Bobcat in Late Afternoon Sun
Easy-Going Cat
Here’s a bobcat I photographed in the late afternoon. He was very patient with me. My kind of cat.
Puma, Torres del Paine National Park
Female Puma at Cave
I had been wanting to photograph mountain lions for a while, so in 2016 I went to Chile’s Torres del Paine National Park with two friends. This female became our most photographed subject. She was totally oblivious to us.
She was known as “Sister.” She had a female litter-mate who had no tail. Her litter mate was called, as you might guess, “Tail-less.” Tail-less became pretty well-known for a while. I guess Sister got her name because of her relationship with Tail-less. Anyway, by the time we were there in 2016 Tail-less had disappeared.
Fox Kit; Grand Teton National Park
Curious Fox Kit
This little kit was one of several living under a National Park Service building in Grand Teton. They played a lot in front of the building and entertained a number of photographers.
Flashback to Homer, Alaska, and the Bald Eagles
Three Eagles Out On A Limb
Time flies! It was 2009 when I went to Homer, Alaska, to photograph bald eagles with three friends from the Marin Camera Club, Dan Van Winkle, Kevin Westerlund and Gene Morita. Gene’s friend, John Isaac, joined us there. It was the last year Jean Keene would feed the bald eagles at her home on Kachemak Bay because she passed away that year.
Photographers from all over the world came to her place to photograph the eagles.
Bobcat, Point Reyes National Seashore
A Bobcat Daydreams
Here’s a bobcat I saw a few days ago at Point Reyes. The sun was shining in his eyes, so he kept them closed most of the time.
Blacktail Deer Clears Fence at Point Reyes National Seashore
Blacktail deer clears a fence at Point Reyes.
The most common way barbed-wire fences kill deer and elk is when they get their hind legs caught between the top two wires. If you were to picture how they might jump, you might think of how a human performs a swan dive with back legs pointed to the rear. But no, deer need to have their hind legs pointed forward immediately after beginning the jump so their hind legs hit the ground right after the front legs. The photo above illustrates this.
If the top wire isn’t cleared and there isn’t at least 12 inches between the top wires, then their hooves go under the second wire and the result is that the top wire and the second wire reverse positions as the deer gets caught and falls. That reversal is called “scissoring.” A good way to demonstrate this is to take a rubber band and stretch it between your thumb and index finger. Now take a pen or pencil and insert it between the top and lower band and rotate it 270 degrees.
The deer’s weight causes it to hang from the top two wires and it is impossible for the deer to free itself. If the wires are far enough apart scissoring won’t happen, although the deer may still get injured in falling, especially if a barb is in contact with one or both legs.
If you want to see an example of scissoring, click here.
This Point Reyes elk somehow got barbed wire tangled in his antlers. NPS informed me many weeks later that the wire somehow fell off. I hope so.
A bull tule elk has caught some barbed wire in his antlers. This can lead to injury or death.
This Point Reyes bull elk wasn’t so lucky.
Bull Elk Killed by Barbed Wire
The wire wrapped across the bridge of its nose and its lower jaw. Its mouth was wired shut and it died slowly from lack of food or water or both. Note how the wire worked its way half way through its lower jaw.
Fencing is dangerous for wildlife and doesn’t belong in a national park. Cattle and the business of ranching on national park lands don’t belong in a national park either.
Point Reyes National Seashore Sets World Record for Livestock Fence Height
Barbed Wire Fence Is 56 Inches High, Not the Preferred 40 Inches
On January 15 I wrote about a new fence along the reconstructed Sir Francis Drake Boulevard that runs from Estero Road to near Schooner Creek Road. It violates almost every rule for wildlife-friendly fencing even though NPS said in its FEIS that any new fences would be wildlife-friendly. The top wire is 48 inches high with 12 inches between each of the wires below it, leaving the bottom wire 12 inches above ground for deer fawns and elk calves to have to try to crawl under. They can’t do that, especially with barbed wire tearing their flesh.
On January 24 I drove out the reconstructed Sir Francis Drake Boulevard to Chimney Rock and the lighthouse and found further new fencing along it even worse than the fencing I wrote about on January 15 because it is absurdly high.
I listed the specs for a wildlife-friendly fence in my January 15 blog. Here they are again:
- The top wire should be low enough for adult animals to jump over, preferably no more than 40 inches, and “absolutely no more than 42 inches.”
- The distance between the top two wires should be “[a]t least 12 inches,” so elk and deer won’t tangle their back legs with the top wires; (For a photo showing what happens if the top two wires are not far enough apart, click here.)
- The bottom wire should be “at least 18 inches,” above the ground.
- The top and bottom strands should be “smooth wire” (like regular two strand twisted barbed wire, but without the added barbs) so animals don’t get snagged and injured.
- No vertical stays.
Also, the top wire should be made highly visible so mammals and birds see it when running and/or flying by using high visibility wire or sections of white pvc pipe, flagging or a top rail.
The top wire of the newest found fence here is 56 inches high with 12 inches between each of the wires below it, leaving the bottom wire 20 inches above ground. Put another way, the wires are 56, 44, 32 and 20 inches above ground. The top and bottom wires are not smooth; there is no flagging or anything else used to make the top wire visible to mammals and birds running and/or flying and there are not supposed to be any vertical stays.
So, what will it take for NPS to make this fence wildlife-friendly? The top wire needs to be removed because it is barbed and way too high. The wire below it, which is now 44 inches above ground, needs to be removed because it will be the top wire, but it is barbed so it can’t be used as the top wire, and because it is also too high so it needs to be lowered by 2 inches or, preferably, four inches. to 42 or 40 inches. That wire, as the new top wire, also needs to be made more visible. When that new top wire is installed, the wire below it, now at 32 inches above ground, will need to be lowered because, as the new second wire, it must be at least 12 inches below the new top wire. The bottom wire needs to be replaced because it is barbed, not smooth, and the vertical stays need to be removed.
As I think about the fences in the three articles I’ve written recently, what I’m most struck by is how NPS says new fencing will be wildlife-friendly and it doesn’t keep its word. Far from it. How can the public expect that appropriate construction specs and all the mitigation measures will be followed for new projects described in the FEIS? And, by the way, what about all the damage done in the past from ranching that still remains? No commitments were made in the FEIS to remediate past (and continuing) damage to water quality; native plants; soils (damaged and/or lost due to compaction, and erosion and resultant gullies); native fish and wildlife species, such as salmon, steelhead, pronghorns, ground squirrels; etc.
What is Superintendent Craig Kenkel’s response to all this? Ask him: Craig_Kenkel@nps.gov.
