The Savant Society

"Knowledge for the Sake of Knowledge" The Savant Society is an intellectual fellowship of people who have one thing in common: The Thirst for Knowledge... We focus on the desire to learn and the willingness to remain teachable.
About the Author
Lord Orman (LORDORMAN)Howard Clark is a Certified Wildlife Biologist with 14 years of professional wildlife and research experience. His work as a researcher has focused on the fauna and ecosystems of Northern, Central, and Southern California, and the Mojave Desert provinces and includes extensive baseline mammalian inventories, conduct surveys focused on rare animals, habitat assessment, land retirement and restoration, radio telemetry, and long-term ecological studies on several endangered species. Howard has conducted studies for a variety of private and public agency projects, including surveys for endangered species along canals, range-wide presence/absence surveys, and scent dog detection work for endangered foxes.
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12/11/08

The San Joaquin kit fox

San Joaquin kit fox, photo by G. Warrick
The San Joaquin Valley is a highly developed area - with agriculture being the main reason for loss of native habitat. Since the 1940s, when the Tulare Lake was drained and “reclaimed,” agro-development exploded. Native habitat was tore up and planted in crops nearly overnight. Near Fresno, the hardpan vernal pool systems were actually dynamited so that fig trees could be planted in the blown-out holes! Kit foxes don’t do well in agricultural crops – these parcels are tilled each year (more than once sometimes) which prevents a stable denning system that kit foxes need to survive (escape from the heat and other weather elements, raise pups, and escape from coyotes - their main competitor on the landscape). Native rodents, like kangaroo rats, don’t do well in agricultural fields either, which support kit foxes as a food item. With agricultural development came canals, aqueducts, and the channelization of rivers. In turn, road infrastructure and highway systems were created as the human population increased. These growth-inducing activities led to even more people and more cities (or at least city growth). Growing cities led to urban sprawl which, ironically, eats up the best farmland!

Bottom line – kit foxes are in trouble not only because of roads, but also because of loss of habitat. What’s left? The few native parcels of land are fortunately locked away as wildlife areas and refuges. But these remaining lands are far from adequate in keeping kit foxes and other endangered plants and animals from going extinct. [Incidentally, kit foxes are considered “umbrella species” – that is, setting aside land for the kit fox will concurrently preserve a whole suite of other plants and animals that live in the same type of native saltbush scrub habitat]. The next best thing is to retire farmland and convert it back to pre-European condition. One problem is that no one really knows what California looked like back then – but whatever the habitat was, obviously kit foxes were able to survive. Regardless, the farmland to be retired should be some sort of native California grassland intermixed with saltbush – kit foxes are currently doing well in these habitats in Kern County, hence providing a good restoration model. The reason the farmland has “gone bad” in the first place is human-caused. The constant irrigation practices have led to high concentrations of salts and selenium in the soil which makes the land un-farmable. Restoring these millions of acres of unusable farmland may be the saving grace for endangered species once widespread in the San Joaquin Valley.
 
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11/26/08

The Mohave ground squirrel

Mohave ground squirrel

Mammalian species are typically closely tied to vegetative communities, especially those that provide food, shelter, cover, and water.  The Mohave ground squirrel is no exception, and is closely associated with a variety of shrubs and forbs, including Creosote bush, saltbush, and blackbrush.  The squirrel occurs in Creosote bush and shadescale plant communities where the vegetative cover ranges from 10 to 20 percent.  The soils in these communities are usually sandy or sand mixed with gravel.  The terrain is generally level with a few ravines.  Mohave ground squirrel burrows are usually placed in association with desert washes especially near food source plant species, such as Erigonum, Malacothrix, Astragalus, and Grayia.  These plant communities depend on intermittent rain events as their main sources of water.  Annual wildflower fields, an important food source for the Mohave ground squirrel, also depend on rain events, and are significantly productive during wet years.  Rainfall is not equally distributed to all areas of the desert floor during storms, and water moves through arid environments by means of washes.  Disruption of desert washes due to development may potentially prevent water movement downstream, which may impact the vegetative communities historically dependent on these flows.  As a result, a compromised downstream hydrology will impart additional stresses on these plant communities which in turn will reduce the food and shelter resources for a variety of mammalian species, such as kangaroo rats, pocket mice, antelope squirrels, and Mohave ground squirrels.

 
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10/8/08

Extinct mouse found!

A mouse species, which was thought to have been extinct in New South Wales for 150 years, has been found living in a drought-ravaged national park in the state's far west.

It is the first time anyone has seen the desert mouse in the Sturt National Park near Tibooburra since 1857.

The manager of the area's National Parks and Wildlife Service, Ingrid Witte, says a PhD student at the University of New South Wales, Ulrike Kloecker, made the important discovery.

"We certainly didn't expect any new finds," she said.

"[Ms Kloecker] has been out their travelling and had to get the manual book out again to identify this species because she had never come across it and yep, there it was."

Ms Witte says further investigations will now take place to try to find other desert mice.

She says it is exciting that the park can still yield mammals despite the prolonged drought.

"Although it is a rodent, it doesn't look like a little house mouse that we know of. This one is really a beautiful colour," she said.

"It has a buff-orange ring around its eyes, it is quite an attractive little thing."

Ms Ulrike, who works in Sturt National Park investigating the ecology of the small mammal and reptile communities, said in a statement that she was excited by the discovery.

 
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