Please e-mail
Frank Wihbey, Editor: menature@maine.maine.edu
Vol. 2, no. 49, Tuesday, December 9, 1997
Quick jumps: | This week's reports | From the Press | Informal plot of Nov.5 local earthquake intensity |Prior weekly Nature reports | Prior Black fly reports |
You are invited to report on any aspect of Nature in Maine
Please e-mail
Frank Wihbey, Editor: menature@maine.maine.edu
This week's reports
Report format = Day, date, [time]. Location (Maine Atlas Map number) Report text. Initials of correspondent. .
Monday, December 8. East Orland (Map 23) Environmentally, everything here appears as it did a week ago to these non-probing eyes: 10 mergansers, no ice [on Toddy Pond], cold, and a revisit of the single cardinal. Wish I could report something more interesting (though, to me, this is a plate of plenty, and personally I have nothing to complain about). W.D.
Tuesday, December 9. Orono (Map 23) Yesterday my wife
removed the bags of leaves covering the remainder of the carrot patch in our garden.
Despite the recent nighttime temperatures in the teens, and the presence of more than a
foot of snow, the ground was soft and diggable! The snow has obviously acted as an
insulator. When this same patch was exposed and snowless, four weeks ago, the top inch of
the carrots we dug then were encased in frozen soil.
More ice observations: the walls of snow around exposed storm sewer drains in the streets
here have a light covering of frost "pins" about 1/4" tall. I guess that
the moist and relatively warmer air rising from above the water passing far below the
street condenses immediately upon reaching the cold snow surfaces. F.W.
"Killing coyotes not the answer" (editorial)
The Maine Campus
Monday, December 1, 1997, page 6
Coyotes established their presence in Maine about 300
years ago. Today the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife estimates there are
between 10,000 and 16,000 living in the state.
With the increased number of coyotes and population shifting from Maine's cities into
suburban areas, humans are having more contact with coyotes.
When coyotes limited their territories to the more open parts of the state in the north,
no one seemed to notice their presence except those who owned livestock. They were more
ore less free to roam and kill their normal prey, which ranges from small deer to rodents.
For whatever reason, be it urban sprawl or the southward movement of wolves, the larger
cousins of coyotes, the animals have expanded their habitat into southern Maine.
...
Wild animals have always been a bane to humans, who, in their attempt to get away from
cities, increasingly diminish any natural habitat the animals have established.
...