Recent News

Rutgers Student's Crowd-Source Campaign to Fund Woodcock Research

December 21, 2016 — cfergus

NEWARK, NJ: What happens when birds breed in old industrial sites? Kathleen Farley, a Ph.D. candidate in biology at Rutgers-Newark, has begun a study of the American woodcock, a shorebird adapted to living in wooded uplands, after finding numbers of these birds breeding on post-industrial sites in New Jersey.

Timbering in OH State Forests Vital to Wildlife, Economy

December 12, 2016 — cfergus

By Mark Jones, from the Cincinnati Enquirer

Regarding “It’s time to stop logging in state’s forests” (letters, Nov. 21): I consider myself an avid environmental activist in addition to being an enthusiastic bird watcher and hunter. Logging Ohio’s state forests is vital for wildlife and the “life enriching benefits” of being outdoors.

After the Fire, How Does a Forest Grow?

December 07, 2016 — cfergus

By Mark Washburn for the Charlotte Observer

LAKE LURE, NC – First off, Bambi is just fine.

Woodland critters such as deer and bear packed up and left imperiled wildfire areas far more cooperatively than did their human neighbors, who in some cases had to be run off by the cops with evacuation orders.

Second off, the 7,100 acres scorched by the wildfire at Lake Lure – like most of the other timberland burning in mountainous western North Carolina – will likely spring back to life next year with renewed vigor.

NRCS Adds New Target Species to Working Lands for Wildlife

December 05, 2016 — cfergus

The Working Lands for Wildlife program of the USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) is adding dozens of new target species to its premier wildlife conservation effort that helps agricultural producers restore and protect habitat on privately owned farms, ranches and working forests.

NH Timber Harvest Will Create Patches of Young Forest

November 29, 2016 — cfergus

CONCORD – The Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests has begun a timber harvest on 65 acres of land that the nonprofit organization owns on the western side of the lower slopes of Mt. Monadnock near Shaker Farm Road in Jaffrey. The harvest is the first of several to be completed in stages over the next several years, affecting a total of about 250 acres.

Great Thicket National Wildlife Refuge to Include Maine Lands

November 25, 2016 — cfergus

By Aislinn Sarnacki, Bangor Daily News

Maine is one of six northeastern states included in the plan for the new Great Thicket National Wildlife Refuge, a first-of-its-kind conservation project that was approved in October by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The new refuge, which may reach up to 15,000 acres in size, will be dedicated to managing shrubland and young forests, habitats that a suite of wildlife species depend on for survival.

Quality Habitat May Lessen West Nile Virus Effects in PA Ruffed Grouse

November 22, 2016 — cfergus

By the Ruffed Grouse Society and Pennsylvania Game Commission

Recent research into West Nile virus in Pennsylvania's ruffed grouse suggests a strong need for landscape-scale creation of young forest habitat to help this popular gamebird thrive.

New Video Series on Managing Ohio Forests for Birds

November 16, 2016 — cfergus

A new video series developed by the Ohio Bird Conservation Initiative highlights the importance of proper forest management in improving a diversity of habitat for birds and other wildlife. The series focuses on several Ohio private landowners, detailing their experiences managing and improving conditions of their woodlands and the beneficial changes in the bird community following such actions.

American, European Woodcock Hunting Contrasted

November 14, 2016 — cfergus

By Robert Gwizdz, for the Lansing State Journal

James Maunder Taylor was taken with American woodcock the moment he saw his first.

“They’re quite colorful,” he said. “You can really see the cinnamon and the brown. Our woodcock are a lot paler.”

WVA To Establish Elk Herd on Mining Land

November 11, 2016 — cfergus

By Bill Cochran, special to the Roanoke Times

West Virginia is one of the latest states to launch an elk restoration program patterned after a highly successful one in Kentucky and a budding one in Virginia that claims 150 to 200 animals, mostly in Buchanan County.

I asked Randy Kelley, elk project leader for the West Virginia Division of Natural Resources (DNR), to address questions on the effort to restore this magnificent animal to the Mountain State:

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