Researchers test RMNP elk herd for disease and administer birth control

ROCKY MOUNTAIN NATIONAL PARK — A tranquilizer dart pierced the elk’s hide Friday. She started to get upset, her knees buckled, then she fell to the ground.

A team of four researchers rushed to her side, blindfolded her and talked to her in calming voices, then began to take samples: saliva, blood, urine and rectal tissue.

They injected a white substance called GonaCon — an experimental birth control drug being tested for the first time on wild elk.

ReporterHerald- Researchers test RMNP elk herd for disease and administer birth control

ENN: Switchgrass fuel yields bountiful energy: study

 

 

By Timothy Gardner

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Switchgrass, a crop touted by venture capitalists and environmentalists alike as a next-generation ethanol feedstock, yields about five times more energy than it takes to grow it, making the plant a far more efficient fuel source than corn, a new study said.

In addition, the life cycle of the switchgrass ethanol -- which includes growing the crop, making the fuel, and burning it in vehicles -- emits about 94 percent less of planet-warming carbon dioxide than the life cycle of gasoline, said the study, published on Tuesday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

ENN: Switchgrass fuel yields bountiful energy: study

Towering wooden moose, restaurant in belly, planned as tourist attraction

STOCKHOLM, Sweden - With little else to attract tourists, promoters of two Swedish counties are pinning their hopes on a truly gargantuan wooden moose.

When completed, the 45-metre tall, 47-metre-long moose will have a restaurant in its belly, as well as a concert hall, conference rooms and a shop, according to Thorbjorn Holmlund, project co-ordinator and local tourism promoter.

The monument to the moose will be so big that its massive wooden hooves will be firmly planted in two different counties, Vasterbotten and Norrbotten, about 870 kilometres north of Stockholm.

"The reason we decided to build a moose is because there is something magnificent about the animal. It's the king of the forest," said Holmlund.

The project is expected to be completed by summer of 2009.

The Canadian Press: Sweden: Towering wooden moose, restaurant in belly, planned as tourist attraction

Cultural Impact Assessments 28-9 Feb 08, Yellowknife, NWT

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The NWT Region of the Western and Northern Canada Affiliate of the International Association for Impact Assessment is issuing a call for presentations, papers and posters for a conference on February 28th and 29th, 2008, in Yellowknife, Northwest Territories. This conference will focus on Cultural Impact Assessment in the broad sense, including such possible themes as:

• Cultural impact assessment methods and case studies
  
• Bringing the cultural together with the ecological
  
• Models of inclusion of cultural knowledge in project design, implementation and reclamation
  
• Cultural landscape assessment
  
• Designing agreements to protect culture
  
• The role of Traditional Knowledge in Cultural Impact Assessment
  
• Getting past Go vs. No go in cultural impact assessment
  
• Designing cultural mitigation measures that stick
  
• Implementing cultural and socio-economic measures of agreements
  
• Cross-cultural awareness: implications for EIA processes
  
• Participatory and community-based methods for assessment
  

 

This conference will draw on the considerable expertise of those involved in the research or practice of EIA as it relates to this general subject.  Those interested in presenting a paper at the conference should submit a 300 word abstract to the IAIA Western and Northern Canada Affiliate no later than Dec. 16^th, 2007 Please send abstracts to Ginger Gibson: at vgibson@interchange.ubc.ca   Submissions will be reviewed and contributors notified by Friday Dec. 21^st, 2007

For more information on the conference, contact Ginger Gibson vgibson@interchange.ubc.ca

KEY WORDS: Values, cultural landscapes, wellness, beyond biophysical, stories on the land, assessment methods, community-based and participatory research

Male topi antelope sex burden

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.

BBC NEWS Science/Nature Male topi antelope's sex burden

Ted Turner's Land Purchases Questioned

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 in a changing world

 

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

African J Ecol, OnlineEarly Articles (Abstract)

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)

Whitehorse Star Online

 

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.

Whitehorse Star Online

Fifty Years Of Wolf-Moose Research

 

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

Fifty Years Of Wolf-Moose Research