Delta Waterfowl Asks, ‘Where Are the Ducks?’

A WATERFOWLING CONTRADICTION has emerged in recent years: While three of the past five USFWS Waterfowl Population Status Reports have estimated record 

breeding duck populations and good production, many southern hunters have reported lackluster duck seasons.

As revealed in the Winter Issue of Delta Waterfowl magazine, The Duck Hunters Organization intends to unravel this mystery with its Lower Mississippi Dabbler Tracking project — an exciting study monitoring the movements of mallards, green-winged teal and wigeon using extremely lightweight (1/3-ounce), backpack-style GPS transmitters.

“Everyone in the South is asking, ‘Where are the ducks?’” said Dr. Chris Nicolai, a Delta Waterfowl biologist. “This research will help inform whether the ducks are truly arriving late to the southern wintering grounds or simply avoiding hunters. The impact of hunting pressure and where ducks go once the shooting starts tends to be erratic, and we don’t fully understand it. We hope to answer the question, ‘If the ducks aren’t over my decoys, then where are they?’”

In partnership with Dr. Douglas Osborne of the University of Arkansas, a total of 30 ducks — an even mix of the three target species — were trapped late last winter, with another 90 dabblers scheduled for radio-tagging this fall. During this multi-year research project, the radio-tagged ducks will provide Delta Waterfowl with a mountain of data, including how frequently — or infrequently — the ducks hop between rest areas and hunting areas, and what types of habitats they prefer during the hunting season. It will also reveal if a lack of food resources on the southern landscape is resulting in fewer ducks over decoys.

“These micro-movements during the hunting season are important to hunters as well as waterfowl managers,” Nicolai said. “It will help inform biologists about the best resources to put on the landscape to attract ducks and benefit ducks and duck hunters in the South.”

Another intriguing aspect of the study is its ability to track southern-wintering ducks as they return to their respective breeding grounds in the prairie pothole region. In partnership with Dr. Mitch Weegman of the University of Missouri, Delta wants to add to its understanding of each species’ breeding ranges, along with the speed, stopovers and path to core nesting areas.

“One of the big questions is what proportion of the birds are breeding each year and whether you can relate successes and failures to the body condition of the ducks,” Nicolai said. “And by further zeroing in on their core breeding areas, Delta can enhance the efficiency of what it does best: make ducks.”

How will Delta know whether the ducks nested? The innovative backpacks enable researchers to tell whether ducks are flying, swimming, sitting on a nest, and more.

“If a radio-tagged duck were to fly in your window and land on your couch, I could tell you which cushion it’s on,” said Nicolai. “The transmitters are that precise.”

—story by DELTA WATERFOWL

 

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Bear Bill Would Do More Harm Than Good

CALIFORNIA STATE SENATOR Scott Weiner’s “Bear Protection Act” would have ended all hunting of black bears in California.

He withdrew the bill after a vast opposition from wildlife managers, conservation organizations, and hunters.

Bear Trust International’s Executive Director Logan Young said his group strongly opposed the legislation as it was based “100 percent off emotion and had zero scientific data to back it up”.

“Sportsmen and conservationists rallied together to display the true biological facts and proven negative outcomes of what they were proposing. The right decision was made,” Young said.

Under a management system where hunting is one of the tools, black bear populations in California have increased from 10,000 in 1982 to 40,000 in 2021.

And that’s factoring in vastly more people and development that has eaten up their habitat in the last 40 years.

California officials tightly regulate bear hunting with a cap put on harvest annually based on surveys. Last year fewer than 1,000 bears were harvested.

As bear populations have grown in the Golden State, so has the issuance of depredation permits where state officials deem a bear can be terminated due to livestock attacks or dangerous behavior around people.

In 2018 (the last year stats were available), more than 300 depredation permits were issued, which is a full third of the usual harvest in the state. Banning hunting would certainly increase human-bear and livestock-bear conflicts, ending in more killing of bears.

Science should dictate wildlife management, and what California is doing now works so the Bear Protection Act was unnecessary.

—story by CHESTER MOORE

 

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Jaguar Crosses North of Mexico Border

A TRAIL CAMERA captured the image of a jaguar in Arizona’s Chiricahua/Dos Cabezas mountain range Jan. 6.

According to officials with the Chiricahua National Monument, it is the same male that has been photographed in the area off and on since 2016.

Both Arizona and New Mexico have verified jaguar migration into their jurisdictions through a trail camera project over the last 15 years.

Although chiefly associated with South America and tropical rainforests, jaguars occupy a variety of habitats that once included Texas, Arizona, New Mexico and California. There are even historical accounts of them in Louisiana.

Jaguars face a host of problems including increased poaching.

The Asian black market for tiger parts, such as claws for traditional medicines, has depleted most of Asia’s tiger populations. Due to having direct links because of thousands of workers in South and Central American countries, they are targeting jaguars-in particular for their claws and heads.

According to a study published in Conservation Biology, jaguar poaching, as noted by seizures of their parts by wildlife officials and customs agents, increased 200-fold in South America in five years.

Jaguar parts have increased in value on the black market.

Hunting of these big cats is illegal in Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, French Guiana, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Suriname, the United States, and Venezuela.

Ecotourism has proven a valuable asset to wildlife in areas where it is feasible but only in Brazil’s Pantanal region is the jaguar a factor. It’s the only place on Earth where ecotourists see them regularly. Otherwise, they are one of the planet’s most elusive animals.

—story by CHESTER MOORE

 

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Savannah Elephants Make a Comeback

FOR THE LAST FIVE MONTHS, Virunga National Park in the Democratic Republic of the Congo has been undergoing an unexpectedly rapid transformation thanks to an aggregated herd of about 580 African elephants that have crossed into the park from bordering Uganda’s Queen Elizabeth National Park—and stuck around.

Together with the 120 or so elephants already in Virunga, this current group of elephants makes up at least 700 individuals. After decades of poaching across the continent, groups of this size are increasingly rare. The move to Virunga is not only the result of the park’s recent and critical conservation efforts in its central savanna, but as the elephants tear through the trees and pummel invasive bushes, they are also transforming the landscape back to a true grassland savanna, allowing the return of grazers and other wildlife species that have been absent from the park for the last two decades: buffalo, Ugandan kob, warthogs, topi, and even a pair of lions.

“For years I haven’t seen any animals when I flew over this area—just rebels,” said Anthony Caere, an anti-poaching pilot at Virunga National Park. “Now not only are we seeing the elephants, which is an unbelievable sight from above, but we’re noticing the impact of such a big herd on the park. They’re restoring everything back to what it was 50 years ago and doing so much faster than we could have imagined. If the elephants continue to stay here in these numbers, this place will look totally different in just a few years.”

In recent decades, smaller numbers of elephants would move naturally back and forth between Queen Elizabeth National Park and Virunga, which was the first national park to be established in Africa and is home to more species of birds, reptiles, and mammals than any other protected area on the continent. In recent years, however, the presence of armed militia who hunt the animals and illegal agriculture in Virunga scared away most of the savanna elephants. To address these threats, Virunga rangers and staff have focused on securing the area from militia presence and working on development initiatives with the local community.

“This is a really incredible example of rewilding our planet by giving nature a bit of help and then letting the elephants, in this case, take care of the rest,” said Wes Sechrest, Global Wildlife Conservation chief scientist, and CEO. “Providing the conditions for nature to recover is critical to the future of our planet as we tackle climate change, wildlife extinction, and pandemics. Virunga is demonstrating that it is possible for us to not only protect wildlife and wildlands but to restore them in ways that will help ensure a healthier planet.”

The joyous return of the elephants at these numbers comes during a particularly tough year for Virunga, which has been closed to tourism since March and, as a result, has struggled to sustain its critical functions. In addition, on April, 12 Virunga rangers, a driver, and four members of the local community lost their lives in a ferociously violent attack by a militia group, the deadliest known attack on park rangers on the African continent in recent history. All of this while rangers and staff have been managing the impacts of both Ebola and COVID-19 on the park and local communities.

The park, with support from Leonardo DiCaprio, Global Wildlife Conservation, Emerson Collective, and the European Commission, launched a Virunga Fund earlier this year to provide urgent support to the park to deliver critical disease prevention efforts, law enforcement, and the protection of its wildlife, in addition to supporting the families of rangers who have fallen in the line of duty. Donations can be made at https://www.globalwildlife.org/virunga-fund/.

“The return of large elephant herds to Virunga is the outcome of decades of extraordinary efforts on the part of Congo’s park rangers,” said Emmanuel de Merode, director of Virunga National Park. “Considerable work remains to ensure that the park makes a significant contribution to the wellbeing of the local community.”

—story by GLOBAL WILDLIFE CONSERVATION

 

 

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Rhino Poaching Relief

WORLD WILDLIFE FUND (WWF) welcomes the news today of a 33 percent reduction in the number of rhinos lost to poaching in South Africa in 2020 and ongoing decline in the number of rhinos lost annually to poaching over the last six years.

Three hundred and ninety-four rhinos were poached for their horn in South Africa during 2020, marking the sixth consecutive year showing a decline in poaching. In 2019, 594 rhinos were poached for their horn in South Africa.

However, WWF is very aware that the apparent reprise provided by lockdown restrictions due to Covid-19 in 2020 was only a temporary pause and that the pressure on rhino populations, particularly in Kruger National Park, remains very high.

At the same time, it is critical to note the decline of almost 70 percent in the number of rhinos in the Kruger National Park over the last ten years due to a combination of drought and poaching, as reflected in the recent SANParks 2019/20 annual report.

The situation could be far worse, were it not for the hard work and dedication of South Africa’s rangers and other law enforcement officials in state, private and community-owned parks to prevent, detect and prosecute wildlife crimes in the field and apprehend suspected poachers.

In order to amplify these efforts on the ground and fully turn the numbers around, the factors that enable transnational crime syndicates to operate need to be addressed.

Environment Minister Barbara Creecy referenced the draft National Integrated Strategy to Combat Wildlife Trafficking (NISCWT), which prioritizes the need for collaboration to break the illicit value chain of wildlife trafficking. WWF looks forward to the formal approval of this strategy and investment in the skills, equipment, tools and resources to fully bring it to life.

Corruption goes hand in hand with organized crime networks and continues to undermine the last decade of implementation of various strategies to combat rhino poaching in South Africa. There needs to be focused attention on rooting out corrupt individuals who facilitate these crimes.

In addition, the factors known to cause criminal behavior to proliferate locally need to be addressed, including lack of local opportunities, high levels of inequality and breakdowns in social norms and values in societies around conservation areas.

Dr. Jo Shaw, Senior Manager Wildlife Program, WWF South Africa, said “We welcome the news today of a 33 percent reduction in the number of rhinos lost to poaching in South Africa last year and ongoing decline in the number of rhinos lost annually to poaching over the last six years. However, we are very aware that the apparent reprise provided by lockdown restrictions in 2020 was only a temporary pause and that the pressure on our rhino populations, particularly in Kruger National Park, remains very high.

“To stop rhino poaching, we need to address the factors that enable wildlife trafficking syndicates to operate. We must ensure skills, equipment, tools and resources are dedicated to fully implementing an approved National Integrated Strategy to Combat Wildlife Trafficking. We must commit to root out corruption, which continues to jeopardize efforts to break the illicit value chain for rhino horn. At the same time, we need to address the factors known to cause criminal behavior to proliferate locally, such as lack of opportunities, high levels of inequality and breakdowns in social norms and values.”

—story by World Wildlife Fund

 

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Here’s Where to See Red Wolves in Texas

THE RED WOLF, Canis rufus,  is one of the most endangered mammals in the world.

Declared extinct in the wild in 1980, they faced hybridization with more adaptable coyotes. Now a number of scientists believe the species is actually a fertile hybrid of gray wolf and coyote, to begin with, but the red wolf at this point is still declared a unique species.

The Texas Zoo is one of the first in the nation to take part in the captive breeding program that has produced offspring that have been stocked at several locations in the Southeast including North Carolina’s Alligator National Wildlife Refuge.

The wolves there are kept in a spacious, naturalistic enclosure where with a good camera with a solid telephoto lens and fast shutter speed you have a good shot at capturing images like the one above.

One of the best parts of the wolf exhibit is that it is located close to a coyote exhibit. Coyotes are often mistaken to be wolves and here you can see a clear contrast and also note the similarities.

The vast majority of the animals at the Texas Zoo are Texas natives but there are also tigers and other exotics now included to give some variety for visitors.

If you are ever near Victoria, which is situated off of I-59 between Houston and Corpus Christi, stop by and see the red wolves and the other wild creatures that call it home.

It’s got a nice collection of animals and charm the size of the Lone Star State.

For more information to go Texaszoo.org.

 

—story by CHESTER MOORE

 

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