Tag Archives: Utah

American Gunnison sage-grouse in danger

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This video is about the Gunnison sage-grouse in the USA.

Formerly lumped with the Gunnison sage-grouse as a single species until a formal split in 2000, the greater sage grouse is the largest grouse in North America and has impressive courtship displays that draw both prospective mates and curious birders every year: here.

From the Cornell Lab of Ornithology in the USA:

Fish and Wildlife Service Seeks Public Comment on Gunnison Sage-Grouse

In a New York Times op-ed today, Cornell Lab director John Fitzpatrick tells the Gunnison Sage-Grouse‘s remarkable story of discovery and disappearance. Known for centuries to the inhabitants of modern-day Colorado and Utah, it was only formally described as a new species in 2000—despite the bird’s flamboyant displays and former popularity as a gamebird. As the bird’s numbers continue to fall from changes to its sagebrush habitat, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is weighing listing the species under the Endangered Species Act—a move that would trigger important protections. To aid their decision they’ve issued a call for public comments, which are due by March 12. Read the article.

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California condor dies, killed by lead?

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This video is called Flying giants–rare California condors return to Utah skies.

From Wildlife Extra:

Dead condor found in Zion National Park in Utah

Lead poisoning suspected

January 2013. The Peregrine Fund, a driving force behind the conservation of Californian condors, had been hopeful that a pair of condors in Zion National Park would produce the first offspring in the state for many years.

A Peregrine Fund spokesman said “Our hopeful pairing of adult condors 299 and 343 to be the first successful Utah pair has been hampered over the past few years by us having to treat one of them for lead poisoning during breeding season. Sadly, we have now found the adult 9-year-old female (Condor 343) dead in Zion National Park in Utah. This is a major step back from Utah’s first breeding.”

Official necropsy results are pending to determine cause of death, but this year’s trapping results show a very high rate of lead poisoning in almost all of the Utah foraging birds.

Condor population

There are just 400 Californian condors alive today, of which around 175 are in captivity. The California condor has recovered from only 22 birds left in the world in 1982 to around 400 today. The original 22 birds were captured in an effort to breed and save the species. Condors bred and raised in captivity are now periodically released at sites in California, Mexico and at the Vermilion Cliffs in Arizona.

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Wildlife crossing in Utah, USA

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This video from Utah in the USA is called Highway Crossing Structures for Wildlife.

From Wildlife Extra:

New road bridges mean fewer deer being killed on roads – So they can be shot?

Deer crossing structures appear to be working

October 2012. Two wildlife crossing structures have allowed more than 300 deer to cross safely under two busy roads so far this year. The two crossings are just two examples of crossings across Utah that are reducing the number of deer that are hit and killed by vehicles. Utah State University (USU) is leading studies to determine the effectiveness of wildlife crossing structures across the state.

Sardine Canyon

U.S. Highway 91 was widened through Sardine Canyon in the mid-1990s. When it was widened, several features, including wildlife culverts, fencing and wildlife escape ramps, were installed to try to reduce the number of deer that were hit by cars.

Initial crossing didn’t work

USU has monitored a culvert continuously since 2009 using cameras on both the west and east sides of the culvert’s entrance. USU’s initial findings indicated that the culvert wasn’t as effective as it could be. The way a fence was designed near the culvert, and gaps in the fencing farther away from the culvert, were likely to blame, researchers said.

Fence improvement

In 2010 and 2011, personnel with the Utah Department of Transportation (UDOT) and the Division of Wildlife Resources (DWR), together with volunteers from the DWR’s Dedicated Hunter program, repaired the gaps in the fencing. They also improved the fence in the area near and around the culvert to increase the chance that more deer would find and use the culvert. Six months into 2012, it appears their efforts have worked. In the first six months of this year, 284 deer successfully used the culvert to cross under the busy highway.

“As deer in the area get used to the culvert,” says Pam Kramer, regional habitat biologist for the DWR, “we think even more deer will use it.”

Kramer says the DWR and UDOT are looking at additional ways to make the culvert even more inviting to mule deer.

Echo Junction

At Echo Junction in 2012, UDOT installed two new bridges over the Weber River on Interstate 80. A major feature of the newly constructed bridges was the installation of soil pathways under the bridges along both sides of the river. These pathways make it easier for wildlife and people to move under the bridges.

By May 2012, the bridges were complete and wildlife fencing was in place. UDOT and DWR personnel, and Dedicated Hunter program volunteers, built two wildlife escape ramps near the bridge. They also added fencing on private land to keep livestock from getting to the area under the bridge.

Although the bridge, pathways and fencing have only been in place for five to six months, and the fall migration of mule deer isn’t in full swing yet, a USU study has shown that 57 deer, including 20 fawns, have already used the pathways to successfully cross under this busy interchange.

Injured Utah baby golden eagle survives wildfire

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This young golden eagle, nicknamed Phoenix, is being cared for after suffering burns from a wildfire south of Salt Lake City in late June

From CNN in the USA:

Survival of injured baby golden eagle in Utah wildfire called ‘amazing’

By Phil Gast, CNN

July 8, 2012 — Updated 0141 GMT (0941 HKT)

The resilience of a burned baby golden eagle that survived a Utah wildfire is astounding wildlife rehabilitators nursing him back to health.

“The trauma and the injury and the situation he is in — to come out of it is amazing,” said DaLyn Erickson, executive director of the Wildlife Rehabilitation Center of Northern Utah in Ogden.

All of the eaglet’s feathers, even on his head, were charred. He also suffered burns to the feet and around his beak.

His improbable story began June 1, when a volunteer who documents eagles placed a band on the bird.

The Dump Fire erupted three weeks later, burning more than 5,500 acres south of Salt Lake City and west of Utah Lake.

Kent Keller returned in late June to the nest, built on the edge of the cliff, thinking he would recover the band from a deceased animal.

The nest on Lake Mountain was gone, the rocks behind it blackened by the blaze.

Keller then spotted legs and talons near a scorched juniper below.

Amazingly, the baby eagle was alive.

Near him were rabbit and squirrel carcasses, evidence his parents had tried to feed him after disaster struck. Fortunately, his eyes had not been burned.

Keller said he has thought of the horror the helpless nestling might have felt when flames approached.

“He had enough courage to jump from that nest and try to save himself anyway,” said Keller, 56, who describes himself as an amateur ornithologist. “He is a real fighter.”

The fall was about 25 feet, and the eagle probably walked back to the base of the cliff after rolling another 100 feet, said Keller.

The bird remained in the area for several days while Keller, who is authorized to band raptors, sought permission from federal and state authorities to obtain care for him.

On Wednesday, Keller handed the bird over to Erickson.

She and her staff dubbed the survivor “Phoenix” — a reference to the mythical creature that is reborn from the ashes.

There was no food in the craw of the dehydrated eagle, which weighed just over 5 pounds.

“He was lethargic and just obviously hurting,” Erickson told CNN on Saturday. “After we got him hydrated and medications, he perked up and that fire came back in him.”

Erickson said Phoenix, now about 70 days old, was a handful Saturday, lunging and using his talons as caregivers fed and provided antibiotics to the animal.

“He’s not grateful,” she quipped.

Rehabilitators limit their contact with the eagle so that he will not “habituate,” or become too comfortable around people. They use hydrotherapy to help the healing in his feet.

“He needs those for hunting. There are lots of tendons and muscles we need to protect,” said Erickson.

Golden eagles, which are protected, typically eat reptiles, birds and small mammals, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. They also are known to scavenge carrion.

Keller said golden eagle females are slightly smaller than the more-famous bald eagle and tend to hunt more and scavenge less. Their particular favorite prey in northern Utah is the black-tailed jackrabbit.

The resident of suburban Salt Lake City studies golden eagles and provides population information to state wildlife authorities. Erickson called Keller “the hero in this story.”

It’s too early to tell whether Phoenix will be able to fly in the wild. Rehabilitation will take at least a year and his feathers won’t fully molt until mid-2013.

“We are fairly confident, but there could be follicle damage we do not know about that would prevent feathers from coming in,” Erickson said.

The nonprofit center, which treats about 1,800 animals a year, is accepting financial and food donations to offset the cost of caring for the golden eagle.

“He is doing well and we are very positive about his outcome right now,” said Erickson. “(But) these types of things can turn at any moment.”

See also here.

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Dinosaur discoveries in Utah, USA

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This video from the USA says about itself:

The Hands On team heads to eastern Utah to check out the College of Physical and Mathematical Sciences’ dinosaur dig site.

This video is about dinosaur tracks near Moab, Utah, USA.

From Brigham Young University in the USA:

Crushed bones reveal literal dino stomping ground

Imagine the gruesome sound of bones snapping as a thirsty, 30-ton dinosaur tramples a heap of fresh carcasses on his way to a rapidly shrinking lake.

That’s the scene revealed by a painstaking analysis of thousands of bones unearthed near Moab, Utah by geologists from Brigham Young University.

So far the researchers have identified 67 individual dinosaurs representing 8 species – and they have only scratched the surface of this diverse quarry. Mysteriously, nearly all of the 4,200 bones recovered so far are fractured, as reported in the scientific journal Palaeo.

“Although enough bones were recovered to assemble several complete dinosaurs, the vast majority of bones are broken to bits and pieces, just pulverized,” said BYU professor Brooks Britt, lead author on the study.

The researchers reconstructed how the bones got there and why they are in such bad shape.

The quarry, located immediately west of Arches National Park, contains dinosaurs of all sizes and ages, indicating a massive die-off event. The location of this dense cluster of bones – near the shore of an ancient lake bed – suggests a drought was the cause.

Yet the biggest puzzle was the cause of all the fractures. A closer look revealed that most of the breaks were angled “greenstick” fractures that occur in fresh bones.

The bones broke before they became brittle.

IMAGE: The diagonal fracture in the ischium bone of a Venenosaurus suggests the break occurred when the bone was still fresh.

“Some of these bones were almost 5 feet long, and they are green, and you really have to work hard to shatter bone that’s still green,” Britt said. “That means the big boys were stepping on those things. Those would have been audible, big snaps.”

The heavy-footed culprits? Huge, plant-eating sauropods and iguanodontids that stomped more than 100 million years ago during the Early Cretaceous Period. Some of the sauropods from this quarry are cousins to the brachiosaurus.

The bones are now housed in BYU’s Earth Science Museum, which will re-emerge as the Museum of Paleontology during Homecoming weekend.

Museum curator Rod Scheetz, a co-author on the study, says the grand re-opening will include the debut of a 9-foot-long triceratops skull from Montana.

From National Geographic:

Many dinosaurs may be facing a new kind of extinction—a controversial theory suggests as many as a third of all known dinosaur species never existed in the first place.

That’s because young dinosaurs didn’t look like Mini-Me versions of their parents, according to new analyses by paleontologists Mark Goodwin, University of California, Berkeley, and Jack Horner, of Montana State University.

Dinosaur Tracks at Glen Canyon National Recreation Area Deemed “Important Discovery”: here.

Indian Impact Crater Hints of Another Dino-Killer: here.

THE FIRST DIPLODOCID FROM ASIA AND ITS IMPLICATIONS FOR THE EVOLUTIONARY HISTORY OF SAUROPOD DINOSAURS: here.

Dinosaur discovery in Utah, USA

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Nothronychus

From LiveScience:

Pot-Bellied Dinosaur Skeleton Found in Utah

By Jeanna Bryner, Senior Writer

posted: 14 July 2009 07:59 pm ET

The most complete skeleton of a type of pot-bellied dinosaur, a therizinosaur, has been discovered in southern Utah.

Such remains shed light on the evolution of leafy and meaty diets back in paleo times, suggesting that iconic predators like Velociraptor may have evolved from less fearsome plant-eating ancestors.

The newly discovered dinosaur, dubbed Nothronychus graffami, lived some 93 million years ago. When alive, the animal would have stood at 13 feet (4 meters) and sported a beaked mouth and forelimbs tipped with 9 inch- (22 cm)-long sickle claws.

Its stumpy legs, large gut and other features suggest the lumbering giant scarfed down plants rather than chasing after meaty prey.

“It takes a lot of gut-time to digest plants,” said lead researcher Lindsay Zanno of the Field Museum in Chicago. “Plant eaters have to develop long digestive tracts to get the energy they need to survive.”

Diet discovery

The dinosaur’s physical features match up with other so-called therizinosaurs, a mysterious group of dinosaurs now thought to be a type of maniraptoran dinosaur, which share a common ancestor with birds (though the two groups split some 150 million years ago, during the Jurassic Period).

While most theropods, such as Tyrannosaurus rex and Velociraptor, were meat eaters, the therizinosaurs likely consumed plants.

To figure out how both carnivorous and herbivorous diets evolved in theropods, Zanno and her colleagues compared the anatomy of the newly discovered dinosaur with specimens from 75 other theropod species. In doing so, the team found that plant-eating therizinosaurs like N. graffami are the most ancient group of maniraptorans.

That meant plant-eating was around early in the evolution of maniraptorans.

Early plant eating

Several maniraptoran lineages show adaptations for plant-eating, including the beaked ornithomimosaurs (ostrich-dinosaurs) and oviraptorosaurs (egg-thieves). So the team looked at herbivorous and carnivorous features in a sample of maniraptorans, finding the earliest species may already have been at least flirting with the idea of plant-eating.

“Before this we thought that plant-eating theropods like therizinosaurs were a rare occurrence,” Zanno told LiveScience. “We knew they must have evolved from meat-eaters somewhere in their ancestry, but before our study it seemed like plant-eating was the exception not the norm for maniraptoran theropods.”

Rather than a rarity, Zanno and her colleagues discovered that eating plants exclusively or in combination with meat can be traced back to the origins of the maniraptoran group as a whole.

“Many lineages of maniraptoran dinosaurs likely ate some amount of plants as part of their diet, and they probably inherited this ability from the common ancestor of the whole group,” Zanno said. “Thus, predatory maniraptoran dinosaurs like Velociraptor must have re-evolved exclusive meat-eating.”

The researchers speculate this ability to nab veggies may have allowed maniraptorans to move into new niches and diversify in ways they couldn’t when only meat was on the menu.

“Something happened early in the evolution of maniraptorans that is tied to their incredible diversity,” Zanno said. “The ability to feed on much more than just meat may have been one of several key innovations contributing to their ultimate success.”

The discovery is reported online July 15 in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences.

A typical therizinosaur–the gangly, long-clawed, pot-bellied theropods that have long baffled paleontologists–Erlikosaurus is one of the few of its type to have yielded a near-complete skull, from which experts have been able to infer its herbivorous lifestyle: here.

The most thorough skeleton of a kind of pot-bellied dinosaur, a therizinosaur, has been unearthed in southern Utah: here.

“Therizinosaur” isn’t a household name. This group of feathery dinosaurs hasn’t been around long enough to have the same cultural cachet as the tyrannosaurs, “raptors“, or other famous dinosaur tribes. But the therizinosaurs really do deserve more popularity. Although they were cousins of the carnivorous, sickle-clawed deinonychosaurs, the therizinosaurs were long-necked, pot-bellied omnivores and herbivores, albeit ones that had insanely long claws on their hands. They are some of the strangest dinosaurs ever found, and a track discovered in Alaska adds a few flourishes to our picture of the therizinosaurs: here.

Osteology of Falcarius utahensis (Dinosauria: Theropoda): characterizing the anatomy of basal therizinosaurs: here.

It was the biggest-ever carnivore to stalk the land and with banana-sized teeth and a set of jawbones that could swallow a kitchen table, Tyrannosaurus rex truly earned its name as king of the dinosaurs. But now scientists may have uncovered T.rex’s dirty secret – it was a prolific baby killer: here.

One of the more recent Oviraptor-like dinosaurs to be discovered in Central Asia, Heyuannnia differs from its Mongolian relatives in actually having been unearthed in China proper: here.

Pelecanimimus is what paleontologists call a “basal” ornithomimid, one that had less evolved features than the bigger, faster “bird mimic” dinosaurs of the late Cretaceous period (like Ornithomimus): here.