by North American Whitetail Online StaffIf you had to guess which predator would be the top whitetail consumer in Michigan, you’d probably guess wolves — and to be fair, that’s not a bad guess. However, biologists say that’s not the case.
A study by Wildlife Ecology and Management at Mississippi State University, in association with the Michigan Department of Natural Resources, found that coyotes are the top whitetail fawn predators in the western Upper Peninsula, followed by bobcats in second. Wolves came in fourth behind a three-way tie of hunters, unknown predators and undetermined causes. ...
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Swans Gone: Pair of swans killed to protect Fairhaven, MA marsh life
By BETH PERDUE
SouthCoastToday.com
FAIRHAVEN — The killing of two swans to protect restored marshland at Atlas Tack has angered and saddened some local residents many Two swans known to inhabit a pond at the Atlas Tack site were killed late last year by a federal agency because they were eating and destroying vegetation that was part of clean-up efforts.
The swans were killed only after state and federal agencies unsuccessfully sought out other methods to deter them, according to a spokesman from the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection who confirmed the deaths.
Atlas Tack underwent a $21 million clean-up process that included restoration of wetlands area at the site, said Joseph Ferson, MassDEP spokesman, in a statement.
“During this early stage of development, wetlands resources like this are fragile and require more protective measures to ensure their long-term viability,” he said in an e-mail. “At this early precarious stage, the wetlands restoration was subjected to predation by mute swan, an invasive species to the area.”of whom often watched the beautiful birds while using the Fairhaven bike path. ...
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Mighty hemlocks falling to tiny, hungry insects
Tennessee's giant trees being attacked faster than expected
By Anne Paine
The Tennessean
Only a small portion of the state’s hemlocks — many that are hundreds of years old and stand 10 stories or higher — are expected to survive a scourge of tiny insects that has advanced here from the Northeast.
Chemical treatments are needed one tree at a time, and there’s only so much money and time available.
Many of the long-lived evergreens already have died or are dying in Great Smoky Mountains National Park and elsewhere, leaving needleless gray hulks that no longer shade creeks and threaten to fall on whatever is nearby.
And the woolly adelgids — named for the clumps of whitish wax fibers they produce — are progressing more quickly than officials calculated across the Cumberland Mountains and Plateau toward some of the state’s best-known scenery and hiking spots. The fast-reproducing Asian species has no native predator here. ...
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