Land Management Tips for Wildlife

A few weeks ago I had a friend ask me, "I want to own land and manage it to save the world. How can I do that?" As I thought of all the possible ways land could be managed to mitigate habitat destruction, increase local food supply or assure flora that will strive in a changing climate, one thread came to me as the most important element in land management. I replied, "Manage with thought." I deeply believe that it is a lack of planning and forethought that helped degrade the productivity of a great many acres coast to coast and it will be planning for the future that will help solve the challenges facing land management today. I will keep this post on what I know best, managing land for the benefit of wildlife.

My first suggestion to is to make land ownership work for your needs. Management should be lasting in terms of economic, environmental and social commitment. If a landowner cannot maintain the land on these three fronts then any changes made to the property are unlikely to have any lasting benefit.

Next up, understanding the property as it fits into the landscape. Almost any wildlife species will need more space than the average landowner can provide. Therefore, it is important to find a role each property can play in providing food, water and habitat to the local fauna. If the surrounding properties are fulfilling one or two of these requirements, it could be of greater benefit to have the property fill the third. Food plots, ponds or modifying vegetation cover are all possible ways to do that.

The structure and layout of these resources should also be a consideration. Feathered edges which are soft borders transitioning from forest to shrubs to pastures or farmland allow many animals to have cover from predation. Consider vegetation at different heights as well. Grass, shrubs, understory trees and canopy trees all provide different niches and resources to wildlife species. The ability of the wildlife to get to the food, cover and water provided is also important. Placing these resources within a reasonable distance, 200 yards for a rough average, makes sure all the pieces fit together to create usable habitat.

Finally, work on some small projects that help increase the utility of the land to wildlife. I cannot emphasize this enough: stick with native vegetation. Exotic plants might have one advantage or another but they are rarely worth the potential harm they can cause or as well adapted to the climate and soil as native plants. Piles are another good thing for wildlife. Rock piles or brush piles can provide habitat for a wide host of wildlife. Also, leave standing dead trees. The life of the tree is not over when it dies. A dead tree can provide a home to woodpeckers and flying squirrels. There are many cost share programs to help landowners increase the usefulness of their land to wildlife. Contact your state’s conservation department for help accessing these funds.

(modified from Working Trees for Wildlife by USDA in partnership with the Forest Service and Natural Resources Conservation Service.)

Hedwig, we salute you

Illustration by Brittney Lee for a 2011 HP tribute show.

This week, amidst the jubilation over Harry Potter's heroics (not to mention Neville Longbottom, Severus Snape, the Weasleys, et cetera et cetera), let us not forget the story's great communicator, Hedwig. As cousins to the snowy owl, we Bard Owls may be a bit biased, but really, what is the wizarding world (or the Muggle world, even) without timely correspondence?

Hedwig, you delivered stuff, you nipped Harry on the ear when he deserved it, you suffered at the hands of Delores Umbridge and lived locked in a stupid closet every summer. You've endured much, my friend, including life in a non-native climate zone. And for this, we salute you.

We're certainly not the first to pay tribute to this great raptor.  First, there was the "Hedwig's Theme" remix by Virtual Boy.



There's also a pretty bad YouTube video tribute with an absurd song choice. And then, of course, the crop circle in Wiltshire.

And most recently, this precious illustration of the owlry by artist Brittney Lee (see more of the piece on her website).

Finally, on the latest score for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Alexandre Desplat brilliantly combines "Hedwig's Theme" and "Lilly's Theme" for an original track titled "Snape's Demise." It's a touching mix that expresses one of the story's more complex relationships. [listen] [buy]

Paint the field red

Looking for a fight? How about some flowers and grasses? Visit a battlefield. This one is in Centralia, Mo.

Here, on Sept. 27, 1864, Bloody Bill Anderson wiped out over 120 Union soldiers. Earlier that day, his men wiped out 23 others in a massacre by the train depot. It was a bloodbath. Now the place is mostly quiet, save for occasional reenactments. A small acreage worth visiting if you want solitude and some sense of the sacred.

 

If the birds and bugs don't make enough noise, try meditating to the 1861 Project, a collaboration of Nashville songwriters and other musicians to commemorate the Civil War. The website also encourages discussion of the war's meaning for contemporary citizens. It's a cool interactive project and if you like sentimental, mellow songs that tell stories then, well, here you go.

National Parks and Bears

“A venturesome minority will always be eager to set off on their own, and no obstacles should be placed in their path; let them take risks, for godsake, let them get lost, sunburnt, stranded, drowned, eaten by bears, buried alive under avalanches - that is the right and privilege of any free American."

- Edward Abbey

The news last week seemed to be full of discussion about a mother grizzly bear who mauled a hiker in Yellowstone National Park and the park’s decision to not euthanize the bear. I first wish to express my sympathy for the family and friends of the lost hiker. I also wish to express that I feel the park service made the right decision given the circumstances. I too have stumbled upon a mother grizzly bear with cubs.

When the encounter occurred, I wondered about how it would end. Would it be a wonderful story for years to come about disaster avoided or were the clicks of my camera a final record of what went wrong on a hike in the woods. I thought of the three other people who had trusted me to guide them into the wilderness area. I thought about my family’s concern about the threat posed by bears and my dismissal of how big of risk it really was. I always believed it was more realistic to be worried about a broken ankle miles from the trailhead as compared to any threat from wildlife.

Our first spotting of the mother grizzly bear was on the outbound stretch of a out-and-back day hike. We saw the bear with cubs from some distance and watched as they spotted us. Slowly and without panic they went out of sight in the direction that we had come from. It was an almost ideal bear interaction as it was far away and ended quickly. However, even with this perfect sighting I began to have concerns. The bears had left in the same direction we had to hike to return to the trailhead. Another sighting was not only possible but likely.

My concerns turned out to be correct. As we finished the outbound section and began to return the way we had come my thoughts turned to the bear and her cubs. When we hit the meadow where we had last seen the bear my eyes began to scan the terrain. I unclasped my bear spray can and placed it into my right hand with my fingers on the safety release.

I knew other friends who were outdoor inclined that talked about never going into the wilderness without a firearm. I had always felt that was ridiculous and possible mechanical bravery that could result in either bears or humans being killed or mauled unnecessarily. I would be dishonest to say that at the moment we stumbled upon the bear for a second time, at this point a mere 25 feet from the mother, that I would not have been reassured to have a loaded firearm. I had test fired a inert can of bear spray before the trip and knew that, at most, I had five seconds of very cloudy spray to prevent a bear attack. If I were to use it effectively, I would have to have the nerve for a “whites of the eyes” moment. I slid the safety cap off and it hit the ground.

We had been following every rule of travel in grizzly country. Undoubtably at 25 feet the bear had heard us. However, as we froze where we were and prepared for an attack the bear never once looked at us. It passed without pause from our right, across the trail and downhill toward the left. In fact, we ended up having numerous times of being close to the bear after that simply because the bear was in no hurry and traveling the same direction we were. Our attempts forward were slow and loud followed by backing up once we could see either the bear or cubs in front of us. Once we were sure that the bear and cubs were on the same side of the trail and a comfortable distance away, we made a controlled sprint past the area. The danger had passed.

I have no doubts that chance played the difference between how my story and the unfortunate story in Yellowstone ended. I feel in retrospect it is clear to me that the bear I interacted with had certainly seen people before and was not afraid of them. The bear in Yellowstone, surprisingly, had not had these constant human interactions. Even if it had the same experience it still might have reacted the way it did. If bear research proves anything, it is that all bears are different.
It is with a very real understanding of the risks that I support the park service’s decision to not euthanize the bear. I too, as Edward Abbey so succinctly summarized above, believe we need places to take risks, live free of society and be humbled if even for a little while. It is a credit to the park and the practice of killing problem bears that the park managed to go 25 years without a death caused by bears.

It took me several trips to the West for me to truly wrap my mind around the idea that national parks are not outdoor theme parks. The cultural impact of Yogi Bear and developed campgrounds runs deep. That said, the emergency services at National Parks are second to none. Your chances of surviving an accident or wildlife encounter in a national park are without a doubt better than with any other land management agency due in no small part to the park service’s mission and budget.

There is risk in every step taken in wild places. It is out of a respect for existence that bears continue to roam the national parks. It is in some way unspoken that the reason people year after year put on a backpack and sojourn in the wilderness is to prove their ability to sustain themselves for a number of days based only on what they carried in on their back. What is maintained with the presence of wild animals is the opportunity to face an honest landscape and reep the risks as well as the rewards. A hike in the wilderness should never be allowed to become a bumper car experience.

I will end the post with Danielle Ate the Sandwich's song Public Property.

The Problems of Taking a Species to Market

Yesterday, the advocacy group Food & Water Watch released its 2011 Smart Seafood Guide. And high on the list of seafood that's OK to eat are such invasive species as lionfish, Asian carp, blue tilapia, and a few kinds of crab.

Some of these may not be well-known to gourmands, but all of them are pushing out the locals in various rivers, lakes and coastal areas around the country.

The environmental group wants to show they can be as tasty as they are pesky. So it enlisted hotshot chef Kerry Heffernan of South Gate Restaurant to cook up some.

In A Fish-Eat-Fish World, Order Asian Carp And Lionfish To Save The Rest

This article started me thinking about the ups and downs of creating a market for a species. Marketing a species has been proposed as the solution for invasives and endangered animals alike. The thinking with endangered animals is that once livelihoods depend on the resource it would be wise of those dependent on the species to make sure it continues. This has worked wonders in terms of money put into habitat by hunters for all the major game species such as deer, turkey and ducks. Have no doubt, several livelihoods depend on the influx of hunters to an area. The thought with invasives is to remove the harvest limits that keep populations from crashing and incentivize the capture of the species of interest. Both of these ideas have been used with mixed results.

One example that pops into my head is wild boars in much of the Eastern United States. Many eastern states have a year round hunting season on boars. They are not native to the area and can cause extensive problems when rooting around for grubs. Some places actively try to get rid of the species by paying someone to trap and kill the animals. The problem is that trapping to kill doesn’t always happen. Sometimes the people getting paid to kill the boars transport the live animals to other property where the owner wants to be able to hunt something, in this case boar, all year round despite the problems the species causes. Boars, being wild species, do not follow property lines and spread into the surrounding area.

Opening up fishing of lionfish and carp alone might not do the trick. In this example, the expected collapse of boar populations never occurs despite or maybe because of the hunting season put into place. All of this despite places like Smoky Mountain National Park killing a rumored three million of the animals in a single year.

The current problem with these species is there is no market but in trying to create a market the question turns to what do we do once there is one? I see a couple possible outcomes if a market for lionfish or Asian carp ever becomes established. The first is that demand spikes and the numbers of these species plummet. However, demand will not cease when the numbers fall. I imagine that people profiting from these species will either reintroduce the invasive to places it was over-fished from, recreating the problem, or start fishing the species in their native ranges to meet the demand. The problem of the market is that it never quite allows us to get rid of the invasive species as long as we succeed in perpetuating the demand and creating unintended consequences.