow the period of concern. [Cleve Cowles' PhD dissertation (Cowles, C. J. 1979. Optimal deployment of wildlife law enforcement agents with analyses of agent productivity. Unpub. Ph.D. Dissertation, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, Va.xi + 230 p. )shows how to re-allocate agents to areas where boating, fishing, etc. needs and users and law violators change seasonally.]
4. Experimentally allocate parked but well-marked vehicles [These may not even be workable, but they are marked and conspicuous) throughout several areas and compare arrest rates to areas where there are none.
5.  Do the same with patrols of conspicuously marked and unmarked vehicles in areas. Density of vehicles =  number of hours per square mile (i.e., length x viewing width).
6. Use questionnaire samples to determine the number of people that have seen marked vehicles. (What would be the desired proportion of people who have seen a marked vehicle within the past month?)
7. Ask all or a sample of arrested people whether a marked or unmarked vehicle was involved in their arrest.
8. As with Vilkitis’s work  (Vilkitis, J. R. 1968. Characteristics of big game violators and extent of their activity in Idaho. MS Thesis, Univ. Idaho, Moscow, Idaho. 202 pp. ) it might be desirable to desirable to simulate in the field  (or simulate for discussion) 10 to 100 poaching events and see which type vehicle is most likely to be positively involved for a desirable outcome.
9. Determine the area around a point (an agent stopping and getting out of a patrol vehicle) from which an average poacher's shot can be heard.
10. The patrol is often for detection of violations, that is to get a minimum rate.  By using a standard patrol and standard stops (e.g., like regularly spaced, early morning spring-time stops to listen for drumming ruffed grouse) it may be possible to use gun shots-heard as an index to potential activity in the zone around the road. A little geometry can work out distances heard and density of poachers per unit area per unit time.  Seasonal differences or differences between years with marked and unmarked cars might be compared to give rough indices, set some bounds, and perhaps show some accountability if not justification for more agents or patrol activity.
11. If angler violations are of concern, only person-to-person work seems likely to be effective.  If deterring crime, all the efforts from newspapers, school work, marked vehicles, signs, reports of arrests, increasing fines, changing the regulations, embarrassment, etc. will be needed ... and then the marked/unmarked question can be evaluated. That's pretty far down the list of problems and decisions.
12. This is a good time to re-think the fossil energy costs of patrol. There are going to be some severe cutbacks and we'll need to build some new strategies for the new violator after many more of them move to the cities but come out for night-time fun in the "game" against the agents.

I’ll welcome advice on effective patrol strategies and especially a research strategy when the intended consequence of a patrol is unsure or mixed.

The Changing Nilgiri Tahr Population

 

A recent photo by Nidhin  (Nidhin G Poothully) of the Nilgiri Tahr of the Western Ghat mountains of India.

Several years ago I was on the Ph.D. committee of Stephen Sumithran. Dr. James Fraser was committee chairman. Stephen studied the endangered goat-like creature (Hemitragus hylocrius) for several years. I was delighted to see this week the incredibly-difficult-to-get photo by Nidhin and am pleased to present it here with his permission.

Stephen's dissertation was (1997, Status and Ecology of the Nilgiri Tahr in the Mukurthi National Park, South India, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, Virginia). The population then was about 150 animals and probably declining. These animals feed on grasses and small plants close to cliffs and away from human activity. Thus forests (planted on grasslands), roads, and human disturbance have greatly reduced their feeding areas. Predators such as  leopards (Panthera pardus) and tigers (Panthera tigris) kill about 20% of the population of tahrs each year, compounding the population decline. The predation losses are minor to those related to habitat loss and change, an old story, the same as "this population as others that are declining need significant professional management and control."

Faunal Images

Combining the rich, diverse faunal resource of India with an enthusiastic photographer (Nidhin G Poothully) with a genuine interest in the resource, and that with a giant new camera, suggests something special might happen. The mix has been made and Nidhin has created special images for new knowledge and pleasure from that amazing national resource.

I've not met Nidhin but have been to India twice and left my heart there. I've corresponded with land owners who see the potentials in ecotourism and are eager to share their lands and wild faunal resources with visitors. I've mentioned plans to include him before  but have been slowed by personal incompetence. Since then, Nidhin has gained a new camera and I hope to help him share his faunal insights with us all.

The Green Beeeater Merops orientalis  image is by him and it was taken from Flickr.

I saw the nesting holes dug by this bird into a sandy vertical bank. It is to me a most unlikely looking "digger." They are said to lay eggs several feet at the rear of the bank. One investigator confronted a cobra coming from one such nesting cavity.

Unusual reasoning ability? Perhaps.

Plants Invading Southern Forests

 

The  U.S. Forest Service Southern Research Station Ecologist Dr. Jim Miller says the top five species are

1. Cogongrass
2. Tallowtree
3. Japanese climbing fern 
4. Tree-of-heaven and
5. Nonnative Privets.

These non-native species often out-compete native forest plants, degrade forest productivity, and increase wildfire risk and severity. Some are beneficial to wild birds and animals and are spread by them, thus creating more problems in gaining a balance in forestry and wildlife management conflicts. Aided by climate warming, the species  will be increasingly expensive to control or eradicate. Maps showing each species may help land managers in Southeastern states in their control efforts.  Managers and others can access the maps  to help combat the spread of nonnative plant species in southern forest and grassland ecosystems.

Miller's book is Nonnative Invasive Plants of Southern Forests: A Field Guide for Identification and Control, 2003.

Alternative Christmas Tree Message

My good friend, Herman J. Heikkenen, died in October, 2008. He had a life-concept in which he felt strongly and collected information about it. He never could write it up satisfactorily and so could not get the recognition  that it or he deserved . Someone else nneds to do so now.

He was a forester and an insect specialist. He saw yellowing green pine trees just as did his colleagues. They told him that the trees were dying from pine bark beetles. His hypothesis was that the trees were already dying and that the beetles were flying in to consume the trees ... like vultures to a road-kill deer. Beetles were not the cause of tree death. Some people continue to blame the beetles and use abundant pesticides to control them (unsuccessfully).
Jack, with students, put cables on large healthy pine trees without beetles to hold them inplace. Then he sawed completely through their base, put a metal sheet in the saw cut, and left them standing. They could not be more stressed. They looked normal but the beetles invaded them soon afterwards. The trees gave off a food or sex odor, quite alluring. The beetle traps on the trees told the story of their invasion.

Jack knew that pine trees if planted too closely, stressed by too little or too much moisture, or injured would give off the "I'm dying" odors. Well-managed forests would not have bark beetles (unless they were flying in from over-populating themselves in a nearby stand of trees.)

He used an excellent example, the Christmas tree. Good ones are green (but they are clearly dead). They  "yellow" long after they are stressed or sawed down. Foresters or others cannot see the start of the tree dying, only the yellowing, and
blame must be assigned. Jack was a strong advocate of looking at problems in the forest in a different manner, doing historical work, conducting studies, and actively managing forests - the right species in the right places at the right spacing, and with scheduled removals that benefit all of the people interested in the resources of those places with trees. Beetles say that all of these things have not yet be done.

Nanosolar

It may not be evident why people interested in wildlife should be excited about solar power. Beyond saying that all citizens should be interested in new sources of energy and energy conservation, there may be more than passing interest in solar power. New findings suggest that conventional solar panels when "used up" may have toxic substances within them and thus great care will be needed in disposing of them. The industry is now alert to this.

A new light thin film has been created by Nanosolar with improved solar collecting properties. To the extent that any energy source that will potentially reduce uses of biomass (wood,algae, and grass pellets) for fuel will be helpful. To the extent that such collectors may contribute to an electric supply, there can be gains. The warming of spaces and water can improve animal and human health.

I'm especially interested in the role of solar ovens that may reduce vegetative exploitation in vegetation-sparse environments like Senegal. There vast amounts of charcoal are produced from semi desert plants. The plants and their ecological communities, as always, remain essential for wind protection, erosion control, and soil re-building after years of exploitation.

A single solar oven can serve the cooking needs of several African and Indian families that I have observed, reducing the back-breaking work of fuel gathering for women, and allowing  ecological communities - plants, soil, and wild animals - to recover from perpetual harvests of every stem by women. Boiling water by solar oven alone, as well as adequate heating of foods, can have profound effects on human health.

Here is a covered mound of charcoal in Senegal, West Africa.Scale is relative to the height of the adult, right center.

It Seems Like Yesterday

I had a cabin near Salem,Virginia. It was on Catawba Mountain. The former owner had a cigar box of "arrow heads" that he had collected over the years while gardening. He showed them to me and I found their ages in Hranicky, W. J., and F. Painter.1989. A Guide to the Identification of Virginia Projectile Points. Archaeological Society of Virginia Special Publication 17, Courtland, Virginia. (3rd printing 1993). The ages of similar-shaped stones were well documented from carbon-aging that had been done for other sites where each characteristic head or "spear point" (bow and arrows came several thousand years later) had been found. I put them in a row in the order of their ages.

The cabin was in about the same place it might have been 10,000 years ago. That place was about three miles directly in the air over the cabin on a spot on a mountain like those of Northern India. All of that land had eroded away at a rate of about 3 inches a year and the pieces-parts probably now hold up Danville or  Martinsville in the foothills or piedmont of  Virginia.

That year, 20 cold, bearded and pelt-clothed brutish folks from Siberia slid off the edge of the last major glacier in Pennsylvania and walked southward. They drank from the springs that flowed above the cabin site.

Those spear points or arrowheads often crowd into my thoughts. Some are barely shaped stones that might be found and tied by a fruit-eater to the end of a stick. Others are beautiful, crafted things reflecting progress, improvements, pride and and probable hunting effectiveness. The large, beautiful one

probably reflects efforts to craft a useful tool and in the process many were chipped, imperfect, or were lost. The saved ones represented work, great energy spent to get a useful working objects, a thing of embodied energy.

The prehistoric objects were placed in order, but they are each separated by 2000 years. There is no orderly progression of shape, size, or beauty among them. Whole very-different societies seem to have emerged and all that remains of their culture is reflected in the lasting variable quality of their essential tool. There is little transfer of knowledge or ability. Each seems to have to have developed by itself. Each is a puzzle, for why did they disappear? How did some do so well so fast and others stagnate? Must all societies disappear for 2000 years?

It seems like yesterday that I celebrated New Year's day, 2000 AD.

West Nile Virus

People love wildlife. Large industries are built on hunting and fishing and bird watching. However, all is not positive.  Responsible wild faunal system managers must deal with the diseases borne by such animals that affect humans. These are called zoonones and there is now a significant one almost nation wide. The important coming-summer pest is the Culex tarsalis, the mosquito that carries West Nile Virus from wild and domestic birds to humans.

Ten years ago, West Nile virus was unknown in the U.S. It first appeared in New York State in 1999 and has now spread all the way to the Pacific. Typically the virus causes mild flu-like symptoms, but in some cases, most often among the elderly, it can be serious, leading to fever and deadly brain diseases -- encephalitis and meningitis. The Centers for Disease Control report that the virus “has caused more than 19,000 cases  (many believed not reported) of human illness including more than 750 deaths in the United States.” Though the Culex tarsalis hatches in late summer, climate change may shift and expand areas where it lives and thus people and animals Ilike sage grouse) affected.

An invasive virus now finds a vector in mosquitoes that are laying eggs in water captured in the leaf  brackets of invasive bamboo plants and elsewhere. The mosquito transmits the virus to birds and people.  The challenges for resolving wildlife and human conflicts have been with us from settlement days (wild animals vs. crops and livestock) but they seem to re-emerge in:

• forest tree-holes that are homes for  insect vectors of human disease but also trees that favor many bird species,
• wind-turbines and strikes and deaths caused to endangered birds and bats,
• successfully re-introduced wolves and livestock, and 
• cougars and bears attacking increasing back-country recreationists.

The faunal system managers must step up positively in these great modern crises where balance is essential and the conflicts very extreme and often personal. Technical expertise will help, but great wisdom is in great demand.