The number of breeding pairs of peregrine falcons, the world’s fastest animal, has doubled during a 15-year-long collaborative recovery plan involving climbers, the National Park Service and Yosemite Conservancy, the park announced on July 31. This spring, there were 17 breeding pairs in the Park, up from only eight pairs in 2009. A total of …
Chilcotin Slide and Potential Flood
a notice late Wednesday saying the slide is located 22 km upstream from the Farwell Canyon Bridge. “It has resulted in a complete blockage of the river with material piling 30 metres high and 600 metres wide. Water has backed up roughly eight kilometres behind the landslide material.” News report More This could be a …
Dark Oxygen and Methane Eaters
Pretty Pike
Fishmasters There was some talk about it being a hybrid or what. Pike worldwide can be variable. Normally they are not attractive to me but this is interesting. Oddly, I think Muskies look great even though they are on the same body plan. More Its an Esox Flaviae (aka Esox Cisalpinus). Southern Europe. Mainly in …
Blood Memory Bison Book
Blood Memory The Tragic Decline and Improbable Resurrection of the American Buffalo By Dayton Duncan and Ken Burns
Did Passenger Pigeons suppress\support oaks?
Interesting theories around the 6 min mark. I am not sure I have heard of this before. Steve may have as he is into Passenger pigeons. There is little data to support this and it is speculation for the most part but it highlights how little we know about ecology in North America. There are …
Bizarre Horns
Any smart friends out there that can id this fungus? Almost all the horns of wild animals around here have it. Also, anyone ever seen this in North America, elsewhere? I never have. Yet another example of loss of biodiversity with a loss of megafauna. Could we use this fungus to date extinctions? Nate Chisholm …
Skull Gun
Most unusual but no context on the post.
Isle of Man Wallabies
Back in the 1960s, a couple of adventurous, red-necked wallabies escaped from a wildlife park on the Isle of Man and never looked back. Instead of hopping home, they evaded capture and started their own feral colony, right there in the middle of the Irish Sea. Now, decades later, they’ve built quite an impressive family: …
The evidence is mounting: Humans were responsible for the extinction of large mammals
“We synthesise the evidence for and against climatic or modern human (Homo sapiens) causation, the only existing tenable hypotheses. Our review shows that there is little support for any major influence of climate, neither in global extinction patterns nor in fine-scale spatiotemporal and mechanistic evidence. Conversely, there is strong and increasing support for human pressures …