Author: marcuscengland
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Pond Turtles Proposed for Federal Listing
Today, the US Fish and Wildlife Service proposed to list the Northwestern Pond Turtle (Actinemys marmorata) and Southwestern Pond Turtle (Actinemys pallida) as threatened under the Federal Endangered Species Act. At the time the agency initiated this listing process the two taxa were considered the same species, Western Pond Turtle, which is reflected in the…
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North Pacific Right Whale Critical Habitat to be Revised
On September 26, 2023 the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) announced a 12-month determination on a petition to revise the critical habitat designation for the North Pacific Right Whale (Eubalaena japonica) under the Endangered Species Act. The NMFS intends to revise critical habitat after receipt of a petition from the Center for Biological Diversity and…
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Wildlife Society Bulletin: California Condor Poisoned by Lead, Not Copper, When Both are Ingested
The September 2023 issue of The Wildlife Society’s Wildlife Society Bulletin contains a paper by Finkelstein et al. documenting the case of a California Condor that had ingested a lead fragment and copper bullet simultaneously. From the paper’s abstract: Lead poisoning from feeding on carcasses shot with lead-based ammunition is a well-known threat to wildlife.…
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Fish and Wildlife Service Announces 90-Day Findings for Five Species
Today, the United States Fish and Wildlife Service (Service) announced 90-day findings on petitions to add five species to the Lists of Endangered and Threatened Wildlife and Plants under the Endangered Species Act of 1973. The Service found that the petitions to list the following four species presented “substantial scientific or commercial information indicating that…
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Resumes Needed for On-Call Biologists
Overview of England|Ecology England|Ecology, LLC is a small high-quality biological consulting services provider based in Los Angeles. We are a forward-thinking company that serves clients with: The Need for Biologists 2023 is year 1 of operating as an LLC with our business plan anticipating 2024 (year 2) as the first year where on-call assistance by…
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Discovering New Yard Birds at Night
A serious interest of mine is the use of autonomous recording units (ARU) to document bat (not covered here) and bird fauna. It was about a month ago that I received my first ARU. I deployed it in my front yard for 24 hours, but then outside of a few quick manual checks of the…
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Cuba – The End
Day 8 – Hasta la Victoria Siempre We assembled early on January 12 to board the bus for the long drive to Havana. As for prior driving days, we enjoyed getting to view a broad swath of the Cuban countryside. First, however, we had to get to the Cuban mainland and getting there required a…
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Cuba – Day 7 – Murciélagos de Discoteca
I woke up on January 11 feeling well-rested, which may have been because of the air conditioning and the plushest bed I’d slept in since home. That was a good thing because with this many consecutive days of non-stop birding I was getting a bit tired, yet feeling a bit rejuvenated by being close to…
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Anna’s Hummingbird on its Nest
On Monday, March 27 I was performing a general biological survey for a proposed project. Other than looking for raptor and corvid nests that may be reused in the future I was not actively performing a nesting bird survey as any project that might impact them was far into the future. Nevertheless, it was clear…
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Cuba – Day 6 – Por un Socialismo Próspero y Sostenible
Tuesday, January 10, was another driving day. Still, we looked for birds en route. Our first stop was at a nearby wetland. Driving a good distance east we had a restroom and fuel stop at Cienfuegos, stopping again at Jardín Botánico de Cienfuegos in a failed search for Gundlach’s Hawk. We then continued up the…