By Chad Love

Ever wonder why squirrels are such feisty little critters, relative to their size? As it turns out, it might all be in the genes...

From this story on CNN:

As suggested in the "Ice Age" movies, some crazy-looking creatures roamed the planet millions of years ago. But there is a large gap in the fossil record from about 60 million to 120 million years ago when it comes to mammals in South America. Where were they, and what did they look like?

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By Chad Love

A wildlife biologist with a history of advocating feral cat control to protect wild birds was recently found guilty of animal cruelty for allegedly trying to poison feral cats near her Washington, D.C. apartment.

From this story on sciencemag.org:

A former researcher at the Smithsonian National Zoo's Migratory Bird Center has been found guilty of misdemeanor attempted cruelty to animals for sprinkling poison atop cat food intended for feral cats living in Washington, D.C. Yesterday's verdict, delivered by a judge in the D.C. Superior Court, marks the latest turn in the prosecution of wildlife biologist Nico Dauphiné, an outspoken advocate of the need to protect bird populations from feral cats.
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By Hal Herring

“I truly believe that the Rocky Mountain Front Heritage proposal is one of the most thoroughly thought out plans I have ever seen. It doesn’t offend anyone or any group in any way. It truly leaves one of the world’s grandest remaining landscapes intact for future generations to experience and enjoy.”  -Roy Jacobs, hunter from Pendroy.

Have you ever driven south along the Rocky Mountain Front from Babb, Montana, with Chief Mountain towering from the plains, the peaks and snowfields of Glacier Park staggering off to the west? Or drift down the near-empty highway, pulling over to glass for grizzlies in the distant aspen thickets bonsai’ed by fierce wind, cold temperatures, snow and summer’s parching heat? You can stop in Browning for gas and a Coke before travelling across the ether-clear Badger Creek to the Two Medicine River. Then you can head to the willow-enclosed Dupuyer Creek, passing the signs beckoning you westward at every washboard turnoff -- Swift Dam, Blackleaf Canyon, Ear Mountain, Teton River, Sun River. It's a country vast enough for a lifetime of exploring and then some. [ Read Full Post ]

By Jim Baird

High in the Mackenzie Mountains, we spent two nights in the same camp. It was a hard, but necessary, decision to make.

We had been on this adventure less than a few hours when I wrecked my winch. Winding it in without tension quickly formed a bird’s nest of heavy steel cable. Our trailers were also looking a little worse for the wear. Rated to 2,000 pounds, I figured they could take all Canol could throw at them. I was sorely mistaken. Only a few days in and the rubber bins were bending, the axel welds were coming apart and the dump truck-like release in the hitch was completely broken.

We’d need two days at the same camp just to manage these repairs.
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By Chad Love

Radio-carbon dating on an ancient bone fragment has revealed that we've been hunting in North America about a thousand years prior to what we used to think.

From this story in the New York Times:

For many years, it was thought that the Clovis people were the first humans to populate North America, about 13,000 years ago. But recently, evidence has suggested that other settlers arrived earlier, and a new study lends support to that hypothesis. The study, in the journal Science, finds that a mastodon rib with a bone point lodged in it dates back 13,800 years.

“It’s the first hunting weapon found pre-Clovis,” said the lead author, Michael R. Waters, an archaeologist at Texas A&M University. “These people were hunting mastodons.” The fossils had been discovered in the late 1970s at a dig known as the Manis site, near Sequim, Wash., by Carl Gustafson, an archaeologist at Washington State University. At the time, Dr. Gustafson proposed that the skeleton was about 14,000 years old and that hunters had killed the mastodon with a bone point.
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By Hal Herring

This morning, I received a press release from the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership about a new study defining the economic benefits and effects of outdoor recreation, conservation, and historical preservation efforts in our country. It reports that “the great outdoors and historic preservation generate a conservative estimate of more than $1 trillion in total economic activity and support 9.4 million jobs each year. “

I hope people will take the time to actually read and ponder what is revealed here. So much of it, if we think about it, is common sense-- we all know (or are) someone who owns or works in an outdoor store, or as a guide or outfitter, or who has recently bought a boat or upgraded fishing tackle or guns. The money is there, it’s moving through the economy, and it is dependent on having healthy and protected lands and waters to use that tackle or shoot those guns (imagine the miniscule percentage of the economy in France, or China that is generated from hunting and fishing- then look at the US figures in the linked study).
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