Defenders of Wildlife Blog

It’s music to our ears. A team of documentary filmmakers–on behalf of the acoustic guitar industry–is advocating for stronger protections of ancient, or old-growth, trees in Alaska’s Tongass National Forest.

Nearly every acoustic guitar, the filmmakers said, started as a seedling in this coastal temperate rainforest–the largest of its kind in the world. Luthiers fashion guitars out of old Sitka spruce trees. But logging of the species–mainly to meet construction demand overseas–has reached a fever pitch and threatens to wipe out guitar-quality Sitka spruce in less than a decade, they said.

Related: Court protects 2.3 million acres of old-growth forests.

Lynx depend on old-growth forests for survival.

“Trees that can reach up to 1,000 years old and twice the height of the Statue of Liberty should be protected and not made into door frames,” they said in an email statement. “The process of making acoustic guitars has remained unchanged for hundreds of years, but a critical shortage of ‘musicwood’ from over-logged forests threatens to silence the industry.”

Get Involved: Learn how you can support the “Musicwood” documentary.

We’re big music fans here at Defenders, but it’s wildlife and wild places that we care most about. Imperiled wildlife, like the lynx, depend on old-growth forests for survival.

These ancient forests and habitats need our help. And we are encouraged to see folks from the acoustic guitar industry join the chorus of voices calling for stronger protections for old-growth forest.

Learn more about what Defenders is doing to protect wildlife in national forests.

Buried in my email Inbox was a message from one of our citizen volunteers with the unassuming subject line, “South_4_Transect_Variation.”  This subject actually meant something to me — it was a report from a route that this person had recently snow-shoed or skied near Lincoln, Montana, looking for signs of rare carnivores.  It was sent by one of dozens of citizen volunteers that we helped train to identify and record tracks in the snow and other wildlife observations in an area where the Threatened Canada lynx and other rare carnivores were recently documented by the non-profit wildlife research group we partnered with for the trainings, Wild Things Unlimited.  Yet I was busy with reports and phone calls and merely flagged the email to open and read later, so there it sat for several days.

Imagine my surprise when cleaning out my Inbox that Friday afternoon, I open the message to learn not only did this volunteer find and document tracks in the snow from the Threatened lynx, he also captured four full-frame photos of one visiting an elk carcass!

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Lynx 1

Lynx images captured on remote camera in Montana.

Lynx 2

Lynx photo captured on remote camera in Montana.

Lynx 3

Lynx photo captured on remote camera in Montana.

Lynx 4

Lynx photo captured on remote camera in Montana.

Lynx tracks

Citizen scientist Kalon Baughan measures lynx tracks in the snow.

Lynx print

Citizen scientist Kalon Baughan measures a single paw print in the snow.

The volunteer behind this remarkable report Kalon Baughan had already won our 2011 citizen scientist MVP award (informal designation), for identifying and documenting not just lynx tracks but also tracks from the equally imperiled and elusive wolverine.  Yet with these photos his title has now been upgraded to citizen scientist “Rock Star” (equally informal designation, but quite justified).

Check out Kalon’s field notes (Citizen Scientist Trip Report 04 15 11 public) and see his lynx photos taken with the use of an infra-red remote triggering device.  The beauty of this methodology is that it is considered to be “non-invasive,” meaning no animals were harmed or even affected by the observer, since Kalon simply used an attractant that was already present in the forest to capture this lynx on film.

What’s next? Photos of a wolverine perhaps?  Wish our volunteer Rock Star good luck for the remainder of his extraordinary field season!

Defenders Talks Meso-carnivores on LA Talk Radio

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While we await Kalon’s next report, you can learn more about lynx, wolverines and fishers by listening to the radio clip above. I was invited on to the Hill & Dale show yesterday on LA Talk Radio to discuss efforts to conserve these meso-carnivores. The segment starts with a wolverine snarl (at the 12-minute mark) and covers the basic biology of the three species as well as threats to their survival in the wild. Don’t miss my radio debut!

Watch Feeling the Heat with Jeff Corwin to learn how climate change is affecting this cool cat.

A glimpse of its stubby tail or tufted ears and you may mistake a Canada lynx for its bobcat cousin, but this big cat is more adept at navigating the deep, snow-packed forests of Canada and a handful of northern states, including Colorado, Maine, Minnesota, Montana,Washington and Wyoming. These finicky felines can’t live just anywhere. They have very specific habitat needs: older forest with good cover for building dens and younger forest with thick vegetation for hunting prey such as snowshoe hare.

National forests provide habitat for Canada lynx.

A snowshoe hare’s fluffy white camouflage is no match for the lynx’s expert eyes and long, tufted ears. Unless the bunny makes a dash for it, that is, since lynx aren’t designed for endurance chases. You would think that those long legs would offer some benefit to make up for its strikingly odd proportions (smallish cat body with oversize limbs and massive feet). But they do come in handy in deep, fluffy snow, which offers an excellent advantage over competing predators such as coyote and bobcat. Combined with those big snowshoe-like paws, the lynx is like a four-wheel-drive vehicle — able to go where others dare not.

The Canada lynx remains a threatened species in the lower-48 states, with only around 1,000 cats calling U.S. forests home. Unfortunately, climate change is making it tougher for them to survive. Loss of snow or changes in its density due to warming temperatures affects the lynx’s hunting abilities — as well as the number of snowshoe hares.

Lynx Forest Home Faces a New Threat

The Obama administration has proposed a new plan for our national forests, setting aside vital measures that have protected the homes of lynx and other imperiled wildlife since the days when Ronald Reagan was president.

Don’t let President Obama turn back the clock for our wildlife. Urge federal officials to stand up for wildlife protections in our national forests.

Plenty is at stake. The U.S. Forest Service manages 155 national forests and 20 grasslands spread across some 193 million acres nationwide.

What You Can Do

Tell the Obama administration that you want to protect wildlife such as lynx in our national forests.

Take action yourself to stop climate change and help save vulnerable species like the Canada lynx.

Our national forests can provide vital habitat for endangered animals like lynx. Unfortunately, a new decision by the Obama administration would roll back forest protections that have been in place since the 1980s.

For lynx and other wildlife, it could be a forest foreclosure—one that denies these mysterious forest creatures and other wildlife the habitat protections they need to survive.

In an outrageous move, the Obama administration has proposed a new plan for our national forests, setting aside vital measures that have protected the homes of lynx and other imperiled wildlife since the days when Ronald Reagan was president.

Don’t let President Obama turn back the clock for our wildlife. Urge federal officials to stand up for wildlife protections in our national forests.

Plenty is at stake. The U.S. Forest Service manages 175 national forests and grasslands spread across 190 million acres in 42 states and Puerto Rico.

These magnificent landscapes support diverse ecosystems and an incredible array of fish, wildlife and plants including iconic animals such as lynx, antelope, bison, bighorn sheep, elk and cutthroat trout. In all, our national forests provide habitat for more than 5,000 species of fish and wildlife and more than 10,000 plant species.

Our national forests are worth protecting. The deadline for submitting public comments on the Obama forest plan is May 16th.

Take action now to speak out for these special places and save something wild.

The proposed plan would:

• Roll back existing safeguards for wildlife conservation and no longer require the Forest Service to maintain healthy and sustainable fish and wildlife populations for every species in our national forests;
• Leave the decision of whether or not to maintain healthy, viable populations of many imperiled wildlife species at the discretion of individual forest managers, leaving the fate of hundreds of species uncertain; and
• Allow individual forest managers the discretion to “give up” on protecting many needy species without facing accountability to the public.

Our national forests are the inheritance of our children and grandchildren. Please take action now to protect these special places… and the wildlife that calls them home.

Too few to trap

Three wolverines have been trapped so far this year in Montana.

Elusive critters like fishers and wolverines are nearly impossible to find in the wild. Across the entire Rocky Mountains, each species numbers fewer than 300 individuals. But that doesn’t stop trappers from trying to snare a few in Montana each year for their own personal collections.

Fishers and wolverines are mid-sized carnivores that lead a very solitary existence in remote alpine forests in the Rocky Mountains. They reproduce slowly, often taking many years to find a mate and raise their offspring. Now global warming is making life more difficult by shifting their range and shrinking the amount of viable habitat. So preserving as many individuals as possible is essential for these species’ long-term survival.

The latest trapping report from Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks indicates that nine fishers were killed this year, even though the statewide quota was just seven animals (one district went over its quota by three). Three wolverines were caught so far this year out of a statewide quota of five, and the season remains open in one district. Seven swift foxes were also harvested, out of a total statewide quota of 20.

Trapping is a relatively minor threat to these species, and state wildlife agencies typically set quotas low enough to ensure the long –term survival of species. But there are so few fishers, wolverines and swift foxes that continued trapping can have a noticeable impact, especially when quotas are exceeded.

Protecting lynx and wolverines

Researchers are studying lynx in Montana in order to improve conservation of this threatened species.

Trapping isn’t always a bad thing, however. Nonlethal trapping is an essential tool for researchers who want to know how animals behave in the wild. It can be extremely difficult to track the movement of individual animals without trapping them first to put on a radio collar or other tracking device, especially very rare critters like lynx and wolverines that live in remote alpine areas.

Wolverines were recently put on the candidate list of endangered species because of long-term threats to their future. Canada lynx are already protected as a threatened species and therefore no longer trapped or hunted in the contiguous United States. But there is still much to learn about both species that will help improve conservation efforts and guarantee their survival.

Don’t miss this fascinating story about lynx in the February issue of Smithsonian Magazine. Join writer Abigail Tucker as she trudges through the Garnet Mountains of Montana with a team of researchers, hot on the trail of the elusive lynx. In cases like these, animals are not harmed when they are trapped. Being able to study animals in the wild helps answer essential questions about their conservation status and needs.  Here’s a short excerpt:

“The chances that we’ll trap and collar a lynx today are slim. The ghost cats are incredibly scarce in the continental United States, the southern extent of their range. Luckily for Squires and his field technicians, the cats are also helplessly curious. The study’s secret weapon is a trick borrowed from old-time trappers, who hung mirrors from tree branches to attract lynx. The scientists use shiny blank CDs instead, dabbed with beaver scent and suspended with fishing line near chicken-wire traps. The discs are like lynx disco balls, glittering and irresistible, drawing the cats in for a closer look. Scientists also hang grouse wings, which the lynx swat with their mammoth paws, shredding them like flimsy pet store toys.”

“If a lynx is enticed into a trap, the door falls and the animal is left to gnaw the bunny bait, chew the snow packed in the corners and contemplate its folly until the scientists arrive. The lynx is then injected with a sedative from a needle attached to a pole, wrapped in a sleeping bag with plenty of Hot Hands (packets of chemicals that heat up when exposed to the air), pricked for a blood sample that will yield DNA, weighed and measured and, most important, collared with a GPS device and VHF radio transmitter that will record its location every half-hour. “We let the lynx tell us where they go,” Squires says. They’ve trapped 140 animals over the years—84 males and 56 females, which are shrewder and harder to capture yet more essential to the project, because they lead the scientists to springtime dens.”

Read more about what Defenders is doing to protect fishers, lynx and wolverines.