Michigan’s Department of Natural Resources and Environment (DNRE) is planning to list feral swine as an invasive species in the state, a move that would make it illegal for anyone in Michigan to own them. A law passed in May stripped the pigs of their livestock status, making it legal for anyone to shoot them anytime, but DNRE says that measure isn’t enough. Some game farms that mostly specialize in deer and elk also offer pig hunts, but the ex-barnyard animals aren’t easily contained by fences and often end up on the loose. The Michigan Department of Agriculture (DOA) is proposing pig-specific regulations for game farms to protect the revenue from swine hunts and the interests of devoted pig hunters, but they lack the funding and authority to run such programs. DNRE says there’s no money for more regulations, and the only solution is to wipe out the swine as quickly as possible. Farmers tend to agree: feral pigs can transmit diseases to legitimate livestock in addition to damaging crops and native wildlife habitat. Texas currently spends about $7 million each year trying to control its pig problem — the worst in the nation – and wildlife biologists in Kentucky fear that these invasives have spread to over 30 counties in their state. To read more on the issue in Michigan, go to mlive.com, and check out this AP article for more on Kentucky.

Emily Boehm Policy, Uncategorized, hunting, invasive species agriculture, feral hogs, game farms, hunting, invasive species, Kentucky, Michigan

Want to learn more about fish and wildlife species introductions and reintroductions (i.e., carp, wolves, mollusks, leopard frogs) from top experts in the field? Want to hear about managing invasive species and feral cats? Check out today’s free webcast being held by the first joint American Fisheries Society/The Wildlife Society Symposium by going to http://msworkforce.org/WFA/. To learn more about the joint AFS/TWS symposium, please go to http://www.cfr.msstate.edu/wildlife/symposium/.

shannon Amphibians, Environmental toxicants, Human Dimensions of Wildlife Management and Conservation, TWS Sponsored Programs, Technology, Wildlife Over-abundance, Wildlife management, endangered species, invasive species feral cats, invasive species, species introductions, species reintroductions

The New York Daily News reports that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service wants to ban the importation of a nine species of constrictor snakes imported from other countries.

This is good news as these invasive species reek havoc on the ecosystem.

Read the entire story here.

Darryl Walter US Fish and Wildlife Service, invasive species, snakes habitat protection, invasive species

Darryl Walter Wildlife Over-abundance, Wildlife management, invasive species invasive species

The Asian carp, a voracious eater that has no predators and negligible worth as a commercial or sport fish, now dominates the Mississippi and Illinois rivers and their tributaries.

Read the entire story from USA TODAY here.

Darryl Walter invasive species invasive species, US Fish and Wildlife Service

The significant and irreconcilable differences between animal rights and wildlife conservation has reared its head again, this time in a letter published in the Baltimore Sun.  The author, who is a writer, not a biologist, nor a conservationist, laments efforts by the Maryland Department of Natural Resources to eliminate populations of the non-native Mute swan (Cygnus olor), arguing that the birds are having “a negligible impact when compared to other factors affecting the [Chesapeake] bay.”  These include pollution from factory farms and sewage treatment plants.  The Humane Society of the United States’ (HSUS’) chief biologist, John Grandy,  further stated that “There are thousands of  geese and all kinds of ducks on the bay and they all eat bay grasses.  Outboard motor shafts on boats pull up lots more vegetation than swans ever thought of eating, but no one asks boaters to stay home.” 

The  message from an increasingly radical HSUS and its allies is that no one should be “brutally killing” these “beautiful, graceful” animals for any reason, including the conservation of our native wildlife and habitats.  But aren’t the lives and survival of native species and ecosystems worthy of our moral concern? Who’s going to speak for them?

While the exotic Mute swans admittedly are beautiful and graceful, that is not a good enough reason to stop the cull. These birds do not belong here, and if their population is allowed to become too large, they will seriously compete with and threaten populations of native waterfowl, such as  wintering tundra swans (Cygnus columbianus), that have very similar ecologies and feeding habits. 

The fact that many other factors are affecting the Bay’s ecosystem,  argues even more strongly for the removal of these non-native interloppers.  As the author and HSUS’ Grandy recognize themselves, the Chesapeake Bay is under siege from pollution and a variety of other anthropogenic factors. The cumulative effects of non-native species, pollution and global climate change are going to make it even more difficult for our native wildlife to survive and thrive.  I agree that other factors need to be addressed too, but that does not in any way argue for tolerance of exponentially growing populations of non-native animals! 

The Maryland Department of Natural Resources has studied this problem carefully and would not be spending their precious human and financial resources if it did not think these actions were necessary.  It’s their legally mandated job to protect Maryland’s natural enviroment and native species.  So,  I’d like to extend my heartfelt gratitude to the State of Maryland’s wildlife professionals for protecting the Chesapeake Bay and its native wildlife from the ravages of introduced species, such as Mute swans and nutria. 

As a biologist/conservationist myself, I can certainly appreciate the beauty and elegance of Mute swans, but I would prefer to see them in Eurasia where they belong, not in the Chesapeake Bay.  If HSUS (with their $130 million annual budget) wants these individual animals’ lives to be preserved at all costs, then perhaps they will be willing to pay the hundreds of thousands if not millions of dollars to live-capture each of the 500 remaining birds and have them shipped back to their natural habitats in Eurasia?  Of course, that presumes that European wildlife authorities would even accept them. Mute swans are not an endangered species and the threat of intercontinental disease transmission would likely preclude such an effort.  In addition, capture stress would likely result in the injury or death of many of the animals anyway. 

Wildlife professionals have many critical and immediate problems to address, including habitat loss and fragmentation, invasive species, pollution, global climate change, energy development, emerging diseases, and human-wildlife conflict.  Conflict and court battles with animal rights organizations makes their job even more difficult and problemmatic.  The public must begin to realize that saving our native wildlife and their habitats will not be easy and will involve difficult decisions.  The consequences for inaction on selected introduced species will be the loss of more native species and alteration of habitats.  Is doing nothing about destructive exotics because they are attractive or cute really the choice our country wants to make for native wildlife and future generations? I think not, and that’s why the Wildlife Society has strong science based policies on the control or elimination of harmful invasives.  That’s why the Audubon Society–a large public organization promoting bird conservation–also supports the removal/control of Mute swans across the United States. Audubon Society members love birds, but they recognize the need to control or eliminate destructive invasive species, such as the Mute swan.

Wildlife professionals care about the welfare of individual animals.  However, welfare and rights are not the same thing and preserving the “rights” of individual animals is not always compatible with the conservation of populations, species or ecosystems.  Furthermore, wildlife conservation and animal rights are not compatible and one cannot be both a conservationist and an animal rights proponent simultaneously.  I have a deep concern about animal rights organizations that try to pass themselves off as conservation organizations.  It’s high time that conservationists and the scientific and professional organizations that represent them come together and view the animal rights movement for the threat to conservation that it has become, especially in a world where people are increasingly disconnected from nature.  Such a disconnect makes it more likely that animal rights organizations will grow in strength, wealth and political power, and that their supporters will oppose necessary conservation practices, such as the control or elimination of selected introduced species, or the control of over-populated native species, such as white-tailed deer.  This should be a matter of grave concern to all conservationists.

Michael Hutchins Animal rights, Policy, Wildlife management, Wildlife professionals, invasive species, wildlife conservation funding for wildlife management and conservation, invasive species, wildlife conservation

A recent article in The Economist describes research that was just published in Science regarding the danger of  importing non-native wildlife species.  Read the entire article here and let us know your thoughts.

Darryl Walter Wildlife management, invasive species invasive species

Today’s Washington Post contains a very interesting piece on the restoration of Santa Cruz Island, part of the Channel Island Archipelago off the California coast. With the removal of destructive non-native feral cats, rats, pigs, golden eagles, goats and cattle, the islands’ native plants and animals are thriving, including the endangered Santa Cruz Island fox and several species of rare seabids, such as Xantus’ murrelet.

This is further convincing evidence that the control and/or extermination of selected invasive species leads to the recovery of native plants and animals, especially in island ecosystems. The Wildilfe Society has strong policies regarding the control of non-native species, including feral cats, and continues to be an advocate for the recovery and conservation of our native fauna and flora.

One can perhaps understand concern for the fate of individual non-native animals expressed by animal rights advocates who oppose such control programs.  However,  such opposition further demonstrates the inherent differences between animal rights and conservation philosophy. Animal rights philosophy gives equal moral status to individuals of both common and rare species and native and non-native species, while the goal of conservation is to conserve populations of threatened or endangered native species, even if it means the lethal control of common or invasive species. 

Focused solely on the “rights” of  individual animals, animal rights philosophy does not take into account the intricate interdependencies between species in functioning ecological systems.  This is a fundamental difference, which makes animal rights and conservation largely incompatiable.  Animal rights advocates also suggest that nature will take care of itself if we just simply “let it be”, when, in reality, humans have already altered the landscape so much that such laissez faire attitudes can only be described as “benign neglect.”  In a world dominated by human influences, wildlife must be managed if it is to survive.

Michael Hutchins invasive species invasive species, wildlife conservation

The Wildlife Society, drawing on more than 70 years of experience working on wildlife policy with federal, state, and local government, has offered a series or nine recommendations to the new administration and Congress that provide an overview of major issues facing wildlife managers and conservationists.  Read the full list of recommendations here.

Darryl Walter Policy, climate change clean water act, endangered species, energy development, farm bill, funding for wildlife management and conservation, invasive species, professional societies, sportsmen's heritage, wildlife policy