Restoring Biodiversity - 10/10/2023
Texas continues it's war on wildlife in Big Bend. Humans, climate and their roles in Pleistocene Extinctions. Britain restores their Ghost Ponds. And more.
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Here is what we’ve been reading, watching and writing about this week…
Articles
Parts Of Big Bend National Park To Close For Removal Of Non-Native Sheep
Texas’ war on wildlife and biodiversity continues.
Bonus: Click HERE for the “Rest of the Story” on this insanity.
As human populations spread out of Africa to other continents starting around 50,000-years ago, the greatest extinction event since the dinosaurs occurred. The "Great Debate" over the Pleistocene Extinctions (when 80% of America's genera abruptly disappeared) is whether the extinctions were caused by humans, or by changing climate. This paper says people were primarily responsible.
As reported below, in England the number of once-common farm ponds has dropped by half over the last few decades. Like beaver ponds, farm ponds are biodiversity “powerhouses”. Awareness of their ecological importance is growing, and private owners are leading restoration efforts.
Videos
Examples of Grassland Restoration – Allan Savory – Tufts University
Excerpted from Allan Savory’s presentation on January 25, 2013 at Tufts University’s Fletcher School, this segment highlights examples of how Holistic Management restores grasslands from land that’s degraded to desert. This innovative, natural, and simple idea mimics Nature by using careful management of livestock to stimulate the regrowth of grasses, animals, and puts large amount of greenhouse gases (GHG’s) from the air into the soil.
Quoting Savory from the video, “Nothing in the world can do this but much-vilified livestock.”
Preserving The Future of Grouse, Woodcock and Hunting
Ruffed Grouse are numerous in the Yellowstone area, including Pitchstone Waters. This excellent video from the Ruffed Grouse Society discusses why “Hands-Off” forest management policies are destroying the health of national forests, and dragging wildlife health and numbers down as forests decline.
The Ruffed Grouse Society is North America’s foremost conservation organization dedicated to preserving our sporting traditions by creating healthy forests for ruffed grouse, American woodcock and other wildlife.
Quoting the video, “Without young forest habitat, populations of grouse and woodcock will not flourish and our rich sporting traditions cannot be passed on to the next generation.”
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And that’s it - as always thank you..
if you haven’t already - please check out our views on biodiversity at https://pitchstonewaters.com/blog/
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