Choosy males and aggressive females - a role reversal has been found in the sexual behaviour of the topi antelope.
Some males are so forcefully pursued by pushy females that they refuse the advances of previous partners.
According to research published in the journal Current Biology, this helps males conserve their sperm for the possibility of mating with new females.
It therefore increases the chances of fatherhood with the widest possible number of partners.
MULLEN, Neb. (AP) — Ted Turner's men didn't flinch. As the price climbed past $8 million, $9 million, $9.5 million, they continued bidding at a rapid-fire pace.
When the auction was over, they walked away with what they came for: 26,300 acres of prime ranch land, at a cost of nearly $10 million.
"It hasn't taken long to find out he's serious," said Duane Kime, a rancher and Turner neighbor who was outbid by about $100,000 by the CNN founder.
But what exactly is Turner serious about?
The question gnaws at folks here and in other rural areas of the country where people once thought the billionaire just wanted to play cowboy.
Turner has amassed 2 million acres over the past two decades to become the largest private landowner in the country. He owns land in at least nine states, with most of his holdings in New Mexico, Nebraska, Montana and South Dakota, and is restoring buffalo, cutthroat trout, wolves, black-footed ferrets and other flora and fauna that filled the Plains before the West was won.
The Associated Press: Ted Turner's Land Purchases Questioned
Conservation planning is the process of locating, configuring, implementing and maintaining areas that are managed to promote the persistence of biodiversity and other natural values. Conservation planning is inherently spatial. The science behind it has solved important spatial problems and increasingly influenced practice. To be effective, however, conservation planning must deal better with two types of change. First, biodiversity is not static in time or space but generated and maintained by natural processes. Second, humans are altering the planet in diverse ways at ever faster rates.
ScienceDirect - Trends in Ecology & Evolution : Conservation planning in a changing world
We measured the responses of ungulate grazers to roads by recording the density of dust on grasses and compared distance sampling of ungulates in Serengeti National Park (SNP), Tanzania. Data were collected on the east and west side of the Ngorongoro–Seronera main gravel road to test if road traffic and dust were important factors determining distribution patterns amongst grazers. Results indicate that dust increased progressively with traffic speed and volume during dry season. More dust was intercepted on the west than on the east side of the road mainly because of wind effects. Dust deposition (measured as density g grass g−1 dust) was higher on short grasses than on long grasses during the dry and late-dry seasons than during the wet season, when paired perpendicular distances up to 300 m were compared. Mean number of observed grazer species indicated that most fed further from the west side of the road than from the east perhaps to minimize higher density of dust commonly spread on foliage up to 200 m away from the road. Despite that most grazers avoided road side grass shoulders, supporting the ‘dust aversion hypothesis’, the test predictions from the ‘road disturbance’ and the ‘road attraction’ hypotheses did not support the responsive behaviours of grazers toward roads.
Blackwell Synergy - African J Ecol, OnlineEarly Articles (Article Abstract)
The Yukon must not mess around with the winter tick infesting the Yukon’s elk, says a career biologist.
Grant Lortie said to do nothing, to stand by and waffle with indecision, only increases the risk of the tick spreading to and devastating the moose and caribou populations.
If Lortie had his preference, he’d kill the 200-plus elk occupying the Takhini River Valley and Braeburn areas.
The animals are not natural to the Yukon, and do not do well here, he said in an interview Tuesday.
If it wasn’t for additional transplants to prop up the herd following the original transplant in 1951, it would be in poor shape, if not non-existent, Lortie suggested.
Before Yukoners get too far down the road with the development and implementation of an elk management plan, he said, there needs to be a complete assessment of the risk winter ticks pose to the territory’s natural populations.
In the late 1940s, a pack of wolves made the treacherous trip across 15 to 20 miles of frozen waters of Lake Superior to Isle Royale, located not far from the Canadian border. There they found a wilderness island safe from hunters and traffic and home to an abundant moose herd. The wolves settled in to a self-contained ecosystem where they were virtually the only predators and the moose were their primary prey
BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) — Yellowstone National Park's bison herd has bounced back to near-record levels following the slaughter of more than 1,000 animals two winters ago to guard against the spread of disease, park administrators said Monday.
An estimated 4,700 bison now roam the park, up from 3,600 last year. They make up the largest bison herd in the world.
During the winter of 2005-2006, after the population hit a record 4,900 animals, more than 1,000 bison migrated outside the park in search of food. They were captured and killed to prevent the spread of brucellosis, which can cause female bison and cattle to abort their calves and is considered endemic in the Yellowstone herd.
Following a public outcry and congressional hearing over the slaughter, only two bison were killed last winter. Park administrators and the Montana Department of Livestock instead concentrated on moving migrant animals back into the park, to keep them from interacting with cattle.
Whether the same dilemma will be faced with this year's larger population remains to be seen, said Glenn Plumb, Yellowstone's chief of natural resources.
Amy McNamara with the Greater Yellowstone Coalition said the brucellosis issue goes beyond population levels and is likely to hang over the Yellowstone herd until the disease can be eradicated.
"In bad winters, they're going to seek out forage (at lower elevations), and they're going to do this whether there's 400 or 4,000 bison," she said.
Other large animals, including elk, also carry brucellosis.
MAASAI MARA, Kenya - Some 15,000 wildebeest have drowned in the Mara river during their annual migration between Tanzania and Kenya, shocking tourists and baffling conservationists, officials said on Wednesday.
Drowned Wildebeest are Seen After Being Swept by the Mara River
KENYA: October 4, 2007
Drowned wildebeest are seen after being swept by the Mara river in Maasai Mara, Kenya's most famous game reserve.
An estimated ten thousand wildebeest, about one percent of their entire population, have drowned during their annual migration from Kenya's Maasai Mara to Tanzania's Serengeti Park.
Story by Cristina Gall
Photo by CRISTINA GALL
In Africa, the slaughter of animals for bushmeat is taking an increasing toll on species long-term chance of survival. Concern has risen over dramatic declines in wildlife populations and the difficulty of achieving sustainable consumption in the face of over-hunting in sub-Saharan Africa.
Heather Eves, the director of the Bushmeat Crisis Task Force in Washington, gives an overview of the complex bushmeat issue. In this first of a five-part series, Eves covers the causes, trends, and effect on health of subsistence and international commercial trading. She told VOA English to Africa reporter Cole Mallard that bushmeat comes from wild animals -- anything in size from cane rats to elephants, with antelope as a common source. She says once the antelope and other large-bodied species are hunted to extinction, smaller species are targeted, including primates.
Eves says increased demand and unmanaged economic development, which increases access to animals, drives over-hunting to the point where many wildlife populations are threatened with extinction.
