Australian Bushfire Toll on Koalas

"They're in shock, they're stressed, they've never seen humans or been in a car before."
"We anaesthetize them, then cut away the dead skin, bathe them, treat them with cream, gauze and bandages."
"We had to euthanize him [one koala]. He was brought in from a drought area last week, his organs were so badly damaged. It was very sad ... you try so hard to save them."
"We can't always relocate them ... a change in diet may kill them."
"We don't find bodies [in a search through scorched bush]. The fire was so intense that all that was left was ash."
If they have burned off their claws and they don't grow back properly, they can't climb and they can't live in the wild."
Sue Ashton, spokesperson, Port Macquarie Koala Hospital, Australia

"All the animals that have survived not only have no place to go back to, they don't have food sources left."
"In a fire, the insects get wiped out too, the smaller animals who eat ants and other insects won't have food. Possums and gliders, if there are any left -- most of them have been killed -- they eat leaves and fruit, which have all been destroyed."
Dr.Valentina Mella, Port Macquarie Koala Hospital

Australia’s wildfire crisis is taking a heavy toll on the animals and their habitat Credit: EPA

Several days ago ecologists from the University of Sydney released an estimated total for the number of animals that have died as a result of the wildfires ravishing Australia; an unbelievable 480-million altogether. According to veterinarian Dr. Melia, the extent of the wildfires in Australia will lave long-term consequences not only for koalas, whose very specific diet has been disastrously impacted, but many other animals, as well.

As for the koalas, the animal hospital specializing in koala rescue and rehabilitation, believe fully two thirds of the local koala population around Port Macquarie perished in the fires that swept the area six weeks earlier. Desperate for food and water, the koalas facing an uncertain reality totally new to them in its virulent, wide-sweeping impact, venture out of the burned bush that was their home, to cross roads and go into back gardens, placing themselves in danger, risking death by traffic or being attacked by peoples' dogs.

There are now 75 koalas in care at the Port Macquarie hospital. The blazes that destroyed 8.4-million hectares of bushland in Australia left an estimated 40 percent of the country's 80,000 endangered koalas dead. Around 390 kilometres' distant, north of Sydney, the hospital has taken in an unaccustomed number of koala patients, resulting from the heavy toll the wildfire crisis has taken on the habitat of the marsupials.

Australia has suffered severe drought for several years of late. That, leading to extremely tinder-dry conditions, along with record high temperatures have seen wildfires ravaging the country since summer's start. Koalas have been brought into the hospital by exhausted firefighters, by homeowners fleeing the fires, and by passing evacuees spotting the little animals collapsed at the side of the road.

Four veterinarians are assigned to treat each of the rescued koalas, at the hospital. One person for each paw, and a fifth to monitor heartbeat and breathing as the teams work around the clock in an effort to treat each new arrival as expeditiously as possible. Following surgery, staff change bandages, re-dress wounds regularly, and treat burns to sensitive noses and ears. There are fourteen intensive care units, and they're always full.

One koala discovered at the side of a major highway had burnt arms, nose and ears. A man stopped his car, held up traffic, then rescued the koala, now on its way back to health. The animal's paws were "like charcoal" when it was brought to the hospital. Routinely, hospital staff keep a record of the GPS co-ordinates to identify where the koalas are found. When the six to nine months of recovery is over, under normal circumstances they are released back to the wild, in the area from which they came.

All that is changed now; there is nothing 'normal' about the situation faced in Australia with the deaths of almost a half-billion animals as a result of an unstoppable wildfire situation. Responders now are advised to kill orphaned joeys immediately, reflecting the lack of availability of long-term care. In the hospital, one koala sits with its joey, in her arms, evacuated from Hawkesbury before the fires struck.

They're fed a diet of pureed pumpkin and corn during their five weeks of intensive one-on-one care, leading to recovery. Koalas eat only particular types of eucalyptus leaves, meaning that koalas from different areas require a diet of leaves typical of the area from which they come, and many of those areas have been burned beyond redemption.

Australia, one of the driest places on the globe, is no stranger to bushfires. This summer's wildfires, however, are seen as unprecedented in their ferocity and their spread. They began earlier in the season and have spread far more widely than ever before. There are 25 Australians dead as a result of the wildfires, and thousands of homes have been destroyed. Fires in New South Wales are predicted over the next few days to join those burning in Victoria, forming a 'mega blaze'.

Hospital personnel at the Port Macquarrie hospital are contemplating something fairly new to their experience; that with habitat so critically destroyed, there is an uncertain future before the injured koalas, who may have to become permanent wards remaining residents of the hospital.

Rebecca Turner, left, Sheila Bailey and Cheyne Flanagan treat a koala named Sharni from Crowdy Bay National Park for burns at the Port Macquarie Koala Hospital in Australia on Nov. 29, 2019. Flanagan says koala bears are coming to the hospital traumatized and dehydrated as a result of the worst wildfire season in Australia's history. (Nathan Edwards/Getty Images)

Dwindling Wildlife Diversity

"It was the right move [to rescue the sole remaining caribou in a now-extinct herd]. That animal was not going to survive."
"[Mountain caribou have massive hoofs] pie plate or dinner plate, that's not an exaggeration [to function like snowshoes as they traverse mountain slopes]."
"[They are elusive animals] They don't call them the grey ghost for nothing."
"I am resolute about the return of that species [Selkirk caribou to the Lower 48]. It's too easy to say, 'Well, they're not here, let's quit'. That's not the tribe's [Kalispel Washington tribe] perspective."
Ray Entz, director of wildlife and terrestrial resources, Kalispel Tribe, Washington

"[The Selkirk population had grown to almost fifty in 2009 but since then the numbers have been] going down, down. They have no future with one, two or three animals."
"The caribou are just a more vulnerable species. They don't kick hard like a moose. They're not as skittish as a deer. They never have twins."
"So with these changes [in habitat and range], they're the ones that pay the price [easy kill for predators]."
Leo DeGroot, government wildlife biologist, British Columbia

File photo of the isolated population of mountain caribou inhabiting the Selkirk Mountains of southern B.C.Handout

The decision to capture the sole remaining Selkirk caribou once it was determined that one of three remaining last year wearing radio collars had been killed by predators and no sign had been seen or heard of the other in months, led Canadian wildlife managers to move to bring in the surviving female and place her in a protective pen to enable her survival. She was caught in a net shot from a helicopter and then sedated by biologists and transported to a maternity pen near Revelstoke, British Columbia.

Used as temporary caribou obstetric wards and nurseries where wildlife managers move pregnant females to feed them until their calves are over a month old, the pens now hold the captured Selkirk caribou and three other animals; one a calf born there and brought back when its mother was killed and two others from yet another dwindling southern mountain herd. The hope is to capture a female from a herd nearby to become familiar with the other refugees so that when they are released in one fell swoop, the new female will lead them to her habitat and safety in the wild.

The Kalispel Tribe is involved in the international move to conserve the South Selkirk herd, named so in reflection of the steep mountains where they live. Traditionally, historically, the tribe had hunted the caribou. That particular herd was considered by biologists to be "functionally extirpated", one of 15 isolated subpopulations within a broader group recognized as southern mountain caribou living in various landscapes from the northern tundra herds, all of which are shrinking, reflecting human development and altered habitat.

A female mountain caribou from the beleaguered Southern Selkirks herd feeds in a wet meadow in the southern Selkirk Mountains of British Columbia, Aug. 8, 2017

At one time, northern New England and upper portions of Great Lakes states -- Minnesota for example -- were populated by caribou, but their range narrowed and contracted northward over time. Fewer than thirty animals remained by 1983, leading to the Selkirk herd joining the endangered species list. Since 2012, there has been no sightings in the United States, according to a management plan linked to a multiagency international group studying the population which lives in inland temperate rain forests.

In the winter, the mountain caribou migrate to higher elevations to search for furry arboreal lichen that hang from old-growth trees, representing their seasonal survival food; their massive hooves enabling their grip on the snowy slopes. Their forest habitat has been fragmented over generations through the intrusion of logging operations, roads, power lines and oil exploration and mining in Canada. In place of the mature trees logged out, immature vegetation grew in, opportunistically attracting moose, deer and elk.

Numbers of caribou in B.C. are in decline — with just six remaining in the two most southerly herds. (Getty Images)

Their presence in turn attracted opportunistic predators which led to wolf culls in Canada but which did little to aid the survival of the caribou, less able to defend themselves than other species. And as they fell prey to wolves and mountain lions their numbers diminished dramatically. A caribou breeding program is foreseen for the near future in Canada but prospects of captive-bred animals released before four years have passed is remote, along with the uncertainty of whether they would restore the Selkirk herd or another herd facing a precarious existence.

The Center for Biological Diversity and several allied groups announced they plan to sue the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for its failure in designating protected caribou habitat in northern Idaho and northeast Washington. When the agency proposed setting aside over 375,000 areas in 200, opposition from recreational snowmobilers and others resulted in the agency cutting that protected acreage down to about 30,000, and while a federal court ordered Fish and Wildlife to reconsider, no decision has been issued as yet.


A female mountain caribou from the beleaguered Southern Selkirks herd feeds in a wet meadow in the southern Selkirk Mountains of British Columbia, Aug. 8, 2017.

Rescuing Woodland Caribou, Abandoning Wolves

"It's a funny feeling [as a retired Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry biologist] to know the ones you're moving [caribou] are going to make it, and the ones you're leaving [wolves] aren't."
Gord Eason, Michipicoten Island

"I was thinking about that [the proximity of variant-tasked helicopters, their crews waiting for action]. It's not the time to miss the shot ... It's important. There's a lot of people watching. There's a lot of money [involved in the enterprise]."
"At some point in my mind, I said, OK, I've done this hundreds of times before ... Just focus on the caribou..."
Serge Couturier, retired biologist

Biologist Serge Couturier fires a net gun at the airport in Wawa, Ont., earlier in February in preparation for the relocation of Michipicoten Island caribou. Supplied

Serge Couturier, with experience in the use of a net invented in New Zealand -- with the appearance of a shotgun but which shoots not lead, but a net that spreads wide to aid in the capture of wild animals, was waiting to do his part in the round-up of what is left of a onc-numerous herd of Michipicoten Island caribou. The large beasts that once roamed the island unmolested after their human-inspired introduction as a colonizing herd, have been hunted out relentlessly.

Not by human agency, but by the happenstance of a small pack of wolves swimming out to this southern Ontario island and finding it a perfect place for a population of wolves. Wolves well-fed by hunting the woodland caribou that had proliferated from the initial ten in the space of three decades to close to 700 of the species. And then that population was devastated by the wolf pack that had accessed the island over an ice bridge in 2014.

These wolves have been so efficient as an organized killing machine that they managed in a period of four years to reduce the caribou population close to its original size. Twenty caribou are now left on the island, matching the number of wolves in number. It was decided that culling the wolves would be more difficult than an operation mounted to rescue the caribou. Of course, removing those 20 caribou would leave the wolves with no prey and the obvious prospect of starvation.

A Woodland Caribou on Michipicoten Island. Trouble began for the Michipicoten caribou in late 2013 or early 2014 when the waters around the island froze over, creating a rarely formed ice bridge to the mainland. Four wolves took advantage of the conditions and trekked 15 kilometres to the island, where they found a thriving herd of nearly 700 caribou.  (Christian Schroeder / file photo)

In the absence of prey the wolves would be destined to die; the remaining 20 caribou would last not very long in any event; the decision to remove the caribou to give them the opportunity to recover their numbers and thrive elsewhere obviously hastens the wolf population's disappearance. And then the island's original state void of any such animal herds would be restored.

The Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry in consultation with the Michipicoten First Nation formulated a rescue evacuation of the caribou in January with the intention of capturing nine of the caribou and to transfer them to the more remote, aptly named, Caribou Island. One helicopter was used to find the caribou, a second to capture one in a net fired from a net gun while a third and larger helicopter was to transfer the caribou to the wolf-free Caribou Island.

"They call them ghosts of the woods. They're so elusive", explained Chayse Penno, a member of the Michipicoten First Nation who had joined the capture team as a critical member whose expertise in untangling nets as a commercial fisherman, would be invaluable. It took some time before the first helicopter crew spotted tracks, then three female caribou.

The helicopter with Couturier and his net gun was radioed, and when the caribou emerged from the forest, Couturier was in the air, on the floor of the helicopter, net gun at the ready. When the caribou began to run, Couturier prompted the pilot to match the caribou speed. "Stay focused on this one -- OK, go over it", he directed, aiming the gun and firing.

"Like when we're shooting ducks: never shoot the ducks, shoot in front of the ducks", explained Couturier. "It was a perfect shot". The first of five successful captures when the gun shot a capsule which exploded into a net, fanning out to cover and capture the animal. The laborious process was repeated to trap and transport four females and one male. Another, second male will join them; the makeup of a new herd on Caribou Island.

"We think we've enabled that population to persevere", commented the ministry's director of science and research, who initially felt the mission might not succeed. Yet holding it to represent "the fiscal responsibility of government".

A caribou is released after being flown to the Slate Islands in Lake Superior. Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry

Coping Mechanisms : Birds and Industrial Noise

"It's something that is really picking up, the idea of noise pollution. We want to see what is that doing for the birds."
"You can hear birds clearly when it's quieter. When you're closer to the infrastructure, you don't hear the birds as clearly. You start to think, if I can't hear, maybe the birds can't hear."
"The birds are modifying their birdsong in response to the noise that's created by this oil and natural gas infrastructure."
"They've actually been looking at a whole lot of grassland species and finding that, in some species, the presence of oil infrastructure is affecting reproduction while in others it's not."
Miya Warrington, researcher, University of Manitoba

A Savannah sparrow sits on a post with Calgary in the background. (Eduardo Matoud)

In the most recent issue of Condor, the journal of the American Ornithological Society, there were several interesting papers. One set out to determine how grouse, a ground bird, adjust their mating calls in the presence of sound emanating from now-ubiquitous wind turbines. The conclusion was that these birds like many others have raised their songs a pitch or so as a result of living in city environments which tend to be noisy and disruptive to the birds' normal rhythms.

The bird research world is fully engaged now in this topic: avian response to human-generated sound.

This is proving to be an existential issue for some birds such as sparrows, particularly at a time of universal stress for songbirds now in decline -- and grassland species are proving to have surrendered to the swiftest decline of all. Attention has focused on the sound pollution affecting Savannah sparrows, a small, common sparrow with a thick beak and a yellow patch over its eyes. It has a complex song with various "syllables", each transmitting information of importance to others of its species.

Parts of the sparrows' song relates to territorial warnings while others invite the presence of potential mates. Others yet announce "I am here", but whatever the message, they all represent critical areas of the bird's survival and each bird has its own special version of the song; sounds that range from trills to buzzes. What has been complicating the lives of these sparrows is the presence on prairies where the birds are to be found in their natural habitat, of noisy machinery such as oil and gas infrastructure located on the plains.

For her research, Miya Warrington brought in 26 sites around southern Alberta where she would collect data; sites with four types of energy infrastructure inclusive of natural gas compressors, pumpjacks, screw pumps powered by electricity on the grid, and screw pumps generator-powered. The songs of 73 male sparrows were accordingly recorded and analyzed between May and July, to compare them with the songs of sparrows resident where no oilpatch facilities exist.

The resulting analysis concluded that all the pumps and compressors produced sounds on the  same frequencies as those of at least a portion of the songs produced by the sparrows. The recordings, furthermore, revealed how the birds coped with this interference, by adjusting parts of their songs, reflecting the source of the background noise. According to the paper: "All syllable types were significantly affected by at least one infrastructure type".

Savannah Sparrow - Claude Rioux

In response to the ambient noise interference within the habitat of some of the birds studied, it was recognized that birds effected alterations in their songs to enable them to be heard over the equipment noise; in some instances sparrows' songs were entirely produced at higher frequencies, reflecting a transposition to a higher key. It was also found that of the four types of infrastructure involved, it was the generator-powered screw pumps that produced the most disturbing impact, natural gas compressors having the lightest.

Pumpjacks pump crude oil near Halkirk, Alta., June 20, 2007. Noisy oilpatch equipment is causing songbirds to change their tune, concludes a new research from the University of Manitoba. Larry MacDougal - The Canadian Press, 2018

Driver Beware -- Damn! Too Late....

"It appears that one vehicle may have struck a moose while trying to see what was happening across the highway at another crash minutes earlier."
"[This] has the potential to affect everyone's insurance premiums."
RCMP Staff Sgt. Boyd Merrill, news release

Holyrood saw a parade of moose-vehicle collisions on Thursday morning, with four crashes reported within an hour and a half. (RCMP)

From seemingly brilliant-at-the-time, innocent enough local initiatives arise unforeseen consequences when lightly-thought-out stratagems turn out to be not-so-brilliant, after all. Take, for example, the island of Newfoundland, where on the Avalon Peninsula roughly 100 kilometres from the provincial capital of St. John's, five Newfoundland drivers collided with moose in the space of 80 minutes. Such collisions can be deadly both for the humans driving their vehicles, and for the moose, oblivious of danger.

Moose like to roam about highways and roads. Plagued by mosquitoes swarming over them in the summer they seek out highways where mosquitoes are scarce. And in the winter season the highways are cleared of snow to expedite travel, and alongside the roads are medians with their grass exposed, and the ungulates appreciate browsing there. If a moose is hit from the side, its legs  buckle and the moose goes flying through the windshield. This is a large, heavy, cumbersome animal. The outcome is not pretty.

While the vehicle driver, hit by the full force of a powerful body that his vehicle has just spun onto him can suffer life-incapacitating injuries, like full paralysis, and become a quadraplegic, if he survives, the moose is guaranteed not to survive. And moose there are aplenty on the island which was never their natural habitat. The estimated 120,000 moose roam freely over the 108,860-square-kilometre island.

That represents one moose for every four Newfoundlanders living there. Each moose weighs about 545 kilograms. Their presence on the island represents the highest concentration of moose worldwide.

A moose runs in front of a car in Gros Morne National Park, N.L. in this August 14, 2007 file photo. (THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jonathan Hayward)

Moose, as it happened, were introduced to Newfoundland from Eastern Canada in 1904 when it was thought they would represent an attraction at a time when the island's caribou were close to extinction. The idea being to stock the island's forests with moose herds to ensure that Newfoundland remained a favourite hunting ground for big game hunters from abroad.

Four moose were originally relocated to Newfoundland. All those that now make the island their home are descended from the original four; amazing proliferation. No other animals compete with the moose for forage, and there are no natural predators, aside from the occasional encounter between a moose calf and a black bear. So the solution appears to be Newfoundland and Labrador's "moose management plan", to expand moose-hunting season to reduce herd sizes and establish "moose-reduction zones" along highways.

In the meantime, Newfoundland drivers are plagued by the immense creatures appearing suddenly on the highway, unconcerned-to-oblivious at oncoming traffic, causing no end of collisions which ordinarily turn vehicles into writeoffs.

The Royal Newfoundland Constabulary Tweeted this photo Sunday of a moose in the area of Metro Self Storage on Kenmount Road. — @RNC_PoliceNL photo

Encounters With Bears in British Columbia

This bear cub was orphaned after conservation officers shot and killed its mom on Aug. 13, 2016 in Port Coquitlam. A 10-year-old girl was mauled by the cub’s mother and is in critical condition. The attack happened on a popular trail near Shaughnessy Street and Lincoln Avenue on Aug. 13, 2016. The cub was taken to Critter Care Wildlife Society in Langley. PNG

"I understand the integral part was (that) the grandpa and the father were very aggressive with the bear and that seemed to back the bear off, to allow the child to be scooped up and taken to the hospital."
"An officer attended and interviewed the family and the girl was in fairly good spirits and seemed to be on the road to recovery."
"I can only think it was very unfortunate luck on the part of this family. It could have happened to any of us. They just happened to be in the wrong spot at the wrong time."
"Being attacked by a black bear is about on the level of being hit by lightning. It’s very rare, but it happens. And we have to all consider that when we venture out into the forest."
"We’re long past the time where we need to hold people’s hands about looking after their attractants.  Everybody’s got to do their part [removing waste and garbage, attracting wildlife]."
"We don’t want people like this little girl being hurt because bears have been attracted to our community."
Murray Smith, B.C. Conservation Officer Service

"I'm hoping a $500 fine makes people realize public safety and animal safety is very important."
"This is sad on so many levels. A child is in hospital and a mother bear had to be put down. This is the worst possible scenario."
Teri Towner, acting mayor, Coquitlam, B.C.

"From West Vancouver to Pitt Meadows, it's always problematic."
"It's hard to know in this case, but my guess would be that the child quite unknowingly found herself between the mother and the cub. Mother bears are very intolerant of that."
"It's no surprise bears are in the area anticipating this [discovery of discarded food items]. Most bears don't want to have anything to do with humans. [When cubs are being weaned it's critical to find enough food, so there will be a big push by the mother to locate food sources easily palatable to the cubs."
Wayne Goodey, zoology lecturer, University of British Columbia

A ten year old girl had been swimming in the Coquitlam river and was returning home along with her father and grandfather. The adults suddenly saw the girl attacked by a bear. She was mauled and dragged across the trail in front of them. Alongside the female bear was a cub. The little girl had a punctured lung from the violent encounter, as well as broken ribs and slashes on her body and was immediately hospitalized.

Conservation officers tranquilized this black bear cub on Saturday, August 13, 2016 after its mother attacked a 10-year-old girl. The cub to be placed in a rehabilitation centre and released into the wild in 2017. (Bill Cook)

The mother bear refused all attempts to persuade her to leave the area, and conservation staff had no option but to destroy the bear, and take its cub to a shelter. "He's in pretty good shape. Obviously he was scared and confused" said Angela Fontana of the Critter Care Wildlife Society, speaking of the little bear that was so obviously agitated on arrival. The facility is looking after four other bears, and the cub is slated to be released to their company in several days' time.

After the attack a large pile of garbage located close to the trailhead where the attack occurred was cleared away by city of Coquitlam parks staff. As far as Inspector Murray Smith was concerned it was just that pileup of human refuse that had attracted the mother bear, preparing to wean her cub. For people living as close to nature as Canadians do almost anywhere in the country, and all the more so in British Columbia and Alberta, it is surprising that it hasn't become second nature for all trail walkers to remove their trash.

Discarded sandwiches and leftover food left carelessly by nature trails and other wilderness areas are natural attractants for wildlife. With their acute sense of small, animals are able to detect the availability of food when the whiff of trash tingles their nostrils, and they follow the scent. Enter any conservation area or wildlife preserve, provincial or federal park, and there are notices reminding people to take out whatever they take in with them. In some areas where fees are charged for entry and camping, garbage bags meant to hold discarded food and other detritus are given out to campers.

It is rarely the irresponsible people who leave their trash behind who suffer the consequences of their careless disregard for necessary cautionary actions to protect both people and wildlife.

Close Encounters of a Peculiar Kind

"He was coming in my boat whether I liked it or not, and he was telling me to get out."
"I just glanced to the front of my boat, and that's when I seen this critter swimming in the water. It kind of disappeared from sight. I couldn't see it as it went around the side of the boat."
"I went to the side to look over, and then I heard him come snarling over the transom, between the motors. Right away, as soon as I saw his face, I knew what it was ... I know badgers, and I didn't want him in the boat with me."
"I reached and grabbed my net, which has a long handle, and I turned around and tried shoving him with the handle into the water."
"I didn't want to just really bat him one. I was pushing on him with a paddle, and I just about got him in the water, and he came back again. He was gaining on me. I just gave him a little harder rap on the nose and I broke my paddle. But I was able to push him in the water."
"It seemed like it lasted forever, but it was probably only a minute or two. I've dealt with nuisance wildlife all my life. It wasn't new to me. But this kind of incident was kind of new. Never heard of it happening before."
Ron Lancour, outdoorsman, Sheridan Lake, British Columbia

Badgers are an endangered species and extremely rare in B.C. (Karl Larsen)

He was about a kilometre from shore, fishing on a quiet Friday afternoon four days ago, when he noticed something swimming in his direction. The animal he later identified was snarling as it came abreast of the front of his boat and appeared to be attempting to clamber aboard, definitely without invitation, definitely with a purpose in mind that Ron Lancour felt instinctively would not be to his own advantage.

A wholly unorthodox meeting on a lake between two land-based mammals, one of them plentiful on the land, the other seen in far fewer numbers, so the responsibility of the human was to ensure that his actions in defending himself from an obviously irate animal would not remove a fairly rare specimen from the landscape, despite the puzzling circumstances. It must have entered the man's mind that the creature could be rabid?

Mr. Lancour wasn't just anyone out for a day's fishing with little clue as to the confluence of man and beast for he is a nature-lover and at one time was contracted to trap bears for the city of Kelowna, British Columbia, his home base. He had been out on the lake, his favourite fishing venue in the area, for roughly an hour that day, half-asleep with the motion of the boat on the water and the pleasant ambiance.

He came speedily awake as he realized the intention of the creature he hadn't yet identified. His years as a trapper had equipped him with the ability to react swiftly and appropriately in relation to most man-and-beast encounters. On this occasion he reached for the first tool that came to hand, a net, to respond to the 10-kilogram animal's intention. The badger began chewing the handle of the net that Mr. Lancour was using to try to push him back into the water.

He was, throughout the encounter, aware that there are but 200 badgers remaining in British Columbia, which places them into an endangered classification. Killing one, however inadvertently, he felt, would not reflect well on a man adept with handling rogue wildlife who felt a personal responsibility to the protection of the diversity of animal life in a natural setting.

Gavin Young/Postmedia/File   A B.C. badger expert told Ron Lancour that badgers are “very docile and not aggressive.” Not always, it seems.

The badger eventually made its way in the water to the back of the boat where once again it clambered aboard, so Mr. Lancour, now holding an oar that had splintered from its last task to persuade the badger to return to the water at the front of the boat just moments earlier, finally succeeded to knock the badger off the boat with it. At which point the badger admitted -- to itself, at least -- that the encounter had not been a successful one for itself and speedily swam off to shore.

Mr. Lancour breathed a sigh of genuine relief, marvelled at the episode that had just occurred, and settled down for another hour-and-a-half of fishing on a beautiful Friday.

Supplied by Ron Lancour     Ron Lancour, the B.C. man who fended off the badger attack, with a 3.5-kg rainbow trout he caught in Sheridan Lake this week.

Zimbabwean Natural Resources

"Quinn bore the full brunt of the charge and, unable to fire his rifle due to the speed of the attack, literally stopped the attack of the lion on his group by placing himself directly in harm's way."
"Having been thrown to the ground, bitten in the shoulder and neck Quinn sadly died at the scene, the shouting of his guests driving the lion away from his body and allowing, ultimately unsuccessfully emergency first aid to be performed."
Camp Hwange, Zimbabwe

"It's a safe experience [wildlife walking tours through Hwange National Park] and a great experience too. It's not as if these attacks happen daily."
"It was an accident and we are still recording huge interest from tourists. It's popular and will remain so."
Trevor Lane, Safari Operators Association of Zimbabwe

So 40-year-old Quinn Swales, a walking tour guide who works for Camp Hwange at Zimbabwe's Hwange National Park, was the victim this time in a human/wild beast interchange; quite unlike the stalking of a favourite celebrity lion from the same park that aroused so much indignation by outraged animal lovers when a wealthy American dentist arranged with a local hunting guide to tempt the lion away from the preserve so he could shoot it with a bow and arrow.

On that occasion, a month ago, Cecil the lion was illegally killed. The arrow shot by Walter Palmer, a trophy hunter from Bloomington, Minnesota only wounded Cecil and he lived in agony for another day before he was finally tracked and shot, putting him out of his misery, and setting the law and public outrage against his killers. For his prideful pains, Dr. Palmer will now live in infamy, and the Zimbabwean hunter who aided his vanity will serve time in prison.

Star: Cecil was a major tourist attraction at the Hwange National Park

In the most recent exchange between man and beast, Mr. Swales was leading a tourism wild-animal-sighting party when they happened upon a pride of lions. Which was the point of the exercise. As an adult male began closing in on the group, their guide cautioned everyone to line up behind him and be perfectly physically still, as they shouted loudly in hopes the racket would deter the lion from continuing its approach.

It did not, and the attacking lion, whose name is Nxaha, killed the guide, but finally turned away from the others. It will be up to Zimbabwe's National Parks & Wildlife Management Authority to determine what will be done with Nxaha, a satellite collar-wearing animal resident in the national park. Zimbabwe, infamously, is a country whose dictatorial megalomaniac president-for-life, Robert Mugabe's policies has destroyed the country's economy.

A country that was once a regional breadbasket, capable of exporting its agricultural products abroad for gain, while still feeding its own population, now must import food, suffers high unemployment, staggers under an impossible-to-manage inflation rate, has a destroyed currency, and high crime rates. But President Mugabe has resorted to using his country's natural endowments to help keep its economy afloat, despite the monumental adversities he is responsible for.

Tourism is still a draw in Zimbabwe. Apart from which another initiative has been implemented, the sale of hundreds of the country's natural resources, its elephant population. Hundreds of baby elephants are being sold to interests abroad, most going to China. The deal is controversial on the international scene, far less so internally, since dissent is not known to be encouraged in a dictatorship.

Not only are elephants mercilessly hunted for their ivory, much in demand in China, but now hundreds of the beasts will be shipped off to China to be placed in a Guangdong Province Safari Park, in an agreement worth tens of millions to Zimbabwe, or perhaps Mugabe's personal bank account and those of his cronies.

AP Photo/Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi   Elephants roam freely near the railway track that Cecil the lion crossed when he was lured onto a farm to his death in Zimbabwe, Aug. 6, 2015. The cash-strapped Zimbabwean government has a controversial deal to sell elephants to China.

The Predator Chain

"It's entirely fascinating to see how far these wolves were travelling each day to go out, hunt, find food and then bring it back to the pups and the mom."
"For decades they were persecuted -- inside the park, outside the park."
"We had several decades without wolves in Banff National Park. As a consequence, our elk population just boomed."
"Some of the large packs, in the backcountry especially, had this abundant prey population. We had some large packs. You would travel the backcountry and you would be seeing wolf tracks and find lots of wolf kills and see wolves chasing elk up open slopes. It was just a fascinating time. The wolves eat lots of elk."
"Right now, from a caribou perspective, things are much better in terms of wolf density. There are fewer wolves so caribou would have larger survival rates. The other question, if we do decide to reintroduce caribou to Banff, is how much time wolves are spending in caribou range? If wolves are spending a lot of time in the summer in caribou range, then they are still not safe."
"We have 25 to 40 wolves that use Banff, depending on the time of year."
Jess Whittington, wildlife biologist, Banff National Park

A female wolf with cubs caught on remote camera in Banff National Park. Parks Canada / For the 
Calgary Herald

"They are a major influence on any system that they live in. They're what we refer to as an apex predator in these systems. Most species they are associated with, and those they aren't even directly associated with, are influenced by them."
"When wolves kill another animal, such as an elk or deer or caribou, what's the response of other species near them or around them?"
"They found [Yellowstone research] extensive changes were occurring, including larger trees such as aspen had started to recover. They found changes in the bird community ... changes in streams and rivers -- a whole variety of things."
"They [wolves] are very influential, probably more so than any other species that lives in the Rockies."
Paul Paquet, wolf scientist, professor, University of Calgary

Wildlife biologist Jesse Whittington took part in an experiment. Watching where a wolf pup researchers named Skoki -- born in 2008 in the Bow Valley was fitted with a GPS collar -- left his place of birth for a higher elevation, to the Bonnet Glacier and Wapta Icefield through a former caribou range close by Lake Louise. Hunting mountain goats coming down from the craggy cliffs that is their home.

They watched as Skoki left his pack and went on to Kananaskis Country, to form a pack of his own once he found a mate and fathered a set of pups in 2011. After that, contact was lost with Skoki, when his GPS collar became detached. But for the years Skoki was tracked, wildlife biologists studying wolf populations in the Bow Valley found quite a bit of information was delivered of valuable use.

Skoki’s family, the Bow Valley pack, on the Bow Valley Parkway in December 2013. Amar 
Athwal / For the Calgary Herald

Debate rages in British Columbia and Alberta over wolf culls, since both provinces have introduced them to protect endangered caribou. Scientists from Alberta, Saskatchewan and British Columbia consider those wolf culls to be inhumane. B.C.'s cull destroyed 84 wolves in a few months, using methods such as shooting them from a helicopter or trapping them in snares, or poisoning them with strychnine, a method Alberta does.

Alberta Environment and Parks officials stated the province is set to assess its management strategies geared toward meeting the recovery plan for endangered caribou under the federal Species at Risk plan. Wolves are decidedly a vitally important portion of the ecosystem. Research over the past 30 years undertaken by Paul Paquet, a world-leading wolf scientist, has demonstrated that wolves impact everything from insects and birds, to trees and rivers.

According to Dr. Paquet, 52 species have been tracked visiting wolf kill sites. Ranging from grizzly and black bears, cougars and lynx to weasels, wolverines and birds such as ravens, magpies, owls and rodents like voles. In the 1980s and 1990s, Dr. Whittington of Banff National Park said, wolves had the opportunity to recolonize the park, learning their way around people in the Bow Valley.

A bird waits its turn as young wolves feed on a carcass in this remote camera image from Banff 
National Park. Dan Rafla/Parks Canada

Data gleaned from Skoki's GPS collar in 2009 and 2010 showed that Banff wolves were killing coyotes, deer, moose and mountain goats. The last herd of caribou in Banff National Park met its collective demise in an avalanche. The species is set to be introduced now through a captive breeding program the federal government announced in 2011.

Banff National Park is home to about five wolf packs with the Bow Valley pack down to three members; a pack in the Cascade-Fairholme area; a Red Deer pack around Saskatchewan River Crossing; a Panther-Cascade pack; and sometimes, a pack in the Spray Valley. Not an abundance of wolf population but presumably enough to sustain themselves on the available prey.

Beaver Habitat

"It has long been known the release of methane from beaver ponds is more intense than for other types of wetlands. With the species' re-establishment and population growth in regions where beavers have been introduced, we set out to quantify whether the methane produced would be large enough to be significant."
"We found that valuable habitat area has been established by beavers over the last century. While this habitat contributes to the global methane gas emissions, the magnitude of this methane source is lower than many other natural sources and unlikely to be a dominant climate change driver."
"The growth of wetland habitats represents a re-naturalization of ecosystems to what they were in 1900."
Dr. Colin Whitefield, applied bio-geochemist

There was a time, decades ago when we would tie our canoe to the car roof and set off with our two boys for a day of canoeing in Gatineau Park, Quebec, just over the Ottawa River from the nation's capital. Paddling about Lac Philippe as we often did in the evening hours during a week day, and in the early afternoon hours on weekends we would often see beaver huts and around them as we sat in our canoes would come one those sharp slaps on the water as beaver warned others of our presence.

Hiking into the interior of the park as we also often did we once came across a small lake that didn't amount to very much, on our way to climb a height we were familiar with. We stopped briefly at the sound of strange voices, then discovered those high-pitched sounds were that of beaver kits hauling themselves onto a log then flipping off from the log into the lake, having one whale of a time.

Hard by the street where we live in an outer suburb of the city, lies a ravined forested area, and through it runs a creek tending to become fairly low in the summer months, freezing over in the coldest winter months, and released to a roaring meltwater river in the spring. On occasion beaver find their way into the creek and they build a dam and a lodge for themselves, usually in quite out-of-the-way areas.

They munch down on poplars, their presence so close to human habitation a delight to some of the regular trail walkers in that woodland, but an offence in the eyes of others who complain to the municipality that they must be removed, and eventually they are captured and re-located and we miss them. Decades ago we used to see foxes roaming the woods, grouse and raccoons and the occasional skunk. Now, rarely.

Once, when spring floods quite inundated the creek the resident beavers, an adult and two cubs for some reason panicked as their lodge got swamped. Some of the nearby streets were flooded by heavy rains that added to the snowmelt and it turned out to be quite the environmental incident. All the more so when we saw the juvenile beavers waddling up driveways presumably looking for some kind of haven.

That's the human interaction story on a personal level, with beavers, those industrious, social animals whose architectural ability and aquatic homes are so fascinating. But this was a research project funded partially by a Natural Science & Engineering Research Council of Canada post-doctoral fellowship, published recently in the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences journal AMBIO.

Algonquin Park, Sec Lake

The results of the research reported pond habitats and natural watercourses have been expanding, resulting from the global increase of beavers. The study covered the period from 1900 to the present, focusing on the effect of beaver population increase, relative habitat growth resulting in global methane gas emissions.

Beaver population increase since 1900 has resulted in about 42,000 square kilometres of new pond habitats in Eurasia and the Americas, along with over 200,000 kilometres of shore-line habitat. A hundred years on it was estimated that activities relating to beaver habitat had contributed up to 800 million kilograms of methane to the atmosphere annually, representing a 200-times growth from 1900.

From the 16th to the 19th Centuries the fate of beavers was a most unpleasant one. They were hunted to near extinction, thanks to the fur trade. Since then, however, laws regulating beaver harvesting through trapping, assisted species introduction into new environments and natural migration have led to a global population growth of about 30 million beavers.

The building of dams creates water-based eco-systems contributing to the development of methane-emitting ecosystems. In those ecosystems carbon-rich aquatic plant matter decompose on the pond bottoms where little oxygen exists, the end result being the release of methane into the atmosphere. It was found that methane emissions from wetlands account for less than 1% of total emissions released by fossil fuels combustion, by humans.

When we paddled about rivers and lakes as we did so often and manoeuvred into swampy areas, the rotten-eggs stench of swamp gas (methane) would greet our nostrils. And there is where we might see turtles, black water snakes, nesting waterbirds, wild rice growing, and cranberry bushes, and small carnivorous sundews among the rushes, sedges, horsetails and flowering plants crowding the narrow aisles of water permitting us entry to the swamps.

Explosives-Detecting Pachyderms

 Explosives-Detecting Pachyderms

"They were picking up the scent from 100 metres away."
"The army wanted to know what it is about an elephant's trunk that's more advanced than a dog's snout. Can they apply it to a machine and get the machine to be more effective for their soldiers?"
Rory Hensman, Zimbabwean farmer "the Elephant Whisperer"

 

"We don't know how they do this. Ultimately, we are hoping to learn through nature how to better protect the soldier from threats."
Stephen Lee, chief scientist, Army Research Office, United States Army

After it was brought to the attention of scientists that elephants returning to Angola after the civil war that had rent the country were observed to be avoiding minefields, the theory was born that elephants were able to sniff out the presence of explosive mines. It was a theory that appealed to a Zimbabwean farmer notable for his talent for understanding elephants. Rory Hensman, who died a year ago, was called "the Elephant Whisperer."


He had spent two decades of his life training elephants, paying especial attention to those elephants considered to be "problems", whose fate, had he not intervened, would have been to be culled from their herds. Mr. Hensman adopted his first two elephants in 1988 and was amazed at how swiftly they responded to their environment. He taught them to herd cattle, to track down lost calves, and to check out the conditions of the fences on his Zimbabwe farm.

And he noted their astonishing sense of smell. He witnessed, on one occasion, an elephant tracking a robber across a field of paprika, crossing over a river, and then passing through a village. Which inspired him further to train his elephants to track poachers, and to unearth the whereabouts of purloined rhinoceros horn. The Hensman farm fell into the hands of the government of Robert Mugabe when white farmers were being hounded from the land they had farmed for generations.

Photo: "Elephant Whispers" - Lindie and Rory Hensman

The family fled to South Africa, taking their elephants with them, to establish a wildlife preserve about 130 kilometres north of Pretoria. The Elephant Whisperer and his 32-year-old son hid strips of paper upon which explosives had been scented, then they trained the elephants to stop, lift their front feet and salute with their trunks whenever they smelled the explosives. This initiative brought them to the attention of the U.S. Army.

Who dispatched a team of American army scientists to the reserve. Inspecting data that had been put together reflecting the experience of the past two years, the scientists came to the conclusion that the military, using Mr. Hensman's training protocol, would themselves be enabled to develop improved bomb detectors. Elephants are capable of locating the presence of explosives at a distance, unlike sniffer dogs.

Lindie Hensman

In 2003, Rory Hensman and his wife Lindie, who had originally come from Angola, set up a new venture, in collaboration with two others, which they named Elephants for Africa Forever, or EFAF. It is basically a tourism company, advertising its expert training and handling of elephants, promising clients an up-close and personal adventure with "elephant interactions".

Occupational Safety

"It was ... seven people that were working in a group area and she was attacked by this bear out of that group and dragged off." 
"People tried to stop it and do everything they could. Obviously they are fairly horrified at what they saw and witnessed."
"We need to be part of the investigation and review what took place there. If there needs to be a revision or some additional procedures and policies in place to ensure the safety of workers from wildlife attacks, we are definitely going to do that."
Scott Doherty, union spokesman, Unifor

"They should always carry accessible bear spray with them. Our studies have shown bear spray to be 80 to 90 percent effective in all sorts of different circumstances with black bears and grizzly bears."
Professor Stephen Herrero, Bear expert, University of Calgary

THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jeff McIntosh File   A black bear forages for food in Jasper National Park, Alta., Wednesday, May 7, 2014. 

 

Alberta Environment statistics reveal over 40,000 black bears present in the province. They are part of the larger biosphere, creatures of the wild, of the forest, and they are fearsome predators as carnivores. A black bear can weigh up to 200 kilograms. It is a formidable beast. No human being, nor group of people can hope to persuade a bad-tempered, famished animal of that size fresh out of hibernation, from feeding itself.

Suncor employee Lorna Weafer, 36 years old, was performing electrical work at a job site near Fort McMurray as an instrument technician. There were other employees nearby, some six in total. The bear, for whatever reason, selected the young woman. All were working in an industrial area, none were carrying bear spray. They had with them air horns and used them on the theory that loud noise would distract and frighten the bear and lead it to leave its prey. It did not.

Although fatal encounters with bears are rare, they do tend to happen occasionally in such natural areas. There is always a generalized understanding that such beasts may be lurking somewhere close, and people try to be aware, and both proactive and reactive. Bear spray might have helped in this situation. A Suncor spokesperson said that employees working in the bush do carry bear spray, but not staff in busy industrial areas where they least expect such an attack.

Employees are trained to be alert to the possible presence of bears, and to report any they may sight. "I can confirm that an air horn was sounded and workers immediately came and tried to intervene. Despite their efforts, our employee was unable to be saved", explained Sneh Seetal.

The Sanctity of Private Land Ownership

"Even if it's on his property, the animal actually belongs to the Queen or the Crown, which collects a royalty when the animal is harvested and sold.
"People like to watch beavers playing around in the water, but it's interesting how their attitude changes when Bucky cuts down the tree they planted for their first anniversary or their favourite birch. You know what I'm saying?"
Robin Horwath, general manager, Ontario Fur Managers Federation

"I wish someone would have informed us, given us a warning, something, instead of sending the storm troopers here.
"When we bought the property, we bought it for the wildlife. And now there is very little of that. Very little beaver, there are no muskrat, there are no otters.
"I have no idea, especially since this beaver is on my property [how it can be viewed as a nuisance, by a "nuisance trapper"]. I'm the only one to determine what a nuisance is [on my land]. See what I'm saying?"
Jonce Straklevski, Perth-area resident

 

Beavers can be viewed as a nuisance, as they can dam up culverts, resulting in flooded roadways and damaged infrastructure. Rural townships often rely on contract ‘nuisance’ trappers to control their populations.  Photograph by: Debra Ceravolo , Reader Photo, Ottawa Citizen

Imagine you're a nature-lover and you decide to proceed with making the dream of a lifetime a reality. Although you work in the Ottawa area, you've decided that it's important for you personally to live in a secluded woodland setting along the shoreline of the Upper Mississippi River. That imperative of an inclination to proceed must have occurred to Jonce Straklevski, so he bought 110 acres in a wooded area. And there he raises chickens and ducks.

During his five-year residency he has observed many changes.  Over the years he has seen and had the privilege of watching muskrat and beaver at work, identifying their clever-branch-built homes at the side of the river. He has seen deer and bear, raccoons and coyotes and even the occasional moose, at his home in the marvellous Lanark Highlands. He must have felt he had discovered his very own personal paradise within Nature's precincts.

And then came his rude awakening when he noticed near a beaver lodge close to the river's edge on his property an odd-appearing object sticking out of the water. When he looked closer to satisfy his curiosity he realized the stake he had seen was anchoring a trap. He did some more sleuthing and lo and behold on his property at the side of the river, there were more traps; nine on his side and two others on the other side.

He made enquiries with a friend who is a trapper and that friend educated him. Informing him that in Ontario the written permission of a landowner is required to enable trappers to legally lay down trap lines. No one had approached him to speak with him to explain his wish, as a trapper, to set down traps for the purpose of hunting the animals that happened to live in and around his private property.

Had anyone done so it would be highly unlikely that Mr. Straklevski might have thought that to be a good idea, consonant with his core values and fervent appreciation of nature.

And then he came across the trapper fromwhom he asked to see proof of his right to hunt/trap animals along the shore of the river, abridging his property. The hunter expressed no interest in providing Mr. Straklevski with any documentation, since the simple fact was that he had none to show. He hadn't done the fair and legal due diligence of approaching the land owner for permission to set his traps.

That being the case, Mr. Straklevski asserted what he took to be his property rights and removed all eleven of the traps. "The police show up at my door, make me feel like a crook", he said in an interview. Placed in the back of an OPP cruiser like any felon, he was charged with criminal mischief and theft under $5,000. For committing an offence he had no knowledge of, in asserting his rights as a property owner.

The charges were later dropped. That happened in early spring. A justice of the peace a few days ago ruled that the traps were legal. Despite the muskrats and beavers living their lives on private property in low-water seasons, they were susceptible to legal trapping in the province, and Mr. Straklevski had to plead guilty to "interfering" with lawful trapping.

Through the process of his ordeal he discovered that there are about 1,700 non-native trappers in eastern Ontario, representing an industry where revenue to trappers from fur auctions accounted for $14.50-million in 2012. Rural townships are accustomed to viewing the presence of beavers as a nuisance, damming culverts which then causes flooded roadways and damaged infrastructure.

To remove the animals the trapping skills of "nuisance hunters" is relied upon.

A supervisor of enforcement with the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources urges landowners with concerns about traps to contact their offices. He claimed that licensed trappers are not required to produce credentials to members of the public, but mentioned nothing of the requirement that they seek permission from landowners to access their land to set traps.

Photograph by: Jane Szepesi, Reader Photo, Ottawa Citizen

 

Although there are several thousand registered traplines on Crown land in Ontario, there are also hundreds of "unregistered" lines on private property. And with that reality comes consequences such as the safety of domestic pets whom a landowner should have a right to feel are safe on property he or she owns. But the reality is that dogs have wandered into those lethal traps that kill them.

Credit to Ottawa Citizen reporter Kelly Egan for providing these details