Keystone XL Pipeline and Wildlife: Investigative Huntress Reports.

Remember this: As a hunter, when there is a potential threat to the quarry you hunt, find out what is at stake to disappear, or lower your standard of hunting. No quarry, no hunt.

With this post I am using this link as sourced material:
http://keystonepipeline-xl.state.gov/draftseis/index.htm

The whole purpose of this blog is to investigate hunting issues or concerns. The theme of hunting is born out of the realization that to hunt you need quarry, areas to hunt, necessary tools, and compromised/uncompromised conditions. What if there existed a foreseeable question as to the health, welfare, and longevity of one of those attributes? Mainly quarry. 

What hunter/huntress would not want to have a vested interest in that topic? Here you have the opportunity to join up with non-hunters that believe that wildlife, habitat and your environment is worth safe-guarding. There are no enemies here. What you do is let the world know your concerns that way if someone in the XL pipeline sector doesn't keep up their maintenance schedule, or overseeing the line they can't cry foul. I question what person wants to go down in history as the 'most hated president' either but we have had some real contenders for that title. 

The above photo illustrates there is an existing pipeline from Canada at Winnepeg, but after the pipeline generates itself out of Calgary's area that would mean the pipeline from Calgary to Winnepeg could be closed because why have two pipelines pumping to the same destination? If that pipeline were to close that would mean that Canada would have less ground line for the pipeline if something were to happen excluding the damage in the Tar Sands Region. 

Even if the Enbridge Northern Gateway (which in this is proposed and I have yet to check) doesn't go through that would mean most of the transfer across country would be done on American soil at TransCanadian benefit. If that is the case maybe they should be getting charged for that so we can pay off our national debt? Either way if TransCanada's faux oil pipeline ship should run afoul on American soil will there be any restitution for the damage to our once pristine land while Canada doesn't suffer other than the damage it has already done to itself or monetarily?

Can you imagine if some kind of war broke out and someone opened a match on that thing to watch it burn a line across America? Love speculation. What better way to screw a country by dividing it with a pipeline? An unassuming bomb? Interesting or as Johnny Cash put it 'Ring of Fire' which could do a loop back to Winipeg from Alberta.

With this post I wanted to disclose which quarry would be in trouble if things were to go South on any given part of the Keystone XL oil pipeline.  Mind you wildlife does not have any concept of boundaries. Wildlife has no concept of legal ownership through survey of a piece of property that is registered at the tax office by a citizen.

In the section in the link 4.6.3.1 Big Game Species it is as quoted, "Construction of the proposed Project could impact hunter success rates with the Project area. Hunting could be adversely affected due to construction activities ocurring during hunting seasons, primarily due to the displacement of big game animals from construction and noise disturbances. Once the proposed pipeline is constructed, harvest rates could potentially increase after construction because of increased access by hunters using the pipeline ROW to access remote areas (Comer 1983). In addition, big game species that use a cleared ROW could be more likely to be hunted than animals in forested habitat. Increased hunting along cleared ROWs in the fall hunting season has been documented elsewhere (Crabtree 1984)."

If this is likely then it makes it to easy to hunt an animal because you are sitting on a pipeline which could result into a barrier to fence them in thereby possibly obliterating 'fair chase'. On the other hand if human disturbance stresses out the slow breeders then there might be some concern with taking animals during a season due to low birth rates. Something to consider.

Big Game Animals Possibly affected:
Pronghorn Antelope
Bighorn Sheep
Elk (as of the time of this impact study it was noted there was a re-establishment program going on) in Montana, South Dakota and Nebraska.
American Bison (States that there is no free-ranging bion in the propsed Project route.)
Mule Deer
Whitetail Deer

Note quoted on Big Game Species 4.6.3.1 from above link:

"Construction activities could result in increased agitation, physiological stress, and use of sub-optimal habitat. Animals can become physiologically stressed when energy expenditures increase due to alarm or behavioral avoidance (Lutz et al. 2011). These responses are often attributed to interactions with humans or activities associated with human presence such as traffic and noise. Physiological stress diverts time and energy away from critical activities such as foraging and resting, both of which are important to maintain or improve fitness (Gill et al 1995,  Frid and Dill 2002).
Construction of the proposed Project may alter migration routes and displace wildlife from preferred habitats (Sawyer et al. 2006) by creating barriers that hinder migration and use of these  habitats (Sawyer et al. 2009)" 

"In the northern portions of their range, white-tailed deer, mule deer and elk may aggregate or yard during winter in stream bottoms, on south-facing slopes, or in other areas where snow accumulations are reduced. In Nebraska, where the proposed pipeline ROW has been modified to avoid the Nebraska Department of Environmental Quality-identified Sand Hills Region, white-tailed deer, mule deer, elk, and pronghorn are principal big game animals that occur along the proposed Project route."

"The proposed Project has been designed to avoid impacts to many state and federally managed areas within the vicinity of the Project area. In Nebraska, all state-managed Wildlife Management Areas that provide protected habitats for wildlife have been avoided. These areas are all more than 500 feet from the proposed Project centerline."

I sat back and pondered thoughtfully if Ranger X was going to go out and sit the Wildlife down and explain to them that there will be no migration off of Wildlife Managed Areas. I wondered to myself does a Bison or an Elk really understand the '500 yard rule'? I then wondered in what land I was walking because I then contrived if the oil should come out of that pipe was there a command that TransCanada had taught pipeline oil to 'stay put there on the ground and not move'?

Moving on.

Below is a list of assorted animals. Glance down through it and see if you hunt any of these.

Small game and furbearers:
Cottontail (Sylvilagus floridanus)
Mountain Cottontail (Sylvilagus muttallii)
Coyote (Canis Latrans) ~on the fence with this one.
Virginia opossum (Didelphis virginiana)
Raccoon (Procyon lotor)
Red Fox (Vulpes vulpes)
Squirrel (Sciurus spp.)
American Beaver (Castor canadensis)
American Mink (Neovision vision)
Least Weasel (Mustela nivalis)
American Badger (Taxidea taxus)
Black Tailed Jackrabbit (Lepus californicus)
Bobcat (Lynx rufus)
Common muskrat (Ondatra zibethicus)
Desert Cottontail (Sylvilagus audubonii)
Eastern Cottontail (Sylvilagus floridanus)
Eastern Fox Squirrel (Sciurus niger)
Eastern Gray Squirrel (Sciurus carolinensis)
Eastern spotted skunk (Spilogale putorius)
Franklin's ground squirrel (Spermophilus franklinii)
Gray fox (Urocyon vinereoargenteus)
Long tailed weasel (Mustela nivalis)
Mink (Mustela vision)
Nutria (Myocaster coypus)
North American porcupine (Erethizon dorsatum)
River Otter (Lontra canadensis)
Spotted Ground Squirrel (Spermophilus spilisoma)
Souther Flying Squirrel (Glaucomys volans)
Striped skunk (Mephitis mephitis)
Thirteen-lined ground squirrel (Spermophilus tridecemlineatus)
Virginia opossum (Dipelphis virginiana)
White-tailed jackrabbit (Lepus townsendii)

Small game and furbearers would suffer:
Nest/burrow destruction
Abandonment
Loss of young
Foraging/Cover habitat
Displacement
Could fall into open trench during pipeline construction causing injury or death
Could be attracted by change in ground temperature


Birds Possibly Affected :
Hawks
Eagles
Turkey Vulture
Osprey
Ducks/Geese
Chimney Swift
Nighthawks
Plovers Killdeer
Gulls, Terns
Sandpipers, Snipe, Woodcock
Dovers
Belted Kingfisher
Cuckoos
Kestrels, Merlins, Falcons
Common Loon
Northern Bobwhite
Upland Game Birds (Pheasants, Grouse, Turkey)
Cranes
Coots and Rails
Rock Pigeon
Snow Goose
Sharped Tailed Grouse
Northern Bobwhite
Greater sage-grouse
gray patridge
Mourning dove
American woodcock

Migratory and Non-Migratory birds affected by:
Destruction of nesting area
Nest or burrow abandonment
loss of eggs or young
death
Habitat loss
Alteration
Fragmentation
Degradation of habitat after revegetation due to spread of noxious and invasive species, noise, or human presence.
Communication pump stations tower collisions/guy wires

Possible Fish Affected:
Brown trout
Mountain Whitefish
Rainbow Trout
Burbot
Channel Catfish
Smallmouth Vass
Walleye
Crappie
Sauger
Shovelnose sturgeon
Sunfish
Yellow Perch
Bait fish

I also wanted to see what this draft stated were the Environmental Consequences of construction, operation, maintenance, and decommissioning of the proposed project: Page was left blank. Why? Its a draft come on. We want to know.

I read the Potential Impacts on Wildlife in Section 4.6.3.1:
"Construction of proposed Project would have direct and indirect, and temporary (short-term and long-term) and permanent impacts on wildlife resources. Direct impacts could occur due to the vegetation removal or conversion, obstructions to movement patterns, or the removal of native habitats that may be used for foraging, nesting, roosting, or other wildlife uses. (Barber et al. 2010). Indirect impacts to wildlife are difficult to quantify and are dependent on the sensitivity of  the species, individual, type and timing of activity, physical paramters (e. g. cover, climate, and topography) and seasonal use patterns of the species (Berger 2003). Short term impacts on wildlife would occur during construction and may extend beyond construction activities. Disturbed habtitat may not be returned to former levels of functionality for up to 3 years following restoration efforts (Baun 1998), but long-term impacts on wildlife could extend through the life of a projcet and possibly longer for those habitats that require many years to be restored (Harju et al. 2013). Permanent impacts would result from construction of aboveground facilities that convert natural habitat to land used for pipeline operations, and where operational maintenance of the right-of way (ROW) permanently alters vegetation characteristics (Braun 1998).
The proposed Project could affect wildlife resources through the following:

• Habitat loss, alteration and fragmentation;
• Direct mortality during construction and operation;
• Indirect mortality because of stress or avoidance of feeding due to exposure to construction and operations noise, low-level helicopter or airplane monitoring overflights, and from increased human activity;
• Reduced breeding success from exposure to construction and operations noise and from increased human activity; and
• Reduced survival or reproduction due to less edible plants or reduced cover."

Listed of the Disturbances:
(~12, 696 acres of various habitat)
7744 acres of grassland/rangeland
40 acres of upland forest habitat
636 acres of wetland habitat
58 acres of forested wetlands
156 miles--150 temporary access roads
20 miles-41 permanent access roads.
80 acres each---*Building four or more construction camps
6.3 acres of grassland and developed land for a pump Station in N. Dakota
15.2 acres of grassland for a pump station in Kansas.
X amount-Pubic lands
X amount-Private lands
29 acres of forested wetlands converted to non-forested habitat due to ongoing ROW maintenance.
X amount -Access roads that increase human activity that affect Elk, Moose, Deer, Carnivores, small mammals, birds, amphibians, and reptiles (people do love to eat rattlesnake).
Slow-growing sagebrush inhibited by increased foraging by wildlife for browse.
Loss of shrubland and wooded habitat which moose and other animals eat.
High noise levels at site pumps which can mask wildlife communication whereby impuning reproduction during breeding seasons.
Nest abandonment
Decreased wildlife reproduction.
Vibrations detected in the soil surrounding roadways or construction
~285 acres of undeveloped habitat permanently lost due to construction of aboveground facilities
 Now I read this but near the end it says that "total habitat loss due to the pipeline construction would likely be small in the context of available habitat because of its linear nature. Restoration is suppose to follow construction with reseeding but areas of native vegetation could be converted to non-native species which could reduce the value of habitat for wildlife."

Moving on to Fragmentation.

"Fragmentation of wildlife habitat would result from the proposed Project. Fragmentation is the splitting of a large continuous expanse of habitat into numerous smaller patches of habitat with a smaller total habit area, and isolation within a matrix of habitats that are unlike the original (Wilcove et al. 1986). Habitat fragmentation has two components:
1)reduction in total habitat area;
and
2) reorganization of areas into isolated patches (Fahrig 2003.)
Habitat loss generally has adverse effets on biodiverity; fragmentation typically has a lower magnitude effect (realtive to habitat loss) that may be either beneficial or adverse (Fahrig 2003).
The effects of habitat fragmentation are dependent on many variables including original habitat structure, landscape context, predator communities, and susceptibility to nest parasitism (Tesksbury et al. 1998) Habitat fragmentation effects are typically most pronounced in forested and shrubland habitats and are generally reduced for pipeline corridors because of their wides can be narrowed in sensitive habitats, vegetative cover is re-established in temporary working areas, and there is minimal human disturbance during operations (Hinkle et al. 2002) During construction, however, pipelines can be significant barriers to wildlife movements (Hinkle et al. 2002). After construction, pipeline corricdors may be used as travel corridors by coyotes, deer, raccoon, and many other species.  The following are wildlife habitat fragmentation issues relevant for pipeline construction and operation:

• Reduction in patch size of remaining available habitats;
• Creation of edge effects;
• Creation of barriers to movement
• Intrustion of invasive plants, animals and nest parasites;
• Facilitation of predator movements;
• Habitat disturbance; and
• Intrusion of humans (Hinkle et al. 2002).

Pipeline construction would remove vegetation including native grasses, shrubs, and trees creating an unvegetated strip over the pipeline trench and the adjacent constrution areas.

Subsequent re-vegetation may not provide habitat features comparable to pre-Project habitats, and restoration of wetlands in arid regions is not always successful (Federal Energy Regulatory Commission [FERC] 2004). Removal of vegetation increases the potential for the establishment and spread of noxious weeds and other invasive plants that have little use or value for wildlife and that displace native plants, resulting in degraded wildlife habitat values."

I stopped there because I don't believe in spoon feeding people but as you can see when in consideration for the encompassing conditions of a pipeline that affect the quarry that pipeline could affect the hunter/huntress and hunting act itself.

In each state and amongst hunters/huntresses in the hunting community there is a public declaration of how much revenue the hunting sport puts back in the system of conservation toward pubic lands, private lands, wildlife refuges, wetlands, state parks, natural resources, research, habitat restoration, animal specie monitoring and welfare and jobs for people.

Where is all that going to go in the face of a series of explosions?

I would contend that every hunter/huntress should pick up a pen and paper or e-mail President Obama himself to tell him about your feelings on this. I dare not tell you what you should say. You have a mind, the power of google, initiative and where-with-all to decide if this is worth a sack of egg sucking  chicken killing dogs.

Whereby the power of your conviction for hunting is aided and abeded by non hunters with the same goal even if the motive is different. The outcome will be the same.

If you so desire to pen your feelings you can find our good man President Obama at this website and address:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact

Choose in the right hand column: Write us. Read the next page and send them an e-mail.
I am sure he'd be glad to hear from you plus you'll probably recieve a picture of him and the family dog.


Written by: W Harley Bloodworth and Angelia Y Larrimore
 (We stick together)

~Courtesy of the AOFH~

Imagining Wildlife Abundance.

Remember this:  Always keep this in mind. We are always competing with wildlife. We are always competing with each other.

I like to compare and contrast.  I also like to read old books because no harm ever came from reading a book. This gives me a better sense of the topics and subtopics I tend to meditate on.  Various points in time especially because you can evaluate the specifically different events on a timeline and see just how much in denial or ‘the dark’ you possibly could be living.

I have recently become enamored with this mental vision of life on the North American continent before immigrants started their Exodus from Europe and other places, even if it was based on general curiosity, greed, religious persecution, or being exiled based on law-breaking.

Most of the books I have been reading are accounts from the 1700s or the 1800s. My readings are filled with articulated journalists that wrote honest non-biased (?) accounts of that particular moment in time.

In the current century, much of these honest commentaries are tossed to the wayside because certain ethnic groups complained competing ethnic group were writing a history for them that wasn’t true. What are people to do? Say we know nothing then make a story/history up for the sake of using another fabrication to uplift a group? A lie is a lie no matter who tells it or for what reason.

You are probably wondering what exactly does this have to do with hunting. If you have done any online observation of the coverage on hunter’s guilt in regards to old timers shooting buffalo or over-killing species to the point of decimation: it’s kind of along those lines.

My curiosity is the amount of game that was actually available because I can’t seem to picture this number in my head based on the reports in old documentation. Really it is mind-blowing when you compare it to recent numbers and the wordage on explaining the current population of species as ‘healthy’.

I was reading an account on the passenger pigeon from Charles Mann’s book, 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus.  After reading the passages on the passenger pigeon you could easily visualize a snippet from Alfred Hitchcock’s movie The Birds. In summary it stated how the passenger pigeon was so plentiful the people living at the time would hold hunting parties to kill them and feast.  To quote Mann’s text it is stated, “In Haudenosaunee lore, the birds represented nature’s generosity, a species literally selected by the spirit world to nourish humankind.” (Mann p. 355) Given there could have been some revolving environment or ecological disturbance that made the conditions right for the passenger pigeon to populate in large numbers it does make one think. If the passenger pigeon could grow in number with lack of human habitation encroaching on their environment, what about the other species of huntable animal? 

I read on where it was stated the number of passenger pigeons actually exploded after the immigrants came. I then thought, maybe it was because there were a wider variety of agricultural goods such as whole grains like wheat, barley, oats, and other vegetables. Hence the change in the passenger pigeon diet and the readily available seeds increased the numbers excluding breeding season trends. I looked for accounts of a passenger pigeon ‘mass extinction’. Something to the magnitude of bird littering the ground dead would make even the discerning Pilgrim carving his Thanksgiving turkey take notice. I found none unless my researching skills are lacking or the information is locked away in some weathered disintegrating journal.

The passenger pigeon’s story ends with that bird species becoming extinct. There lingers a very questionable belief that indigenous people and immigrants didn’t hunt them to extinction. The last bird died in 1941. Here you have a huntable bird that went from being bountiful to being a poster child (as is the bison) for generational hunting guilt that happened many years ago.

I was still imagining ‘wilderness abundance’ as it was called. In the ongoing drama of life, where does man stand on the stage of the natural world versus his fellow players?

That place man stands is one of subtle competition even from the employ of managers of limited aspects of Nature. Man cannot control a hurricane or a tornado but man can control X amount of acres and what lives or grows on that acreage.

In times past, indigenous people or immigrants competed for food (both plant and animal) on the natural landscape with wild game. One would have to imagine the Scales of Life. Man hunted wildlife to eat them but lowered the number of competitors for natural growing food. There was also agricultural based food.

Agriculture was in the New World. Corn was one of the main cash crops for ancient man. Indigenous farmers probably practiced the same habit of discouraging wildlife from eating the crops they hoped to store for the winter.

I see this now where farmers will kill off a herd of deer to safeguard their harvest with the mentality that there are deer elsewhere for people to hunt.

With this view of human competition with wildlife for food, because space was not an issue, it would seem how did it play in with my visualization of wildlife abundance?

As to my original obsession with herd numbers I read that the naturalist Ernest Thompson Seton tossed out these estimated numbers:

·         60,000,000 Bison

·         40,000,000 Pronghorn

·         10,000,000 Elk

·         10,000,000 Mule Deer

·         2,000,000 Mountain Sheep

Can you imagine standing on a slope glassing for something respectable to shoot at and seeing that many of one species in one place? How would you feel if you didn’t have to walk around for a whole week, then go home empty handed with no luck, no money, and no meat to eat? Could you imagine what a hunter, from back then, would do or say if he were to come to the present time and have to live the way we do? He would probably have a nervous breakdown and think he was in a hell that didn’t exist yet. What would this hunter of old say if he were forced to watch a hunting show on television?  I can only laugh with the thought he would sit on a rock to cry, then kill himself from disappointment and grief but that is being dramatic.

If a hunter from today went back in time, I am sure they would have to take a diaper. If that hunter saw 40,000,000 pronghorn, he would lose all bodily function and make a mess of himself where he stood.

I watch the Sportsman Channel for one show, otherwise I am not watching. You can surf the channel there to peruse a pronghorn show. I watched one where the hunter sat in an outbuilding near a watering hole. He only saw 2-3 pronghorns but finally killed one returning to drink. How do you think that hunter would feel if he were sitting in his little outhouse with 10,000 pronghorn running around him? That would probably kill the fun of it because you would think which one do I chose. Again you could be thinking, “Oh my God. There are so many I can kill a bushel and a peck. It wouldn’t matter.”

Mann throughout his book, lobbies the fact the early North American continent was a series of manipulated landscapes by indigenous people for the management of wildlife habitat with respect to their mutual benefit. Even though agriculture was somewhat different from European farming, the management of wildlife away from farming locations seemed to be a trend by archaeological data.

Here you might have specific wild game the indigenous people would hunt locally to discourage competition with wild game that would eat their crops. They would kill off local populations and encourage those same populations further away to propagate. Given the concept of space and time, these wildlife populations would not be very far away due to the concern of meat waste, time or effort. When a person is trying to survive you take all aspects into consideration.

I then tried to wrap my mind around the concept of human populations, industry, and civilization.

Everyone knows prior to Columbus and his sailing ship of jollies, other people had indeed traveled to North America. DeSoto and his merry men documents vast amounts of indigenous people, cities, but not vast herds of animals. A different explorer documents large numbers of wild game but no people.

Both spread European diseases. I read in one account that the indigenous people held mass burnings to stop the spread by eliminating the dead body instead of performing ritual burial or rite.

If the indigenous hunter was no longer on the landscape then the prey he chased would explode in mass numbers such as the bison. The concept here is because of much earlier European contact, the spread of disease, and the effect of indigenous death on hunting herds made them increase. When the following wave of immigrants boated over viola: you have epic populations to stand in awe of because there was no one to curtail them.

Comparing the introduction of European agriculture that possibly made the passenger pigeon populations explode, killing off the indigenous culture made other huntable species increase as well. Life is always a delicate balance and you never know what is going to turn the tide or tip the scale. Truly Life does hang in a delicate balance.

Throughout reading the passages the writer reiterates the idea that because of the lack of wild game bone remnants left in indigenous homestead the actually number of specie populations were questionable. Where there really that many? If so where was the evidence?

Back to the concept of human populations, industry, and civilization, hunters look back on these events as reminders on what not to do.

In respect to governmental agencies reporting herd numbers as healthy, if you went by previous herd numbers or observations documented in history you would think current information to be anorexic if not misleading as a positive thing. Given this information is based on space and division of limited numbers across that space with regard to competition.

I also took into consideration how much of the information documented from antiquity could be a good salesmen spreading the word to inspire adventurous travel for the contemplation of making a fortune. If the antiquated adventurer who is really in the business of making money, finds a spot to start a fabulous new life for all at his behest, would he not spin that story with the most positive description he could muster? Later when people show up in droves then have to eat their friends/family on the Donner Pass that would-be instigator is long gone. I have read many accounts of non-descript historical women, who thought they were coming to a new life only to become depressed because it wasn’t what it was made out to be.

In closing, my thoughts linger in my mind on a place that is void of man-made structures, property lines, human ownership and vast landscapes with wildlife inhabiting places yet unburdened by man’s footstep, presence, or influence in number.

Can you imagine that kind of wilderness abundance?

Could North America ever return to that ideal? The lone archaic hunter standing on a slope high above a massive herd wondering where was he going to start and not worrying about his impact in the greater scheme of things.

As I reflect it would be nice to be just a regular person with that same hope.

Written by: Angelia Y Larrimore

~Courtesy of AOFH~

Sources Cited:
Mann, Charles. 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus. New York, NY: Random House LLC, (2006).pp. 355. Print.