Deer, Elk, whatever...

Do you know the difference between a deer and an elk? You might want to check out this informative article about advances in wildlife crossing technologies that makes a sad mistake right at the beginning of the article when the author calls the animal in the picture below a deer.

The caption verbatim: "Crashes involving wildlife and vehicles are becoming a major safety concern. Wild animals, like this deer, are attracted to roadside vegetation, often putting them in harm's way." Deer, elk, who's counting?

The Federal Highways Administration is. Deer and elk alike are involved in countless wildlife-vehicle collisions, often resulting in dire consequences for all parties involved. The article describes animal detection systems, warning signs, fencing, and other cool technologies that are being applied to reduce or even prevent wildlife-vehicle collisions.

Are We On Our Way to Smarter Solar?

A proposed solar energy project in a remote part of the California desert has been called off. This is great news for the kit foxes, desert bighorn sheep, joshua trees, and other species that depend on the desert landscape. It is a victory for those who advocate developing solar without developing our remaining natural landscapes. But the issue at large remains unresolved- where to put the solar power site. Perhaps we can push companies proposing large-scale operations to explore less destructive options for developing renewable energy, like roof-top solar and solar road panels.

Renewable Energy Isn't Necessarily Green. Duh.

Jennifer Schwab, the Sierra Club's Director of Sustainability, recently posted an article about the debate over where to place solar panels and wind turbines. She cites opposition to developing renewable energy fields in the Mojave Desert as people who think turbines are an eyesore and encourages environmentalists to get off their high horses and "get with the program."

It is a dangerous oversimplification of matters to say that any concern over constructing vast fields of renewable energy farms is merely a Not In My BackYard issue.

Renewable energy fields are more than just an eyesore. Inarguably, renewable energy is a good alternative to non-renewable energy, but that alone doesn't make it green.

Building renewable energy fields is a destructive process that involves clearing natural landscapes. When you look at the scale that the development is currently proposed, its scary. In California tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of acres of natural landscapes California could be turned into vast solar-powered power plants. Here are a few of the environmental concerns I would like to point out-

• This construction would mean creating massive network of new roads to install wind turbines and solar panels.

• Wind turbines slaughter countless bats, migratory and resident birds, and raptors every DAY.

• Constructing fields of solar panels in pristine habitat degrades- or in extreme cases completely destroys- that habitat for the wildlife that depend on it, including endangered species like the desert tortoise and desert bighorn sheep. Some proposed projects would require grading or scraping the desert floor, completely denuding vegetation and the wildlife that calls it home.

• Energy fields would fragment habitats, disrupting connectivity for all the populations of all of the plants and animals that exist there, obstructing movement for plant and animal populations alike that need contiguous habitat for dispersal, migration, and to move into suitable habitats shifting because of climate change, like Joshua Trees.

As proponents of the environment, we need to question the assumption that renewable energy is green Don't get me wrong, I'm for developing renewable energy. I just think we need to develop it carefully and take the environment into account, namely to ensure its done with conservation of existing natural resources in mind. For example, we can take measures to ensure that connectivity is preserved by designing conservation plans that delineate important wildlife corridors and landscape linkages, protect fragile and rare ecosystems like sand dunes and riparian areas, and take bird migration routes into consideration when placing wind turbines.

We need to consider all of our options regarding solar power plant placement. Have we thoroughly investigated installing solar panels in places that have already been developed like the rooftops of existing businesses and residences, paved surfaces including parking lots and highways, or brownfields?

Renewable energy is a viable alternative to traditional fossil fuel, but we need to take measures to ensure that energy plants and farms are situated in the most suitable locations. As stewards of the environment, we should by no means blindly "get with the program."

Hey girls, Didgeri...don't?

I was so excited to see Xavier Rudd play the Pine Mountain Amphitheater in Flagstaff this past August. I'd been looking forward to the show for months. For those of you who don't know, Xavier is an Australian one-man-band well known as a didgeridoo virtuoso.

The didgeridoo (also known as a "didjeridu" or "didge") is a wind instrument developed by Aborigines of northern Australia at least 1,500 years ago. Traditionally, the didge is made from a tree branch or trunk hollowed by termites. They can also be made from other materials ranging from virtually any type of wood, or plant stalk, to PVC. Didgeridoos are no longer limited to use in Australia, in fact you can find didgeridoos virtually anywhere you can buy instruments, being played at Rainbow gatherings, on street corners, on german television being played by Nicole Kidman, and on stages across the globe...

At the show, Xavier was surrounded by a stand propping 3 didgeridoos in front of him on stage. The impressive percussion collection to either side of him included cymbals, djembes, bells, and more. He's mastered various styles of guitar including Weissenborn lap-slide guitar, sings and plays his original compositions, and manages to fuse it all together into beautiful melodies. I was in awe of his finely honed talent. Ever since a friend left a copy of his first album, To Let, on my doorstep for my birthday several years ago, I've considered him one of the most inspiring musicians I've ever heard.

In 2001, a different friend taught me how to make and play didgeridoos out of PVC. We spent hours practicing together while I tried to imitate the drones and screeches she coaxed out of the didge. Over time my didge collection has steadily grown larger. I've made several from PVC, and even carved a few out of Agave stalks- a yucca native to the southwest. My point is, I heart didgeridoos. So you can see why I was doubly excited to see Xavier take the stage.

When I had a chance to meet him after the show, I was struck by how down-to-earth he seemed. He was humble and soft-spoken. During our brief encounter, it came up that I played didge. That's when things got weird. He became very serious and cautioned me to "Be careful with that." I didn't know what he meant. I asked. He mentioned that didges were traditionally played by men, not women....

I told him that I've heard that before. And I have, I just disregarded it. It's not the first time that an Australian has told me that traditionally the aborignal men played the didge. I thought they were merely informing me of a silly, outdated tradition from a time long, long ago, when such arcane rules and taboos ruled the earth.

Photo caption - an aboriginal woman playing a didgeridoo, taken in 1968.

A time when oppression, segregation, slavery, female circumcision, and other cultural atrocities were considered acceptable. Not now. It never occurred to me that anyone was suggesting that women still shouldn't play the didgeridoo. Not in these modern times...

I mean, we have traditions in the U.S. too. Traditionally, we burned witches. Traditionally, women weren't allowed to vote, work outside the home, or manage their own finances. Bah-tradition.

So when Xavier said it, I found myself at a loss for words. After all, this is Xavier Rudd. He seems so freakin' progressive. He sings about respecting mother earth, indigenous rights, legalizing ganja....he doesn't seem to be bound by any "traditional" constraints. His didgeridoos are miked and amplified...he plays at venues where people pay money to watch him play instruments that traditionally were used in cultural ceremonies long before people exchanged money. And he was accompanied on stage by a rhythm section from South Africa. He has to be down with things like equality for people of all races, creeds, and genders... right?

Our conversation went on long enough for him to give me a cryptic warning that playing the didge could affect my reproductive system. He cautioned me to "Read up on it."

So I did. I found out that ya, traditionally aboriginal men play didgeridoos. Linda Barwick, an ethnomusicologist, says that traditionally women have not played the didgeridoo in ceremony, but in informal situations there is no rule preventing them from playing. Other than the fact that it is considered a kind of faux-pas.

Back in the day, women were told that they would become barren if they even touched a didge. That seems like a good deterrent in a time and place when women's main value was in their reproductive ability. I'm pretty certain that women are now considered actual people with inherent worth and the freedom to participate equally in modern society. At least in my world.

In my search for information I came across an article about Nicole Kidman after she played the didge live on camera in Germany. The article starts "Nicole Kidman could be left unable to have more children after playing a didgeridoo." Whoa. The myth is being perpetuated. "Richard Green, an award-winning actor, screenwriter and Dharug language teacher, said he was disgusted. 'People are going to see Nicole playing it and think it's all right. It bastardises [sic] our culture. I will guarantee she has no more children. It's not meant to be played by women as it will make them barren.' Mr. Green said he feared other women would imitate Kidman without realising [sic] its dangers. "

I'm sorry but I think this whole barren thing is a bunch of blarney. I mean, if it were that easy to prevent pregnancy, girls would just be blowin in sticks all the time instead of spending their cash on birth control.

AND if everyone who was told that they couldn't do something because of their gender/race/creed/color/sexual orientation/status/class or any other descriptor I may have left out actually listened to the people trying to stop them, I wouldn't even have the right to vote. So I'm not about to listen to the oppressors.

The debate about the use of didgeridoo by women rages on. For me its simply a question of what we should value more: a cultural norm versus equal rights.... And for me that's a no-brainer. When a norm is an antiquated, oppressive rule robbing women (or anyone) of equal rights, shouldn't it be completely disregarded?

Tristin Chanel of the ska band Five Star Affair playing the didge in Calgary, Alberta circa 2007.

Connectivity 101- Corridor Ecology

This article is the 3rd in a series of posts on connectivity. The series will touch on wildlife connectivity projects that will be presented on at the upcoming Joint USGS and Society for Conservation Biology Conference in Flagstaff, AZ in October 2009.

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Whether you are seeking resources to guide you through designing wildlife corridors, are looking for pointers on how to implement corridor conservation plans, want to learn more about the when, where, why, what, and hows of achieving and preserving large-scale connectivity, or even if you're scratching your head wondering what "connectivity" is, here's a book for you.

Corridor Ecology, The Science and Practice of Linking Landscapes for Biodiversity Conservation- a book I regularly consulted while working on the Arizona Missing Linkages project. Corridor Ecology presents guidelines that combine conservation science and practical experience for creating, maintaining, and enhancing connectivity between natural areas. It offers an objective, carefully interpreted review of the issues.

The book provides guidelines for navigating both the technical and the sociopolitical waters conservation planners encounter today. The authors integrate tips from lessons learned from prior research efforts into their guidelines. For example, they stress the importance of collaboration with local community members, organizations, agencies, and other stakeholders in the area you may be working to conserve before you begin your project. This should be known as Rule number one in Corridor Design. If you hope that your conservation plan will be welcomed, respected, or even implemented one day, you best get partners involved from the get go. If you take the time to find out what their concerns are and make sure your plans help to address those, you'll build the kind of relationships inherent to a successful conservation project.

Corridor Ecology is a one-of-a-kind resource for scientists, landscape architects, planners, land managers, decision-makers, and all those working to protect and restore landscapes and biodiversity. It can serve as a guide to strengthen future connectivity efforts by providing transparent guidelines and incorporating scientific findings about the utility of various types of corridors into future planning.

One of the authors, Dr. Jodi Hilty of the WCS North America program, will speak on connectivity at the upcoming SCB conference in Flagstaff.

Comments sought for predation management on the Kofa

Here's your chance to be heard..........the Arizona Game and Fish Department is accepting comments on the Environmental Assessment they drafted regarding their predation management plan in the Kofa National Wildlife Refuge. This plan has been the source of much ado regarding the agencies tendency toward killing lions to protect an endangered population of big horn sheep. There is a 60-day comment period open from Aug. 4 – Oct. 2. A copy of the Draft EA maybe reviewed and downloaded from www.fws.gov/southwest/refuges/arizona/kofa.

Connectivity 101- Least Cost Path Modeling for Lynx

This article is the 2nd in a series of posts on connectivity. The series will touch on wildlife connectivity projects that will be presented on at the upcoming Joint USGS and Society for Conservation Biology Conference in Flagstaff, AZ in October 2009.

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In 1999, Canada Lynx were re-introduced in Colorado. Here, the southern rockies make up the southernmost part of their geographic range. While lynx historically ranged up and down the the Rockies, their numbers began to dwindle after the west was won. They were extirpated from Colorado by 1973 -likely due to trapping and poisoning.

Lynx are a wide-ranging mammal that occurs in fairly low densities, relative to, say, bunnies. Lynx have evolved as a well equipped predator, specializing in hunting the snowshoe hare.

Photo caption: Lynx released in the San Juans of Southern Colorado, like the one in this 2006 file photo at New West, are making their way north and running into some barriers at Vail Pass. Photo by Bob Berwyn.

Lynx populations require connectivity across a broad geographic range in order to ensure gene flow, allow for long-distance dispersals, and keep populations from becoming isolated. To date, the lynx populations in the northern and southern rockies are isolated from one another by the "Berlin Wall for wildlife in the Southern Rockies"- which includes Vail Pass and Interstate 70.

One of the speakers for the upcoming conference (Allison Jones) is going to present on a project she worked on- modeling potential regional-scale travel corridors between core patches of lynx habitat in the southern and northern Rockies.

Scientists at the Wild Utah Project, or WUP, delineated landscape routes offering the best chance of success for Canada lynx moving among large “core patches” of habitat in the Utah-Wyoming Rocky Mountains Ecoregion south of Yellowstone to the San Juan Mountains in Colorado. These are commonly referred to as "corridors", or sometimes "linkages."

They modeled habitat suitability and configured the results to identify potential core habitat areas for lynx. They modeled cost surfaces of movement between the core patches based on vegetation type, road density, housing density and slope and identified a least-cost corridor to locate broad potential corridor routes between core patches.

The resulting corridors may be targeted as priority areas for wildlife managers to conserve in order to improve connectivity for lynx between the northern and southern Rockies.

Connectivity 101- Wildlife Migration Corridors

This article is the first in a series of posts on connectivity. The series will touch on wildlife connectivity projects that will be presented on at the upcoming Joint USGS and Society for Conservation Biology Conference in Flagstaff, AZ in October 2009.
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Wildlife migration is a natural phenomena that has been occurring for eons. Thousands of animals move across the landscape to find food or water, or to escape changes in weather like snow or drought. Think elephants, caribou, gazelle, wildebeest, or even closer to home- bears, elk, and pronghorn. Pronghorn and elk migrate between summer and winter ranges; grizzly bears travel from berry patches in valleys to white bark pine groves atop mountains; young wolverines set out from their maternal home range to find a territory of their own.

Recently this necessary, old as god ecological process has been interrupted by (drumroll here) humans. Historically, some migratory species have been over-hunted to the point of extinction. Others have been dramatically reduced in number, and then contained, to be found only in intensely-managed wildlife preserves or zoos. Think Bison. Or Bighorn sheep isolated on the Kofa National Wildlife Refuge in Arizona....

And in the past few decades, the last remaining free-ranging herds of wild animals in the West have been facing more and more threats. Roads, railroads, fences, dams, agricultural fields, housing developments, and most recently- energy development are some of the major threats to migratory routes. The oil and gas fields near Pinedale, Wyoming are turning the migratory routes into an obstacle course for pronghorn. This ongoing large-scale habitat conversion threatens to stop migration all together if we don't do something.

Their inability to jump fences makes matters worse for pronghorn. Although pronghorn seldom jump fences, they can duck under certain types—the Wyoming Game and Fish Department recommends fences with an unbarbed bottom strand at least 16 inches above the ground—but few fences are put up to accommodate pronghorn. Fences that parallel highways cut deep into pronghorn habitat.

In Wyoming Wildlife Conservation Society has assembled one of the largest and longest-term data sets on pronghorn. As winter regresses in Wyoming’s plains, buttes and dunes, thousands of pronghorn move north across the Red Desert and the Green River Basin to the Gros Ventre Mountains and as far as Grand Teton National Park, a migratory route that can extend almost 170 miles. Joel Berger has been studying the pronghorn's movement both with modern GPS technology and through documenting pre-historic evidence of their movements. Such data are becoming ever more crucial as natural gas development burgeons in the Green River Basin and the Red Desert, putting the squeeze on pronghorn migratory routes.

Photo caption: The migration corridor between GTNP and winter ranges in the upper Green River basin of Wyoming. Dots reflect ca 11450 points of 10 colour coded adult female pronghorn. Insets (a–c) reflect geographical bottlenecks. Map published in Connecting the dots: an invariant migration corridor links the Holocene to the present, Berger et al 2006

Because an entire population accesses a national park (Grand Teton) by passage through bottlenecks as narrow as 121 meters, any obstruction to movement will ultimately result in the extinction of this population. The most endangered bottleneck, Trappers Point, is a few miles west of Pinedale, where twice yearly several thousand migrating pronghorn funnel through a mile-wide slot between the rivers—a bottleneck that has been effectively narrowed to just a half mile by houses, dirt roads, fences, a livestock holding pen and U.S. Highway 191.

The hope lies in protecting wildlife corridors that connect these animals to their seasonal habitats.

At the 2009 Joint USGS-SCB conference in Flagstaff, Joel Berger will present on what it takes to conserve a migration corridor.

Montana managers working for connectivity

The Missoulian posted an article today about a part of Montana where managers are working to secure a wildlife corridor across a polluted, developed valley to ensure connectivity between mountain ranges. Large herds of elk and bighorn are crossing the highway, though they do so amidst dangers ranging from cars traveling at high speeds to more urban barriers like fences and continuous tracts of housing. A Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks biologist has spent the past year aligning pieces of federal, state and private support to put a 30-acre plot into public hands, where it will provide the missing link for the wildlife corridor. The funding comes from a settlement over the toxic atrocity created by mine tailings that are so nasty that they can "never be cleaned up." It's a shame that we've created big toxic messes on this lovely planet, but I am glad to see that innovative managers are helping wildlife to find a way around it!

Arizona Bumps Off Collared Lion

The Arizona Game and Fish Department killed a collared mountain lion on Tuesday afternoon. The lion was known to be preying heavily on bighorn sheep in the Kofa National Wildlife Refuge, or "Kofa Mountains Complex Predation Management Area" in southwestern Arizona. The agency insists that recovering the Kofa desert bighorn sheep herd from near record-low population levels will be challenging due to additive mountain lion predation (emphasis my own).

Solar Road Panels Rock Hard

I just came across a great article about a proposal to replace paved surfaces with rugged, specially built solar panels. It's an innovative idea for creating an abundance of clean energy, reducing green house emmisions, and even making roads safer. The solar surfaces would be able to de-ice themselves, and could detect wildlife or other obstacles on the road surface and cue drivers to slow down. I can think of a few other ways these solar pathways would benefit people, wildlife, and the environment that are worth pointing out.

• Less warming. An abundance of dark pavement makes cities into heat islands. Pavement absorbs, then emits heat all day, making concrete jungles like Phoenix and Los Angeles even hotter. If we had less paved roads in cities, they would be cooler. Then we wouldn't use as much energy on air conditioning, we would release less green house gases, and contribute less to global warming. It' a beautiful feedback loop involving changes on both local and global scales.

• Less artificial lighting. LED transmitters in the solar roadways would light up lines in the roads, making street lights unnecessary. This equals darker skies, less light pollution, and is better for species that are affected by artificial lighting, like baby sea turtles. Lights can be deadly to hatchling turtles, who come out of the nest at night and orient themselves toward the brightest area. On natural beaches this light comes from the night sky reflecting off the ocean. However, where beach areas are highly populated and overlit, the hatchlings become disoriented and crawl away from the ocean and toward the lights, often dyingfrom exhaustion, dehydration, being eaten by predators, or being run over by cars.

• Using existing roadways as solar receptacles would mean that we wouldn't need to clear, fragment, or build access roads in pristine wildlife habitat to make way for solar panel farms, so it's a big win for conservation of wildlands.

All in all, I think it's a pretty rockin idea.