NORTH AMERICA
Buffalo Bring Hope to Indigenous Tradition
Source: The Narwhal
Members of the Blackfeet Confederacy hope to one day bring back the sacred and culturally significant tradition of the buffalo jump, a communal herding and harvesting of buffalo to sustain First Nation communities. The catch? There first needs to be a flourishing buffalo population. Though the population is steadily on the rise, stewards are having to create their own processes, framework and sources of funding to ensure their tradition and culture thrive alongside the buffalo.
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Can Deer Overabundance Solve Hunger?
Source: The Wildlife Society
White-tailed deer are classic staples of the Mitten State, but beyond their populations keeping Michigan drivers tense, they could actually be used to address hunger in communities across the state. Researchers suggest that one way to deal with the overabundance of white-tailed deer and reduce vehicle collisions and crop damage is to augment hunting laws and scale up harvests for food donation programs to address communities in need and protect natural habitats from deer running wild.
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New Animal Joins Old Tradition
Source: Outdoor Life
In parts of the Southwest United States, conservationists and wildlife managers successfully petitioned for the Javelina—or the collared peccary—to be added to the Boone and Crockett Club’s records as a new big game category. The addition, which is the first in nearly 25 years, hopes to bring appreciation to the animal, awareness to its vast habitats across the southwestern states and support to hunters in the areas.
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Rodenticides Reported in Raptors
Source: The Wildlife Society
Rodenticides are commonly used to help home and landowners get rid of pesky rodents, but scientists are learning that these chemicals can actually work their way into unintended species. Because smaller animals are essential parts of the food chain for raptor species like turkey vultures, burrowing owls and condors, researchers in California are seeing increased presences of the toxins in these birds, despite recent rodenticide bans in the state. Scientists are now left wondering how best to enforce the ban to protect the large birds.
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Luck on the Lynx’s Side
Source: The Wildlife Society
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service recently announced they are proposing a revised list of rules to guide the recovery of lynx in the United States. With careful consideration and collaboration with conservationists and Indigenous and federal partners, the new proposal is two-part. First, the Service proposes to redefine the lynx’s habitat designation to allow for it to roam more freely and provide a better understanding of the species, and second, the Service offers new guidelines for the lynx recovery plan. The Service will review public comments on the proposal beginning January 28, 2025.
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Virtual Virtuoso: Livestock Tech Helps Ranchers
Source: Western Landowners Alliance
Managing livestock herds on large grazing lands might have just gotten a lot easier. The secret? Virtual fencing! Thanks to a specialized GPS technology that delivers sound and shock stimuli developed specifically to take care of animals when they are out to pasture, the Vance and eShepherd virtual fence systems can help landowners look after their stock, protect them from predation by roaming wildlife and move them more easily to reinforce rotational planting and grazing.
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Commissioner Controversy
Source: The Colorado Sun
Proposition 127 in Colorado has caused controversy over its aim to ban the hunting of large cats, but even more confusion was rampant as citizens claim two members of the Colorado Parks and Wildlife Commission acted out of turn and harmed the process of public discourse. Members of the public sued the two commissioners—who allegedly published a column that supported a proposed ban on hunting and trapping mountain lions and bobcats—because they reportedly shared their opinions outside of an open meeting and damaged the proposed ban’s opposition. Though the Proposition did not pass, the plaintiffs claim that the column spread false information and negatively influenced the conversation surrounding the ban.
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AFRICA
Community Efforts Against Poaching
Source: Patrol
Poaching animals often comes from the need to provide food or funds for a person and their family, but this doesn’t have to be the only way. In Mozambique, conservationists are implementing ways families can take subsistence matters into their own hands. Two of their community engagement strategies include providing women of the community the opportunity and tools to watch over beehives—from which the honey can be sold—and providing legal fishing outings for the men, both in place of the cash flow from illegal poaching.
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The Emotions of Elephants
Source: Phys.org
Researchers have recently discovered that male elephants display distinctive behavioral patterns as they age and as their social environments change. According to the study, male elephants showcase five clear character traits—affiliative, aggressive, dominant, anxious and calm—and that they often show reverential gestures to higher ranking, older males. When younger ones are in the crowd, too, they often act friendlier. Way to set a good example, elephants!
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Traditional Healing Comes with A Price
Source: Patrol
Homeopathic and traditional healers in South Africa are recognizing the hundreds of thousands of practitioners of medicine and the trust that community members place in them to heal their ailments. Along with this comes a truth about the wildlife poaching reality—that to treat people, healers rely on illegal measures to obtain animal products crucial to their medicine. Because government officials want to support the good done in communities by the healers, they will work with conservationists and doctors alike to find a suitable, sustainable and ethical way to satisfy all parties.
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Mining for Trouble in Namibia
Source: Mongabay
Urbanization and development aren’t always the best decisions for a location, especially when it critically disrupts endangered wildlife and their habitat. In Namibia, two wildlife conservancies and a safari operator are working together to halt the production of a new mine in the area that would disturb the critically endangered southern black rhino. Drawing from a series of reports that confirm the same adverse outcome, the conservancies are hoping the courts will see their side and will rule for protecting wildlife.
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EUROPE
Wolves on the Ballot
Source: The Guardian
The once critically endangered wolf population in Europe may soon see a change in their protection status as a committee charged with saving wildlife decides the outcome of a new proposal. Some groups in Europe want to downgrade the protections placed on wolves to protect livestock from predation but others are concerned that too much leniency and potential hunting will undo the past conservation work of wolf recovery.
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WORLD
Trendy or Tricky? The Faux Leather Question
Source: Huff Post
And now for the age-old question: is faux leather really better for the environment? Researchers say that though it’s an admirable effort, it’s not as shiny as we had hoped and more so another form of greenwashing. Scientists from the University of Delaware say that the chemicals used and released during the production process are harmful and can leech into the food chain, alongside the fact that the faux leather will also take years to biodegrade in landfills. Professionals suggest shopping for second-hand leather as a more sustainable (and chic!) alternative.
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Odd Behavior from Andean Bears
Source: Phys.org
Thanks to a camera attached to a collar, researchers now know more about Andean bears of South America than ever before. The thousands of hours of footage revealed interesting insight into the lives of these bears. Notably, there is evidence that the bears like to sleep, eat and mate in treetops and not just the forest floor. The footage also revealed instances of these bears curiously eating stinging nettles (ouch!) and even engaging in infanticide—the killing of unrelated bear cubs—the first time to be recorded for these mountainous mammals.
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