Coffee and Provocation

Fox Mortality in Illinois

From Bioone:  "Mange was the most common (45% of all fatalities) source of mortality for urban foxes, followed by road kill (31%). We recorded only 4 mange fatalities (2%) for rural foxes. Rural foxes experienced low hunting mortality (7%) and equivalent road kill and coyote predation fatalities (40% each)."

No Need to Smile for the Camera
Terrific photos of peoples with little Western contact. Check it out!

Wolf-safe Beef?

Wolf-safe is not only possible, it does not even require high-tech investment. It seems that lights, strips of nylon, dogs, and a human presence are all that is needed most of the time. Of course, that last bit (the human presence) is a problem if your economic model for cattle is based on turning your stock out on National Forest land and then not visiting them at all for the next five months.

3-D Printing for Conservation Science?

Will 3-D printing technology produce better fake eggs for bird behavior studies?  Maybe.  In other news, a San Francisco biotech startup has managed to 3-D print fake rhino horns that carry the same genetic fingerprint as the actual horn. It plans to flood Chinese market with these cheap horns to curb poaching, but some folks are more than cautious, noting that sales of synthetic horn reinforces the notion that the horns have any medicinal value at all, does not reduce the demand for rhino horn, and could lead to more poaching because it increases the demand for “the real thing.”

Accidental Re-Wilding

In places once thick with farms and cities, human dispossession and war has cleared the ground for nature to return. I have written about this before, but Aeon has a very good article noting a few more locations, such as Slovenia.

Get Up Early Or Be a Cuckold?

Late-rising birds become cuckolds. Males that wake up the earliest are able to sneakily mate with other birds’ partners. Males that sleep in, meanwhile, get stuck raising young that aren’t their own.