The Eagle Bluffs Conservation Area is reorganizing its wetlands to incorporate the Sapp tract, a triangle of land at the south end of the area. The 550 acres were purchased in January 1995 after the rest of Eagle Bluffs was developed. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is funding the reorganization as part of its mitigation efforts to restore wildlife habitat along the Missouri River. A recent conversation with Pat Schlarbaum, a member of the Iowa Wildlife Diversity Program of the Iowa Department of Natural Resources, got us thinking about the number of eagles spotted in Lee County throughout the years. Motion sensors strategically placed throughout the panda house, inside and out, can detect their every move.
Microphones pick up every bleat or chirp.
All the super surveillance is to help National Zoo researchers track the pandas' behavior and gain a better understanding of how they interact, eat, breed and handle stress. The ultimate goal is to determine how these endangered creatures can move from captivity back to the wild. While the new provincial parks and natural areas announced today have important ecological value they are too little for Alberta's endangered wildlife such as Woodland Caribou, according to the Edmonton Chapter of a national conservation group. Thousands of birds are dropping dead in Florida, and conservation groups are citing fenthion, a pesticide used to control mosquitoes, as the cause. Millions of migratory birds that rely on habitat in Florida as breeding or resting grounds are at risk, the groups claim.