Saturday, October 15, will mark the 19th annual Docent Day, an educational event for local park docents, interpreters, trail guides, and naturalists – all volunteers helping to maintain and enhance Orange County’s extensive park system. The event is hosted by OCWild.org, and will offer sessions covering a variety of topics taught by specialists in their fields.
Laguna Greenbelt, Inc., will be teaching about local wildlife corridors, and in particular, the Coast to Cleveland Wildlife Corridor in central Orange County. Corridors provide essential ecological connections between park lands, which otherwise would become islands of habitat in a fragmented urban landscape. Volunteers choosing this session will receive an introduction to corridors, and then dive into a detailed look at why the Coast to Cleveland Wildlife Corridor is an important link between OC’s cherished coastal wild lands and the Santa Ana Mountains. Additional sessions will cover nature writing, bird walks, insect diversity and habitat restoration, among others.
Docent Day will be held at Santiago Oaks Regional Park from 8am – 2:30pm. Cost is $15 to attend. To reserve a space, call (949) 497-7647 or email winter.bonnin@parks.ca.gov.
In case you missed it, earlier this year one of Orange County’s local newspapers featured the journey of the Coast to Cleveland Wildlife Corridor. The piece is now available on the the OC Register’s website. Enjoy!
We know that climate change is causing big changes all over the globe in our natural environment. But what exactly does that mean for animal migrations?
Using a collection of data from electronic circuit theory, Dan Majka at The Nature Conservancy created a map to show macro-scale animal migrations expected in the Americas as climate change marches forward.
Land and development planners can assist resiliency in animal populations by bringing more connectivity to landscapes through proven methods…think protected habitat corridors and animal crossings over barriers (such as roads).
Check it out the interactive map at The Nature Conservancy’s blog here.
Fences are an important tool for conservation planners. A study published in 2016 shows that the location and length matter when trying to prevent human-animal collisions along roads.
It’s common to see posts on social media imploring friends to care for lonely and sick pets. But what about the plight of our local wildlife that have become sick after eating smaller mammals (such as rodents) that has ingested rat poison?
The same agency officials charged with coordinating pet adoptions sometimes find wild animals in need of help. In Orange County, animal control departments know to call Dr. Scott Weldy, a local veterinarian who specializes in wild and exotic animal health. Dr. Weldy directs the medical care of these animals in partnership with agencies like the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, United States Geological Survey (USGS), and the Santa Ana Zoo under the guidance of strict federal and state laws to treat sick animals.
In September 2015, Dr. Weldy treated a young male bobcat suffering from mange, a skin mite infestation often found in predator animals that have ingested rat poison.
Dick Newell, a wildlife expert with local nonprofit OC Trackers who sometimes receives reports of wildlife sightings, stated that “On July 2, 2015, I began receiving reports of a sick bobcat’ in an Irvine neighborhood adjacent to a natural area.” Conversations with multiple people who had seen the cat suggested this male bobcat had mange. Months went by, and on September 8, 2015, Mr. Newell again received reports of an extremely sick male bobcat, assumed to be the same one due to proximity to former sightings.
Photo showing mange September 19, 2015
The 15-pound young adult male bobcat was captured soon after by local animal control and placed into the care of USGS, who gave him the name, BNX (or for convention, Binx). Dr. Weldy and colleagues were tasked with treating Binx for mange. Weldy’s team gave him a thorough exam, which included recording measurements and fitting Binx with a light lavender/pink ear tag to help identify him.
Anticoagulant Rodenticides Linked to Mange and Wildlife Poisoning
Bobcats (Lynx Rufus) are native to Southern California and continental North America, and have historical significance in Native American and early European folklore. These spotted felines have ‘bobbed’ tails. Adults can reach 20 pounds, and are sometimes mistaken for large house cats. Bobcats live mostly solitary, quiet lives, avoiding humans…spotting a bobcat is rare. However, these predators are essential for maintaining the balance to ensure the beauty and resilience of local wilderness parks.
In recent years, bobcats in southern California have been showing signs of health problems, especially mange – a disease caused by parasitic mites that burrow into the skin and debilitate the animal. Mange is associated with a weakened immune system; Researchers who have studied bobcats and coyotes throughout the state have found that animals with mange have often ingested certain types of rodenticides, a class of pest control chemicals commonly used to kill rodents in urban areas.
These poisons, sometimes referred to as super toxic poisons, superwarfarins or second generation anticoagulant rodenticides, are designed to disable the body’s blood clotting ability. The Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) states on their website that “Second-generation anticoagulants — including the compounds brodifacoum, bromadiolone, difethialone and difenacoum — are especially hazardous and persist for a long time in body tissues. These slow-acting poisons are often eaten for several days by rats and mice, causing the toxins to accumulate at many times the lethal dose in their tissues and poisoning predators that eat the weakened rodents.”
Predators such as bobcats, coyotes, owls, and other birds of prey suffer from mange, internal bleeding, a weakened immune system, dehydration, starvation, and eventually death. The CBD states the poisoning of more than 25 species throughout California has been documented.
Binx: Hope For the Future
Binx was released after many weeks under care, near his capture location in Irvine, and has since been spotted by local wildlife photographers, to the delight of wildlife enthusiasts. In some photos taken on New Year’s Eve in 2015 in an Irvine wetland, Binx looked robustly healthy, flashing his pink/lavender ear tag as he strutted across a boardwalk.
Erin Boydston, a research ecologist at USGS, notes that cases of bobcats that are treated and released are rare, and it’s helpful to have a chance to examine these cats to get a better picture of the issues they face in the wild. A bobcat with mange that is treated and released is a success story, since some animals with mange never recover.
The use of rodenticides is currently being challenged throughout the state and the nation. Effective 2014, the State of California banned direct-to-consumer sales of second generation anticoagulant rodenticides. However, licensed exterminators and farmers may still use the poisons. The EPA also banned retail sales of these second generation rodenticides in 2015, but continue to allow their use commercially.
Some advocates hope to see even stricter controls. Assemblymember Richard Blook (D-Santa Monica) will introduce AB 2596 in the spring of 2017, which would ban the use of second-generation as well as some first-generation rodenticides throughout the state.
Hopefully, Binx is still out there, healthy and robust. Predators like Binx are essential to keep our rodent population in check and our ecosystems in balance. Could he be the new Orange County mascot?
*Note to the public and photographers: Information about our wildlife and photos helps agencies manage wildlife and their habitats. Please report any sightings of a bobcats to OC Trackers via their online tool at: http://www.octrackers.com/bobcatsightings.htm.
Endangered species are all around us, including our own back yards. Our friends over at Endangered Habitats League are inviting the community to participate in learning about endangered species on May 20, 2016. Check out their website to learn how you can be involved in a learning event near you. This is the perfect opportunity to educate yourself, other adults, and children in your life about how to protect endangered species all around the globe.
Started in 2006 by the United States Congress, Endangered Species Day is the third Friday in May.
Learn more about events near you, share an e-card, and access more teaching resources here.
Here at Laguna Greenbelt, Inc., we like to share blog posts from outside sources that are informative on the issues of wildlife corridors.
Our friends at Oregon Wild do a great job of describing wildlife corridors and why they are important for the resiliency and health of our ecosystems. We look forward to a time when our own Coast to Cleveland Wildlife Corridor in Irvine, California is completed and connecting coastal and mountain habitats in our community.
Here’s some Sunday reading about Jim Dilley and the history behind the Laguna Greenbelt and our 22,000 acres of South Coast Wilderness Preserve. Featuring Laguna Greenbelt, Inc.’s own Bob Borthwick!
Last week, Harry Huggins, a Director at Laguna Greenbelt, Inc., spoke to the Southern California Association of Governments (SCAG), a regional association that helps the six counties in southern California coordinate planning efforts in transportation, sustainable development, and other issues. As SCAG works on the next iteration of the Regional Transportation Plan (RTP) and Sustainable Communities Strategy (SCS) – documents that will guide our region’s future development – community members’ comments can help the agency better understand the needs of our region. More information about SCAG’s process for updating the RTP/SCS can be found here. Thanks, Harry, for voicing the need to incorporate wildlife corridors into our urban landscapes! An excerpt of his speech is below:
“Wildlife corridor awareness is blossoming at many levels of government in California, from the recent passage of SB498 to efforts at CalTrans to incorporate connectivity into new projects. I know that SCAG has already supported efforts in Los Angeles County at Liberty Canyon to create a wildlife corridor over the 101 Freeway. Kudos for your fine work, but know that this is just one of many efforts underway across the region to connect natural lands to one another. Wildlife Corridors are very important to the region and its biodiversity because they allow species to migrate, forage and expand genetic diversity. Personally, I think this is what we all want for our families.
Right now, my organization is part of a coalition that is re-establishing an important connection between two protected open spaces: the Laguna Coast and the Santa Ana Mountains. Wildlife populations suffer dramatically when they do not have enough room to roam, cannot find suitable mates, don’t have appropriate nurseries for their young, or aren’t able to repopulate nearby natural lands after an ecological disaster (like a fire or flood in their own territory). Completing this Coast to Cleveland Connection—a wildlife corridor— will correct a planning error. It may also help the region to better cope with changes caused by climate change, a concern that the State of California is addressing on many fronts.
The 2016 RTP/SCS would be stronger if it supported the enhancement of and/or protection of documented and regionally significant wildlife corridors, especially those that are impacted by infrastructure projects. Our wildlife know no geographical-political boundaries, so let’s work together to connect our landscapes.”
-Harry Huggins, Board Director, Laguna Greenbelt, Inc.
