Echo

Dead deer believed to have epizootic hemorrhagic disease

By |

(MI) Flint Journal – Homeowners in the area around Hoisington and Bennett lakes have discovered dozens of dead white-tailed deer in their yards and waterways over the past few weeks. Department of Natural Resources officials say it appears the deer are victims of epizootic hemorrhagic disease, or EHD – an acute, infectious and often fatal viral disease that is spread by a biting fly or midge. However, no definitive lab tests have been conducted at this point to confirm it. More

Echo

Chicago Botanic Garden in Glencoe puts plant researchers under glass

By |

(IL) Chicago Tribune – Visitors can study nearly 200 plant scientists in their natural habitat through the windows that line both sides of a main hall in the Chicago Botanic Garden’s gleaming new research center. Watching people watch things grow may seem a trifle mundane, but their work has far-reaching significance — preventing a “mass extinction” of plants over the next half-century. More

Echo

Rhetoric on protecting wolves flawed

By |

(WI) Wisconsin State Journal – Wisconsin’s timber wolves went back on the federal endangered species list in late June for the third time in 27 months. The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources has considered them anything but endangered the past five years. More

Echo

Macomb falcon chicks christened

By |

(MI) The Detroit News – All three peregrine falcon chicks — Tucker, Wetzel and Cass — were named after officials with the state’s Department of Natural Resources and the Detroit Zoological Society tagged them with identification bands and gave them a quick physical Wednesday morning. The chicks live with their parents, Nick and Hathor, in an aerie, or nesting site, on an 11th floor ledge of the old County Building, 10 N. Main at Cass in downtown Mount Clemens. The ledge is on the building’s northwest corner. More

Wildlife

30,000 cormorants destroying lakeside park

By |

(ON) The Toronto Star- One arm of the Leslie Street Spit, home to Tommy Thompson Park and the Great Lakes’ largest colony of cormorants, looks like a wintry apocalypse. There are no trees now, just a few guano-spattered snags. This is where cormorants first settled in the park in 1990. They now number about 30,000. In some Ontario parks, Parks Canada officials shoot cormorants to stem the loss of trees.

Wildlife

Counting frogs: Keeping track of species keeps habitats healthy

By |

(IL) Chicago Tribune – Crouched in fields of prairie grass under moonlit skies, Matt Hokanson leads workshops three times in the spring to teach new monitors how to count the population of frogs by the number of calls they hear. There are 13 native species of frogs in Illinois, Hokanson said, but four to five are limited to specific habitats such as sandy areas. The rest can be found in wetlands where habitats are located by aerial photographs taken by the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service and the Audubon Society Chicago Region. More

Wildlife

Bald eagle soars off Michigan’s endangered list

By |

After decades of recuperation, the bald eagle population in Michigan has risen to a level that has prompted officials to remove the bird from the state endangered species list.

“In the 1950s and 1960s, chemicals in pesticides had an impact on many birds at the top of the food chain,” said Christopher Hoving, endangered species coordinator at the Department of Natural Resources (DNR).

Echo

Michigan bill preserves hunting access; seeks to distinguish land protections for warblers from those of turkeys

By |

By Joe Vaillancourt
Capital News Service

While hunting around 25 years ago, Dennis Fijalkowski used a turkey call on a late April morning in Oscoda County. A turkey called back–but he couldn’t shoot because it hid behind a sign that said Kirtland’s warbler, the rarest bird in Michigan, was known to inhabit the area so all hunting was prohibited. Frustrated, Fijalkowski was forced to skip the turkey, although warblers aren’t there that time of year. Things may soon change for hunters involved in similar scenarios. A resurrected bill would require the Department of Natural Resources (DNR) to keep state land open for hunting seasons unless there are legitimate concerns for the environment or hunter.

Wildlife

Plan approved to save endangered water snake

By |

By Gabriel Goodwin

LANSING —The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has finalized a plan to aid the recovery of the endangered northern copperbelly water snake because its Michigan population has diminished to mere hundreds due to habitat fragmentation and habitat loss, experts said. The short-term goal of the plan is to allow the population to reach sustainability, Barbara Hasler, fish and wildlife biologist for the agency, said. She said she hopes that will be the turning point for the species because the recovery plan’s focus is to stop the decline, reach a stable point and increase the number of copperbellies. The plan lays out a timeframe of about 30 years but “is very dependent on funding and the ability to do the identified actions to protect the population,”said Hasler, who is based in East Lansing. Professor Bruce Kingsley, chair of the Biology Department at Indiana-Purdue University Fort Wayne, said the northern copperbelly water snake population has been declining for at least 75 years and has been in a threatened status for more than 20 years.