Jennifer

Turkey populations are down. This winter, depending on local resources and snow depth, certainly had a negative impact on them. I haven't seen any studies yet, but from a purely anecdotal standpoint I heard of quite a few people noticing winter-killed birds under roosting areas, with emaciated bodies. Here are 10-year charts of the fall turkey takes: http://www.dec.ny.gov/outdoor/30412.html (full page has a fall harvest by County) And 10-year charts of spring takes: http://www.dec.ny.gov/outdoor/30420.html As always, turkey numbers will vary regionally, depending on resources available to the birds, local weather conditions, and nest predation/poult survival. I can say that I haven't seen a wild turkey in a year, and I do actively hunt them (spring and fall). Either I have gotten really bad at hunting them, their numbers are down, or I have had immense bad luck. The truth is probably a bit from both column B and C.

I admit it sort of bums me out to hear you guys talk about 'being allowed'. May everyone find the husband or wife they want that is based on love, communication, and compromise. Good luck to everyone still looking for that.

I have been watching this situation unfurl over the last week as a friend of mine knows this falconer. I would have given the woman more benefit of the doubt if I didn't catch this quote from earlier stories on this. If this is true (and I wasn't there so I don't know for sure), then she knew she was causing serious harm to the falcon when she was beating it (no matter if she thought it was wild or not). Source: http://www.cdapress.com/news/local_news/article_fb15722d-9e28-5fc6-a897-bf03d93b4782.html

Goodness, but they are beautiful birds!

Did some unpaid work/internships with the DEC, then worked several full time retail jobs, worked freshwater aquarium maintenance, worked at a small local print and office supply shop, did long distance/contract work with a company painting figurines and also running some online PR/forum management, and now I'm a self employed artist and a board member for a local nature center.

Sorry to get so off topic, though! I was only wondering what, if any, impact the annual mast of chestnut trees had on species such as Elk.

I have seen varying maps of the original range of the chestnut; the one you have above does seem to suggest that it was not commonly found through a large swath of NY state. Very interesting! I apologize if I was mistaken in my memory. Most range maps seem to suggest similar occurrence to the one you posted, or similar to this. I am under the impression that the forest was 1/4 Chestnut in the darker areas, where it was more of an incidental species in the lighter areas of the range. Regardless I find it very interesting. I know it was once a very important and numerous tree locally to me, and have read accounts of them floating rafts 17-20 trees wide down the Allegany river as an export.

Yep, they are doing the work right here in SUNY! http://www.esf.edu/chestnut/

The entitlement is yours. Your cat is a domestic animal, and you are responsible for it. If it provides you a service outside of pest control, you must accept that by allowing it to roam off of your property, it is out of your control, and any number of things might happen to it. Cats are hardly a scourge only of birdfeeder areas. They take billions of wild birds each year on a national level, and believe you me, that is not all at the birdfeeder of a neighbor. Ironically, wild predators generally provide better pest (for most people, this is mice) control services around homes, when we provide habitat and don't wage war on them. Before I get accused of hating cats- I actually do like cats. We have one. But she never goes outdoors unless she is on a leash or in an enclosure. I expect we will enjoy her company for a long time.

Some years ago I read an interesting article talking about how the North American Chestnut (now gone thanks to the blight) was once so numerous that that it was said that a squirrel could travel from the east coast to the Mississippi without touching the ground, and that the hills had a 'second snow' of white in the spring, in appearance only, due to the vast number of Chestnut blossoms. Chestnuts were once around 25% of standing timber in our Eastern forests. What was very interesting was that the Chestnut and Beech (also dying out) masts were extremely bountiful most years, and that it supported all of the wildlife we know today, in addition to the Eastern Elk, Passenger Pigeon, and Carolina Parakeet. I couldn't find the exact article but I found this one: http://phenomena.nationalgeographic.com/2013/03/11/resurrecting-a-forest/ Our landscape and habitats have changed a lot, since then... (American Chestnut stand) (I really wish I could have been around to see the forests when they were like this, but I'd be long dead if I were!! Still, how cool would it have been?)

Some food for thought. A cat does not have to kill its prey to.. well, kill it. Cats naturally carry Pasteurella multocida in their saliva and under their claws. In addition to Pasteurella spp, a mixed aerobic/anaerobic population has been recovered from the majority of cat bite and claw wounds. The Pasteurella and other bacteria typically create a very rapid and often fatal infection in small animals. Birds in particular are very succeptible. A can can kill a bird simply by capturing it and releasing it unscathed, if the cat mouths the bird at all. Birds must clean their feathers regularly and easily ingest the bacteria this way. It seems that the majority of animals involved with a cat "catch and release" end up perishing. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7376178 Dogs also carry this bacteria, but it is in a much lower concentration and in general is far less likely to cause infection. (by the way, these bacteria are the ones that cause "Cat Scratch Fever" and over infections in some people when they are bitten or scratched by a cat, and is also why cat bites in humans are so prone to infection)

To answer the question, I am going to be getting into keeping some native (solitary) bees this year. There is no honey to be had in the equation, but solitary bees are much better pollinators than honeybees and are important ecologically. They are super gentle too, so they are a good project for children.

Crowd funding has allowed many startups to get their feet off the ground. Think of it as either 1) making a donation to help them, or 2) being an investor in the product, with the promise of a reward (that you select). As such, the crowdfunding has just begun, so no one actually has one of these yet. They will use the money from the crowdfunding campaign to pay for the manufacturing process. If you read the info under the rewards, it gives an estimated delivery time. That would be around December of 2015 for the hives. Check back next year to see how people are liking them. It's okay to not want to jump into the crowdfunding; the idea is that if this is successful they will be for sale retail later on. Probably at a higher price, but there would be less risk. I have participated (meaning I was one of the people involved with) and also bought into a great number of crowdfunding campaigns to great results. You just have to go into it knowing there is some risk, and you should always do a bit of research on the person(s) running it. If it is not worth the potential risk, then hang tight and wait for it to hit retail, no harm in that.

The host (Surveymonkey) only allows up to 100 participants before it automatically closes the survey. That is, unless one wants to pay for the premium service.

I can, but I suspect I'm in the minority.

Water softeners complicate things. Do you have a bypass on your system, where it is installed? If so, get your water for your tank before it goes through your system. Hard water will work out okay for most species. I have well water and no softening system, and my water is essentially liquid rock with high kh, gh, and TDS (total dissolved solids). It's fine for all but the most fussy softwater species. Buying water is a pain if you are dealing with more than a few gallons. I'm not sure where the best place to go would be, in that case.

Those are photos of my actual tanks! I've got three right now.

Oh, I am not sure-- do you mean if a service came in and did it? I honestly don't know these days. The photo is of one of my personal tanks. It's a 54 gallon corner tank (which is a giant pain in the rump to light and filter by the way, don't start with a weirdly shaped tank as your first). I've got 6 T5 10k (that's color temperature) bulbs lighting it and pressurized CO2 (like what you'd get for beer brewing) injected.If you want a high-tech tank with injected CO2 and fancy lighting, then it gets a lot more spendy. But-- You can do a nice planted tank setup for not too much cash if you are patient and do the proper research. One can get really nice plants growing on low tech tanks, though. This is a recycled 12-gallon that I stripped the old broken hood off of and it is simply a filter, heater, and a LED gooseneck lamp on top. Plant growth is slower and I had to pick species that aren't demanding, but it can still look ok. It's not setup as a 'showpiece' tank like my other one so it's not as pretty but if I was more patient with it I could make it really nice. This tank must have all of $100 in it total. I don't run carbon filters (just sponges in a built-in sump) so the only ongoing expense is water for water changes, and electricity. My shrimp repopulate themselves. One of said shrimp (don't get any wild ideas about raising food, they are tiny things) If any of you are interested in doing tanks like this it's not too hard if you research it out a little; like I said-- the budget depends on what you want to do. High tech vs. low tech. Sort of like hunting, beyond the minimum investment you can be as fancy or as simple as you want with this stuff. I do caution, like many of the above said-- for beginners, a tank greater than 20 gallons is really your best bet. When you make a mistake in 20+ gallons of water it is much less catastrophic than in just a few gallons. Temperatures are much easier to keep stable in larger volumes, as are water quality parameters. You have to remember you aren't just tossing fish in a cage or plants into a pot of soil. You have to establish a balanced ecosystem, right down to the bacteria that break down ammonia and nitrates. A good forum for people that like to go gung-ho with this: http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/

Some good advice here. I used to do freshwater professionally, but now just keep hobby tanks at home.

Snow is an incredible insulator. It didn't happen in my yard this year, but if we get a good blanket of snow on early and it stays around, it will insulate the ground enough to keep it from freezing in areas. Once the ground is exposed and we get those bitter cold temperatures, the ground will freeze (and heave, etc). Several animals (particularly ground dwellers like rodents) depend on this up in the arctic. Even in areas where there is permafrost, the insulating snow layer keeps the ground level insulated from the extreme biting cold above. It's really pretty neat.

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory/scientists-tumor-causing-virus-widespread-wild-turkeys-28324797 http://www.outdoorlife.com/blogs/strut-zone/2013/04/turkey-virus-alert-new-york-and-maine-older article, but has a photo showing the outward signs. It has since been confirmed in NY. http://www.earthisland.org/journal/index.php/elist/eListRead/a_new_virus_is_attacking_us_wild_turkey_populations/- Also older, but has a much more through understanding of the virus. In a nutshell, wild turkey populations in NY state, and likely many other states, are carrying this virus. I study similar retroviruses in domestic chickens and can confirm that based on my knowledge, and the research out there on LPDV, that it is an easily transmittable virus that remains in latency (dormancy, if you will) and only produces symptoms in individuals that for whatever reason are either genetically weak or have a reduced immunity to the virus. The virus does not often cause mortality in these individuals, but instead causes a weakened immune system, which is an open door for other problems to move in (ailments that an otherwise healthy turkey would have no problem fighting off). As an RNA virus, once a bird 'catches' it, the virus copies itself and remains in the birds system forevermore, and periodically causes shedding of the virus, causing either horizontal transmission (bird to bird) and/or vertical (parent passes it on to the chick through the egg... vertical transmission is somewhat more rare). So, a large number of birds may be infected but may not show signs and may live full, healthy and otherwise normal lives. If you take a turkey with outward signs, it could be LPDV or pox (neither is contagious to humans) and the DEC is interested in testing so you may want to notify them. I'm mostly posting this here so folks know about it and know what it might be, if they see it.

Here's the full wording, taken direct from the DEC:

Sorry Mike-- I got too excited and posted before I saw your links. I will read them now. EDIT: So it seems the main opposition to Sunday hunting has a few complaints according to this link: http://www.lehighvalleylive.com/opinion/index.ssf/2015/01/you_comments_should_new_jersey.html I'm a little baffled and trying to look at it from a non-hunting point of view. I don't live in these areas so it's hard for me to imagine that there would be any more peace and quiet from having one day of no hunting? I live in a rural environment and even so my neighbors, cars, and dogs disturb the quiet far more often than the occasional gun shot I hear during open seasons. I imagine in more suburban environments, "neighbor" noise is worse? It was when I lived in other parts of the country... Also, why is hunting on Sundays any less safe than any other given day?

I do know a number of folks that might quit hunting if they could only hunt one day a week during a given season (can't get time off from work). I don't know how numerous they are, and sure they aren't as "into" it as most of us here, but at the same time it seems like a hurdle. In some states seasons are short and may only have one or two weekends. Casual hunters are important too. So, are less people hunting in states where there is no Sunday hunting? I don't know for sure but could it hurt anything to open Sunday hunting in these areas?

That's really kind of you! Thanks so much. I will let you know if I can't find one.