Explore Ohio’s rich diversity of salamanders (24 species, including the smallmouth salamander shown here) and you’ll discover more than the creatures themselves. You’ll find good signs — and red flags — on the quality of the state’s environment, says a CFAES wildlife specialist. Read the whole story.
Posts Tagged ‘wildlife management’
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Silent, slippery, ‘important environmental indicators’
Posted by Kurt Knebusch on May 21st, 2013
‘It’s going to take some work, but there really is hope’
Posted by Kurt Knebusch on May 1st, 2013
There’s a wonderful short video about Steven Amstrup — what drives him, and how he’s helping polar bears and also in the process all of Earth’s species (including and especially Homo sapiens) — here (scroll down, click the arrow; 6:23). It’s at the website for the Indianapolis Prize, which he won in 2012. He speaks at Ohio State May 14.
World’s leading polar bear scientist speaks at Ohio State May 14
Posted by Kurt Knebusch on May 1st, 2013
The world’s leading polar bear scientist, Steven Amstrup, headlines the next Environmental Professionals Network breakfast at Ohio State May 14. He’s chief scientist and VP with Polar Bears International and is the 2012 winner of the Indianapolis Prize, the world’s leading award for animal conservation. His talk is called “Certainties, Uncertainties, and Truth about Polar Bears and Global Warming, and What It Means to You.” Both EPN members and the public are welcome. Register and pay by May 10. The program’s co-sponsors are CFAES’s School of Environment and Natural Resources, Ohio State’s Byrd Polar Research Center, and the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium. (Photo: Polar Bears International.) Related post here.
Seeing wildlife management through new eyes
Posted by Kurt Knebusch on April 3rd, 2013
Aldo Leopold, the conservationist who wrote of seeing a “fierce green fire” dying in the eyes of a wolf he had shot and who changed his wildlife management views because of it, is featured in the School of Environment and Natural Resources’ next spring seminar. H. Lewis Ulman of Ohio State’s College of Arts and Sciences presents “Thinking Like an Environmental Citizen: The Evolution of Aldo Leopold’s Public Writing About Game Management” from 4 to 5:15 p.m. tomorrow (April 4). (Photo: Gray wolf by Gary Kramer, USFWS.)
Invasive species awareness: Beasts of the southern (Ohio) wild
Posted by Kurt Knebusch on March 8th, 2013
Feral pigs such as this one have come to southern Ohio. The problem: They root up crops, erode soil, and muddy streams through their wallowing. (An ODNR Web page calls them “living rototillers.”) Also: They eat the eggs and young of ground-nesting song- and game birds, the young of deer and livestock, and the acorns that deer, squirrels, and wild turkeys require. And they carry pseudorabies and swine brucellosis, diseases that livestock, wildlife, and pets can catch. Read more on Ohio’s invasive species. (Photo by Makro Freak via Wikimedia Commons.)
March 7 talk on second Ohio breeding bird atlas
Posted by Kurt Knebusch on March 6th, 2013
Tomorrow (3/7) in the spring seminar series of CFAES’s School of Environment and Natural Resources: “The Second Ohio Breeding Bird Atlas: Citizen Science Reveals 25-year Changes in Bird Populations” by SENR’s Paul Rodewald, the atlas’s director and principle investigator. Details at the link. (Photo: Tree swallow by A. Drauglis Furnituremaker via Wikimedia Commons.)
These woods will inspire you
Posted by Kurt Knebusch on February 27th, 2013
The 2013 Ohio River Valley Woodland and Wildlife Workshop is March 23 at southern Indiana’s Clifty Falls State Park, shown here, about 70 miles southwest of Cincinnati. It’s for landowners (and anyone interested in forests and wildlife) in Ohio, Kentucky, and Indiana and features experts from Ohio State (by way of CFAES), Purdue, and the University of Kentucky plus the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and Indiana’s Saint Mary-of-the-Woods College. Get the brochure, which includes the topics, speakers, and a registration form, here (pdf). Or register online. Deadline: March 13.
What can blue do for you?
Posted by Kurt Knebusch on February 21st, 2013
A book titled Red Bird, Green Bird, which OARDC published in 2009, has this to say about the plant- and people-helping diet of bluebirds: “Seventy-six percent consists of insects and other small animal forms; 24 percent is of vegetable substances, taken mostly in winter. Of the whole food, beetles constitute 28 percent, grasshoppers 22 percent, and caterpillars 11 percent. Its only offense is the eating of a few beneficial beetles, amounting to 8 percent of its food for the entire year.” Learn more about bluebirds this Saturday (Feb. 23). (Photo: Ken Thomas via Wikimedia Commons.)
Sustaining bluebirds, how they sustain us
Posted by Kurt Knebusch on February 21st, 2013
OARDC, CFAES’s research arm, welcomes the Ohio Bluebird Society’s Annual Education Conference Feb. 23. Attendance is free if you preregister, $5 at the door. Details and registration form (with PayPal option) here (pdf). Among the speakers: Greg Miller, “one of the guys from ‘The Big Year’ (book and movie),” and Jason Martin of Cornell’s Lab of Ornithology (video, 5:08). Bluebirds and other birds, by eating weed seeds and crop pests, help sustain farms, forests, gardens, and home landscapes.
CFAES scientist: Urban coyotes more common than you think
Posted by Kurt Knebusch on February 15th, 2013
The January/February issue of the Ohio State Alumni Magazine has a good story about CFAES’s Stan Gehrt and his research on urban coyotes. “Most people are living with coyotes, whether they know it or not,” Gehrt says. “And if they aren’t living with them today, they’re going to be living with them tomorrow.” A possible plus: Coyotes may be controlling unsustainable populations of urban deer and Canada geese. Read previous posts about Gehrt’s work here and here. (Photo by Christopher Bruno via Wikimedia Commons.)
