wildlife

Watch: Great Backyard Bird Count in Olentangy wetlands

Graduate student Andrew Hoffman shows you Day 1 of the Great Backyard Bird Count in CFAES’s Wilma H. Schiermeier Olentangy River Wetland Research Park in the video above.

The Great Backyard Bird Count is a national citizen science project done once a year in mid-February. Its goal is collecting data on bird populations, habitats and any changes in them, such as those being caused by climate change.

Hoffman is a fisheries and wildlife science PhD student in CFAES’s School of Environment and Natural Resources.

Can carnivores, livestock co-exist? Find out

Image of coyoteOhio State’s Initiative for Food and AgriCultural Transformation presents a Workshop for Integrated Carnivore-Livestock Management — theme: “Balancing meat protein needs with animal welfare and biodiversity conservation” — on Feb. 24 in Columbus. Many of the speakers are scientists with CFAES. Admission is free and open to the public. Details, speakers and online registration. (Photo: Coyote, National Park Service.)

Does bird feeding help or hurt backyard birds?

Female American Robin Sitting in NestBird lovers may want to take note: Putting out feeders full of seed may also attract predators that eat eggs and nestlings. But the feeders may also help satiate predators so they’re less likely to target nests. In a new study published in The Condor: Ornithological Applications, scientists from CFAES and from Cornell University evaluated the consequences of people-provided bird food on predator-prey relationships. Read the story …

Climate change making reindeer tinier: Study

Reindeers in natural environment, Tromso region, Northern Norway.Those reindeer facts were well and good. But there’s a reindeer story, too, that’s more serious.

It seems reindeer are shrinking — getting smaller and lighter — because of climate change, according to a study announced last week by Norwegian and Scottish scientists.

Continue reading Climate change making reindeer tinier: Study →

8 tiny facts about reindeer: No. 8, a reindeer runs faster than a grandma

healthy lifestyle asian woman running outdoorA reindeer can run at speeds of up to 48 mph. A grandma walking home from someone’s house Christmas Eve, or any other day, averages about 3 mph. If both the reindeer and grandma were traveling in the same direction and along the same path, the grandma indeed and unfortunately would get run over by the reindeer.

Even Olympic gold-medal-winning sprinter Elaine Thompson, who’s capable of about 21 mph over 100 meters, would have hoof prints.

Read all 8, plus a 9th with a musical tie to Ohio …