This week, I’ve been so immersed in negative issues pertaining to wildlife that I thought it might be refreshing to reflect on a few positive developments relating to relatively recent blogs. In fact, the blog I started this week never got finished. No need. It would have urged the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission to continue to prevent legal take of the goliath grouper, a large, slowly-reproducing fish that is recovering from endangered status. But, letters and petitions, and maybe good science, did the job. The protection holds, for now.
In British Columbia, we have been fighting on many fronts to protect mule deer from lethal culling. Part of the deal we reluctantly had to accept was that, if deer were live-trapped and equipped with radio-telemetry collars, not killed, and moved to “wilderness,” but later wandered back into a community, they could be killed. Some inevitably did enter towns, but we managed to convince the wildlife managers to hold off killing. Sure enough, the deer wandered back out of those communities. Yay!
Do you remember this blog? It addressed the shameful state of affairs whereby Alberta would not allow orphaned bears (among other wildlife species) to be rehabilitated. The government wrote back a list of rationales to Prashant Khetan, Born Free USA’s CEO, when he wrote on the bears’ behalf. We demonstrated the absurdity of each excuse, and voila, the government did a complete turnaround and will now allow the rehabilitation of orphaned bears. Experience elsewhere shows wildlife rehab really can effectively save bears without putting people at enhanced risk.
On a more individualistic note, there was Sheldon, the tortoise at Bird Kingdom, Niagara Falls, Ontario, who was confined to an enclosure where he had rubbed the wood raw pacing back and forth – stereotypical behaviour indicating stress. We expressed concern, of course. When I made a return visit on February 13, I found that his quarters were significantly upgraded and the pacing had stopped. I hate to see him captive at all, but he seemed more content. I’ll check again, of course.
And then there was this blog about the possible extinction of the Barbuda warbler, a bird found only on Barbuda Island in the West Indies, which was devastated by Hurricane Irma, wiping out what seemed to be the entire habitat of the species. But, a recent informal survey found that the Barbuda warbler, in the absence of people, seems to have survived! Sadly, there are still concerns about other West Indian bird species, especially in Cuba.
Of course, we had nothing to do with the Barbuda warbler’s apparent recovery; it happened in the absence of human activity. Humanity certainly contributes to the risks such species increasingly face due to the effects of our impact on climate change. But, for now, while I’ll almost certainly never see one, I am heartened by the thought of these lovely little songbirds continuing to exist.
Keep Wildlife in the Wild,
Barry