I spent some time this week looking into ways to get involved in otter conservation, and I’ve found a number of activities which run the gamut from pressing a few buttons on your computer to spending some time hanging out in a stream. I’ve divided them up into several categories- hopefully you find something that […]
Archive for the ‘Mustelids’ Category
Putting otters in the clear
A shallow, unaltered stream runs through it
In my last post, I mentioned that habitat degradation and human-caused mortality were some of the biggest issues facing river otters. Recent research has tended to support those views, while providing more detail about where, how, and when those issues loom largest. We’ve also seen that otter populations can recover with protection, but there are […]
On a downhill slope
As I started looking into the condition of river otters around the world, it became obvious that a lot of the information out there deals with otters in Europe and North America– I would say easily 90% of what I’ve read so far. In some ways that’s helpful, because it means that researchers have been […]
We otter pay attention?
What’s your role?
Hopefully the past few weeks have provided some new insight into an impressive and, at least in the Northeast, common predator. Fishers aren’t abundant in all parts of their range, but they are active members of the community where I live, and information provided by Dr. Kays’ research, as I mentioned last week, indicates they […]
Fisher-Man
In my last post, I provided a glimpse of fisher history and ecology, talking about changes within the Northeast population, fisher diversity along the Pacific coast, and their impact on prey populations. This week I pondered the fisher-human relationship and how they react to the ways in which we’ve changed the environment around us and […]
The Ups and Downs of Fisher-dom
My goal for the past week was to get in touch with fisher ‘history’, if you will, and hopefully start to understand what we know about basic fisher ecology and how the fisher population in the Northeast has changed over time. As it turns out, I was thinking on far too small a scale- I […]
A fisher in the road
I had meant to write about bobcats. For my first topic I needed something fascinating and charismatic, something people would get excited about. And I wanted something geographically close to me just in case I was the only person to take notice of any research I located. Bobcats seemed like a good choice, especially since […]