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Outdoor Life: The final deer hunt

Four Arrested in Killings of Eagles and Other Protected Birds

Undercover investigation reveals significant black market for feathers and other bird parts

Four men have been arrested by special agents of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service as the result of an undercover investigation into the illegal killing and trade of bald and golden eagles and other protected birds, as well as their feathers and parts, the Justice Department and the Fish and Wildlife Service announced today.  The men are charged with alleged violations of the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act, the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, and the Lacey Act. Read more

Proposed Rule Clarifies Hunting Rule Changes at National Wildlife Refuges

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service today published in the Federal Register a proposed rule that modifies language regarding existing hunting programs at 76 national wildlife refuges, including three refuges in the California and Nevada Region. The proposed rule has a 30-day public comment period. The Service hopes to finalize the rule in time for the early winter and early spring 2008-2009 hunting seasons. Read more

350,000 deer must be culled in UK each year

By Nick Britten, Daily Telegraph, UK

The deer population in Britain has risen sharply in recent years and is now between 1.5 and 2 million.

The boom in numbers has lead to an increasing number of motorists being injured in collisions with the animals on the road.

They are also causing damage to the countryside.

Now conserviationists say a cull is the only viable option.

Ashdown Forest, in East Sussex, which has several thousand Fallow Deer, about two dozen Roe Deer, large numbers of Muntjac and a small herd of Sika, has the highest number of deer-vehicle collisions in Britain.

In 2000 rangers attended 100 collisions involving deer compared to 266 in 2008, despite having fewer staff in 2008. The actual number of collisions is believed to be around 500 a year.

Dr Hew Prendergast, Clerk to the Conservators of Ashdown Forest, said: “The damage the deer are doing in the countryside and the numbers of casualties there are on the roads mean that something must be done.

No-one wants to blast deer to kingdom come for the hell of it but its better to have them killed humanely and sensitively than to let them die in agony on the side of a road.”

He added: “The logistics of fencing off all the roads are impossible really to consider so a reduction of the population as a whole needs to be done.”

Peter Watson, executive director of the Deer Initiative, said to keep the deer population static, 25 per cent needed to be culled every year.

With the deer population in Britain rising to up to two million, that requires around 350,000 deer to be culled.

Mr Watson said: “The impact of DVCs is far too high in relation to the number of deer. Deers have value but in some areas there are too many accidents and the balance is wrong.”

Culling is not seen as the only answer but is hugely effective.

A culling programme in Herefordshire in 2005 reduced the number of DVC on the A49 from 50 to zero the following year.

Mr Watson added: “Sometimes it’s the only way. There is no doubt that if you significantly reduce the deer population you can influence road traffic accidents.”

DVC hotspots include Ashdown Forest, The New Forest, Thetford Forest in Norfolk and Cannock Chase, Staffs.

Trevor Banham, Chief Wildlife Ranger for the Forestry Commission East of England, said at Thetford Forest, which has a deer population of around 14,000, they cull 25 per cent every year to keep numbers down.

Forced to deal around 200 DVCs, he said there was no need for an extra cull.

He added: “We do have accidents but deer are wild animals. You can’t fence them in.”

Deer by numbers:

100 – types of deer worldwide

310 – the number of degrees a deer can see thanks to eyes on the side of its head

40 – miles per hour, the average speed a deer can run

200 – the number of days a deer is pregnant for

20 – years, the average life expectancy

2 – the average sized litter

‘Four-eyed’ fish uses mirrors to see through deep sea gloom

By Murray Wardrop, Daily Telegraph, UK

The brownsnout spookfish, which lives at a depth of more than 3,000ft, has been identified as the only vertebrate to have developed mirrors rather than lenses to focus images.

The mirrors give the fish the edge over its predators because they allow it to detect flashes of light made by creatures in the deep in more detail than eyes with lenses can.

While the spookfish appears to have four eyes, it technically has two, each of which is split into two connected parts.

Living at such depths, between Samoa and New Zealand, the spookfish needs one half to point upwards giving a view of the ocean and potential food above.

The other half, which looks like a bump on the side of the fish’s head, points downwards.

These “diverticular” eyes are fitted with tiny mirrored plates, which are arranged so that the light entering the eye is reflected to a focused point on the retina. This allows the fish to see what lurks below it.

Professor Hans-Joachim Wagner, from Tuebingen University in Germany, made the discovery after examining the first living specimen ever landed, which he caught off the Pacific island of Tonga.

His research team used flash photography to confirm the fish’s upward and downward gazes.

Professor Julian Partridge, of Bristol University, who later conducted tests, confirmed it was the only vertebrate to have developed mirrors to see.

Prof Partridge said: “In nearly 500 million years of vertebrate evolution, and many thousands of vertebrate species living and dead, this is the only one known to have solved the fundamental optical problem faced by all eyes – how to make an image – using a mirror.

“Very little light penetrates beneath about 1000m of water and like many other deep-sea fish the spookfish is adapted to make the most of what little light there is.

“At these depths it is flashes of bioluminescent light from other animals that the spookfish are largely looking for. The diverticular eyes image these flashes, warning the spookfish of other animals that are active, and otherwise unseen, below its vulnerable belly.”

Prof Partridge made a computer simulation showing that the precise orientation of the plates within the mirror’s curved surface is perfect for focusing reflected light on to the fish’s retina.

He added: “The use of a single mirror has a distinct advantage over a lens in its potential to produce bright, high-contrast images.

“That must give the fish a great advantage in the deep sea, where the ability to spot even the dimmest and briefest of lights can mean the difference between eating and being eaten.”

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