Feral hogs should be controlled by shooting and live trapping whenever possible. The greatest success usually occurs during the winter when feral hogs are forced to travel more to find food. In addition to rooting up pastures, feral hogs compete directly with white-tailed deer, turkey and most other wildlife species that rely heavily on acorns and other hard and soft mast for winter food. Continue reading Controlling Feral Hogs – Always an Issue
Songbirds and other wildlife species thrive in a variety of habitats. Therefore, it is desirable to provide as many different types of habitat as possible though manipulation of the your current plant communities. Bulldozing, prescribed burning, mowing, disking, and hand cutting of woody vegetation to “set back” the successional stage will allow for a variety of diverse habitats for early to mid-successional species.
A well-managed diverse native habitat is the key to wildlife management. These habitat requirements should be accomplished through cedar clearing and half-cutting trees and shrubs. Increasing natural foods, such as native grass seed for seed eating birds or insects that live in those habitats for insect eating birds, will help increase songbird populations. Continue reading Deferred Grazing and Songbird Management
Sheep grazing allotments in the Hells Canyon and Salmon River areas that were closed by the Forest Service in order to protect bighorn sheep, will stay closed. After closing allotments, the Service decided to allow grazing on the Allison-Berg allotment in November. But it then changed its position because the Nez Perce Tribe filed evidence of numerous sightings of native bighorn sheep on the allotment.
The court agreed with plaintiffs and the Service, finding that the:
“preponderance of the evidence suggests domestic sheep transmit a deadly respiratory disease to bighorns.”
The National Marine Fisheries Service announced a 90-day finding for a petition to reclassify loggerhead turtles (Caretta caretta) in the North Pacific Ocean as a Distinct
Population Segment (DPS) with endangered status and designate critical habitat under the ESA. The loggerhead is currently listed as threatened throughout its range. Continue reading Loggerhead Turtles Endangered DPS Uplisting
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service designated critical habitat for seven mussels: the endangered fat threeridge (Amblema neislerii), shinyrayed pocketbook (Lampsilis subangulata), Gulf moccasinshell (Medionidus penicillatus), Ochlockonee moccasinshell (Medionidus simpsonianus), and oval pigtoe (Pleurobema pyriforme); and the threatened Chipola slabshell (Elliptio chipolaensis) and purple bankclimber (Elliptoideus sloatianus) under the ESA. Continue reading Mussels Win Critical Habitat from U.S. Fish and Wildlife
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service revised the 2005 proposed rule to delist the Preble’s meadow jumping mouse (Zapus hudsonius preblei). It proposed to amend the listing for the Preble’s meadow jumping mouse to specify over what portion of its range the subspecies is threatened.
The best scientific and commercial data available demonstrates that:
The Preble’s meadow jumping mouse is a valid subspecies and should not be delisted based upon taxonomic revision; the subspecies is not threatened throughout all of its range; and the portion of the current range of the subspecies located in Colorado represents a significant portion of the current range where the Preble’s meadow jumping mouse is likely to become endangered within the foreseeable future, and the subspecies in that portion of its range should retain its threatened status.
Weather permitting, the Texas Clipper is scheduled to be sunk off South Padre Island to create a new artificial reef November 15, 2007. The Texas Artificial Reef Program staff in the Coastal Fisheries Division of Texas Parks & Wildlife Department (TPWD) have been working for years on the Clipper project, the latest in a diverse series of artificial reefs. Continue reading Texas Clipper Turns Artificial Reef