WILDLIFE RESEARCH —  After six years of effort, Methow Valley-based researchers have documented that wolverines have produced kits this spring in the North Cascades south of Highway 20.

A remote camera had photographed a GPD-collared female carrying a kit from one den to another.  That's an exciting development for the Forest Service researchers.

Read the Wenatchee World story.

NATURE — Floods, Flowers and Feathers is the theme for a new festival at Turnbull National Wildlife Refuge that will feature elements of the Ice Age Floods that shaped the land along with the flora and fauna that flourish in this special channeled scablands habitat.

The festival, set for May 19 from 8 a.m.-3 p.m., includes several free outdoor elements:

• Learn geology of the unique channeled scablands landscape.
• Enjoy nature walks with native plant and bird experts.
• Watch biologists band songbirds for research.
• Examing reptiles and amphibians.
• Learn how to track elk with radio telemetry.

Call (509) 235-4723 for more information and to make reservations for events.

Places in some events can be reserved online.

Turnbull National Wildlife Refuge is partnering with numerous organizations/agencies to make this Festival a wonderful outdoor event in a remarkable environment. Some of the partners include Eastern Washington University Biology Department, Friends of Turnbull Refuge, Ice Age Floods Institute-Cheney Spokane Chapter, Northeast Washington Chapter of the Native Plant Society, and Spokane Audubon Society.

The Refuge is located 4.2 miles south of Cheney, off Cheney-Plaza Road.

REFUGES — Most visitors to Turnbull National Wildlife Refuge in 2010 and 2011 were impressed with its recreational opportunities, education and services, according to a government survey released today.

About 90 percent of respondents gave consistent high marks to their refuge experience.

The survey, commissioned by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and designed, conducted, and analyzed by researchers with the U.S. Geological Survey, evaluated responses from more than 200 adult visitors surveyed at the refuge between July 2010 and November 2011. Turnbull was one of 53 national wildlife refuges surveyed.

President Theodore Roosevelt designated Florida's Pelican Island as the first wildlife refuge in 1903. Today the 556 refuges in the National Wildlife Refuge System protect thousands of fish and wildlife while more than 400 of the refuges also are open to the public.

• Many refuges are known as popular sites for recreation such as hunting and fishing, paddling and hiking, environmental education programs and wildlife observation.
• More than 45 million people visited national wildlife refuges in 2011.

Where Turnbull visitors live: Seventy nine percent of Turnbull survey respondents live within 50 miles of the refuge but most nonlocal visitors said that visiting Turnbull Refuge was a primary purpose or sole destination of their trip. 

The top three activities respondents participated in included wildlife observation (82%), bird watching (71%) and driving the auto tour route (67%).

Turnbull created: Prompted by local activists, sportsmen, and naturalists, President Franklin D. Roosevelt established Turnbull in 1937 as a refuge and breeding ground for migratory birds and other wildlife.

Located south of Cheney, the 16,000-acre Refuge supports an extensive complex of wetlands, Ponderosa pine forests, Palouse steppe, and riparian habitats.  These habitats create exceptional species diversity, providing homes for hundreds of migratory birds, mammals, amphibians, reptiles, plants, and other life.

“Turnbull’s unique Channeled Scabland landscape formed by volcanic activity and glacial floods created diverse wildlife habitats that also attracts visitors from around the country,” said Turnbull Refuge Manager Dan Matiatos. 

The survey found 94 percent of respondents were satisfied with the refuge’s job of conserving fish, wildlife and their habitats.

WILDLIFE RESEARCH — Although they're trying to document the presence of wolverines, getting good snapshots of a Canada lynx still made the day for volunteers monitoring bait stations for the wolverine research project trail cams in North Idaho last week.

The photo comes from a bait station set up by Idaho Fish and Game, which is partnering on the research with Friends of the Scotchman Peaks Wilderness.

Note the black tufts on the tips of the ears, and the huge furry feet that give it snowshoe-like buoyancy  on the snow. The winter track of a lynx looks as though a powder puff has been dabbed in the snow.

The lynx, which is federally listed as a threatened species, feeds primarily on snowshoe hares. 

See more bait station photos of the lynx as well as of the volunteers and other critters visiting the bait stations — on the Wolverine Study Facebook Page.

WILDLIFE WATCHING —  Wildlife officials say grizzly bears are coming out of hibernation and have been spotted along the Rocky Mountain Front and in Yellowstone National Park.

Just before the recent snow storm, a Fish, Wildlife and Parks game warden spotted a female grizzly with three cubs on the Blackleaf Wildlife Management Area near Choteau.

Another grizzly female with a couple of cubs was reported west of Dupuyer.

FWP bear management specialist Mike Madel says it’s unusual for family groups to be out in mid-March. Adult males usually emerge from winter dens first, and may already be out.

Yellowstone National Park officials say bear activity has been reported in several areas of the park.

Bears that come out of their winter sleep this early focus on finding and eating winter-killed elk and deer.

WILDLIFE — Concerned about bat die-off caused by white-nose syndrome, a fungus-caused disease that has decimated bat populations in the United States and Canada, the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada has asked the federal government to issue an emergency order designating three species of bats as endangered.

See details from the Edmonton Journal.
  

WILDLIFE WATCHING — A snowshoe hare is caught in action by a trail cam set high in the Cabinet Mountains for a wolverine research project funded by the Friends of the Scotchman Peaks Wilderness.

See martens, bobcats, volunteer helpers — and even a wolverine — in the group's wolverine research Facebook photo album.

The hare in the photo above normally wouldn't be able to go eyeball to eyeball with the camera mounted up on the trunk of a tree, but winter winds drifted snow into a viewing platform.

Some readers viewed the mystery close-up photo (left) and guessed “rabbit.”  Close, but not correct.

Read on for the differences between “hares” and “rabbits.”

WILDLIFE WATCHING — Can you ID the critter, above, in this close encounter last week with one of the wolverine research project trail cams in the Cabinet Mountains?

The camera is one of about 40 installed by the Friends of the Scotchman Peaks Wilderness.

Answer coming later…

It's easier to identify the marten, left, that provided this cool action image for a trail cam posted on a bait station at high elevations in the wolverine research project.

Some of the responses on my Facebook Page regarding the mystery critter above are close, but NOBODY in that thread is correct, yet.

Hints:

—The camera is in a tree up off the ground.

—The mountains have had some snow and wind.

—Bigfoot has NEVER been caught on camera.

—Some critters resemble others but have significant differences….

Answer and photo proof coming tomorrow from Friends of the Scotchman Peaks Wilderness.

PREDATORS — Wildlife Services agents dispatched a 175-pound mountain lion near Helena, Mont., recently after the cat killed at least six llamas and left them uneaten.  Sport-killing behavior is rare for cougars, and officials don't have an easy answer.

Read the Helena Independent Record report. 

ANIMALS — People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, an out-there animal rights and anti-hunting group, acknowledged Wednesday that it euthanized 95 percent of the animals at a shelter at its Virginia headquarters last year.

PETA also indicated it would like to kill the messanger.

Read the USA Today story here.

Remember, this is the group that stormed the Westminster Dog Show last year to oppose people who own purebred dogs.

WINTER SPORTS — Today's story about students rescuing a snowshoer's bluetick coonhound lost in the Kettle Range for two nights offers a life lesson to all of us.

Helping other people can be remarkably easy and productive if we just make the effort to try.

Think about what we could accomplish if everyone looked for a way to contribute every day rather than leaving it to somebody else.

See post-rescue photos here.

CONSERVATION — Aldo Leopold, widely recognized as the father of professional wildlife management, was born Rand Aldo Leopold in Burlington, Iowa, 125 years ago this month.

His ideas remain as relevant today as they were in his own time.

Leopold's legacy involves his idea of “a land ethic,” which he famously penned in his classic book, A Sand County Almanac.

“A land ethic,” he wrote, “changes the role of Homo sapiens from conquerer of the land community to plain member and citizen of it. It implies respect for his fellow-members, and also respect for the community as such.”

Garrison Keillor recognized Leopold's birthday on NPR last week: Listen here.

WILDLIFE — Critters have many adaptations for handling the rigors of winter. 

Some hibernate, some constantly look for food. Some develop thick winter coats to stave off the cold while some others change color to be better predators or less vulnerable prey.

Creatures that change colors include two hares – the snowshoe hare and the white-tailed jackrabbit – and three members of the weasel family —  the least weasel, as well as the long-tailed and short-tailed weasels.

Montana and Washingtton also have the white-tailed ptarmigan, a bird that turns pure white in winter.

Bruce Auchley of Montana, Fish Wildlife and Parks has more details on the weasels and hairs.  Read on…           

WILDLIFE — Gov. Butch Otter cried wolf by declaring the predators a “disaster emergency” in Idaho last year, according to The Wildlife Society, the international organization of wildlife professionals.

The group's newsletter editors ranked that story No. 1 in their list of Top 10 Wildlife News Stories for 2011.

Other top stories include white-nose syndrome in bats plus stories on wolves, pronghorns and my column in The Spokesman-Review about a Wenatchee-area trail-cam that caught eight cougars in one photo. (Unfortunately, the Wildlife Society linked to a watered-down rewrite by somebody else.)

Read on to see the group's top wildlife stories.

HAPPY HOLIDAYS from the great outdoors. This video from Idaho Fish and Game captures some of the beauty of the season.

WILDLIFE RESEARCH — A recent study published in the Journal of Wildlife Management confirmed that wolverines regularly patrol a vast mountain territory.

Eight years of radio-tracking 30 individual wolverines in the Rocky Mountains has provided an abundance of new data about the world's largest member of the weasel family, including that the feisty mammals survive year-round in harsh, snowy conditions 9,000 feet above see level.

See details and photos in this report from Mongabay.com.

Although immeasurably tough, the animal is nearly extinct in the lower 48 states of the U.S.

WILDLIFE CONSERVATION — Good things don't always come quick and easy.

Hunters and other conservationists are reminded of that this week as a deal closed to seal four years of negotiations by a partnership of conservation groups and state agencies. The project blocks up and protects about 10,000 acres of public land for big-game and other wildlife in the east and central Cascades.

The deal has foresight to secure the real estate elk and other critters need from winter to summer range.

The Washington Fish and Wildlife Commission approved the most recent purchase in November, using funding from the Washington Wildlife and Recreation Grant Program.

But the negotiations and original purchases of land were undertaken by the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation and The Nature Conservancy. The land was purchased from Plum Creek Timber Company to prevent the land from being developed or subdivided as well as to maintain public access.

The first phase of the project was completed in 2009, securing 2,675-acres.

Read on for details from a just-issued RMEF media release a day after the final phase of the deal was closed.

WILDLIFE — Imagine the surprise of a cable TV technician who made a service call to a New Jersey man's home and found a 550-pound bear snoozing in the dirt-floor cellar.  The bear had been living there for weeks and had brought in twigs and leaves to make a cozy nest.

The repairman said he heard a growl, and saw an enormous black bear waking up in the corner. He didn’t stick around to make friends with the animal.

“I just freaked out, threw my tools, ran out of the basement,” he told reporters.

Animal Control officers were able to tranquillize the bear and relocate him to nearby public land.

WILDLIFE — This video has been around for awhile, but it's worth posting again to illustrate how marvelously adaptive wildlife can be. 

WILDLIFE SCIENCE — A Kettle Falls-area polar bear scientist is one of 29 leading conservationists internationally who are in contention for next year’s $100,000 Indianapolis Prize.

Steven Amstrup moved to Stevens County about a year ago when he retired from the U.S. Geological Survey’s Alaska Science Center in Anchorage.

Thanks to an accommodating polar bear, he arrived with both legs.

Read the story by S-R reporter John Craig.