Feds challenge pelican plan
WILDLIFE – Federal officials have told the Idaho Fish and Game Department officials that their plan to halve the number of pelicans nesting in southern and eastern Idaho by 2013 to boost fisheries is an “eradication program” that needs more work.
The Idaho Fish and Game Commission in May approved a five-year plan to kill and haze American white pelicans in southeastern Idaho to protect sport fish and Yellowstone cutthroat trout populations. The plan calls for shooting some pelicans and applying oil to eggs to suffocate the embryos.
Pelicans are protected under federal law, so anything to cut their numbers requires U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service approval.
“We didn’t feel the management plan had enough data in it right now to issue the permits required,” Brad Bortner, the Fish and Wildlife Service’s migratory birds chief in Portland, said Wednesday.
Associated Press
Bear feeder gets punished
WILDLIFE – A woman who fed the black bears that came to her house near Newport on the Oregon coast and then asked wildlife officers to help remove them has been ordered to leave her home for three years.
The Oregonian reported that Lincoln County Circuit Judge Thomas Branford sentenced 61-year-old Karen Noyes of Yachats to three years of probation after a jury convicted her of harassing wildlife.
Branford spoke for more than 30 minutes during the Thursday sentencing hearing for Noyes, calling her behavior stunning and offensive.
Associated Press
Lousy deer issue
WILDLIFE – A mule deer recently found dead near Riggins was infested with Bovicola tibialis, an exotic louse not previously reported in Idaho.
Infestations of native lice are not uncommon on deer and elk, Idaho Fish and Game officials say. But the exotic lice, possibly imported with exotic fallow deer, have been associated with hair-loss syndrome and ailing deer in Washington and Oregon in 2007 and 2008.
Some population declines have been recorded in Washington.
Infested deer tend to chew off the tips of their outer hair, exposing the under hair, which is much lighter and can make the animals appear white.
Rich Landers