Over the last few posts, I’ve outlined the situation facing several owl species in decline- in general, although there are other factors with influence, the major culprits are habitat change and habitat loss. Since human populations often value the same areas used by owls, sometimes more for what they could be rather than for what […]
Archive for the ‘conservation’ Tag
Giving a hoot for owls
The ups and downs of owl-dom
In my last post, I catalogued a variety of issues facing owls in different places around the world- while a lot of that was focused on the northern spotted owl, the issue of habitat loss is pretty well universal. I had expected that most of the recent literature on owl conservation would investigate complex relationships […]
Why didn’t I spot that?
In deciding to focus on owls for this month’s posts, I clearly had forgotten about one of the biggest debates over timber harvesting- the northern spotted owl (Strix occidentalis caurina) gained lots of publicity as a bone of contention in the discussion of what to do with old-growth forest in the Pacific Northwest. As birds […]
A word for the wise
I spend a lot of my time in an urban area with lights on every corner and sirens as my nightly serenade, but I have lived in areas where I could listen to owls calling to each other in the darkness. I was reminded of that fact a few days ago while looking at specimens […]
A safe port for harbor seals and other marine mammals
As I mentioned in my last few posts, harbor seals (and a wide variety of sea creatures) seem to challenged most by competition with humans (for food and space), pollution, and disease. Although several harbor seal populations appear stable or increasing, there is still concern about seals in Alaska, Scotland, and other locations. Given human […]
Disturbing the seas
In my last post, I explored the large issues facing harbor seals throughout the 20th century, including competition with humans, pollution, and disease. In looking at the last decade or so, these themes continue to be important but I think that they have become more indirect in nature in some cases. Although seals still eat […]
Harboring organochlorines
A quick look at harbor seal population trends around the world suggests that there have been ups, downs, and even some unknowns- catastrophic crashes in one part of the world while numbers grew in another and scientists couldn’t determine the pattern in a third. This wide-spread species shows corresponding variation in population status, but three […]
Life in cold water
As I write this, snow is falling outside on a cold, wintery New England day. Beautiful to look at and fun to play in when all bundled up, but it’s nice to know that I can come in from the cold at any time. I am amazed by mammals and birds that survive in environments […]
Connecting the dots
Over the past few weeks, I’ve been looking at the issue of habitat fragmentation in respect to how it divides populations and presents barriers to animal movement which can limit reproductive success and gene flow. When I started gathering information on how to combat and mitigate habitat fragmentation, most of the resources I came across […]
Trapped by the matrix
In my last post, I looked at the consequences of habitat fragmentation when we build roads or dams or other physical structures- we construct barriers that are useful to us, but not so helpful to the plant and animal populations we isolate. And sometimes we create obstacles to movement even when we think we’re making […]