Posts Tagged: pacific

Some of the Pacific Northwest’s Wolves Have Coastal Genes

Posted on September 30, 2018

Wolves are recolonizing Washington, Oregon, and California, but new genetic research shows there’s something odd about these new arrivals. Wolves were wiped out in Washington State in the early 20th century—the victims of bounty hunting as ranching and farming expanded … read more

Posted in News, Pacific West Wolves, Regional Wolves | Tagged coastal, genes, northwest, pacific, wolves

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Wolfwatcher

4 hours ago

Rough Country for CoyotesSixteen. He saw Wendell sign the number out of the corner of his eye. He didn’t respond. He hated it when Wendell tried to converse while they were driving. He didn’t like taking his eyes off the road on a good day, and it wasn’t one of those. He stared ahead into the whiteness. Pretended he hadn’t seen. Tap, tap. He felt the insistent fingers on his shoulder through his heavy jacket. He could see his breath in the air inside the truck, even with the heater full on.Tap, tap. Christ. It was like goddamn Chinese water torture. Even. Methodical. Polite. Relentless. Even with no voice, Wendell demanded to be heard.Wayne Jr. slowed the truck from a walk to a crawl. He turned towards his brother. “What?” He signed his forehead wrinkling with irritation. He was tired. It was forty-eight below last time he checked, and they were still a good twenty-six miles from the ranch house.Sixteen. Wendell signed it again.Now Wayne was getting annoyed. He thought maybe Wendell had to piss. Couldn’t hold it. Thing was, with Wendell, you never knew.Until he was nine, everyone thought he was retarded. Small. Physically weak. Deaf. Mute. No use at all, his father said once to no one in particular while staring at the boy. Even his own mother didn’t bother to disagree, standing at the sink polishing a dish with a frayed hand towel.It was the truth, though. They lived in tough country in the midst of tough times. The only water they’d seen in five years fell as snow. Ninety percent of it was so dry on account of the cold it blew clean away. Even in spring, the land couldn’t wet its lips, let alone quench its thirst.Just the summer before, Wayne had come home to find the back screen door broken open and the kitchen in shambles. Cow shit everywhere shoulder high. All the good dishes busted on the floor. It was the standing water in the sink they were after. It was gone. Soapsuds and all.An idiot child was just another punishment, Wayne thought. He wondered what he’d done to deserve it.Half of his opinion changed by the time Wendell was thirteen, though. Around twelve-and-a-half, the boy started to eat. By the time Wendell had somehow reached his thirteenth birthday, the boy had put on six inches and forty pounds. By fourteen, the boy had broken six foot and stood taller than Wayne Jr. by half a head. Outweighed him too. By Thirty- six pounds. By sixteen, Wendell could heft two-hundred-pound bales of hay one after the other. A hundred in a day. He was a tireless worker. He didn’t ask questions. Best of all, he didn’t — or couldn’t — complain.It wasn’t until he was nineteen that Wendell found his voice. Not one of his three brothers, two sisters, or his folks even knew he’d taught himself to read. But he’d come home from the barber after his monthly shave clutching a magazine to his chest. He carefully spread it on the table, flattening the creases made by his excited fingers.When he’d repaired it to his satisfaction, he stood over the worn old table with the tip of his index finger resting gently on a page. He waited. He was used to waiting. Tap. Tap. Tap.He waited the better part of an hour. Tap. Tap.Finally, Wayne Jr came in the door. The baby, Alice, and mother were both upset. Alice was a little frightened by her silent, hulking brother, and this standing at the table tapping on a magazine had been unnerving at first and was now plain awful.No one had bothered to look at the magazine. Wayne Jr Stared down at the table, where Wendell continued to tap the page. It was an advertisement for a course in American sign language—mail order. Wendell spent a good part of the next two weeks standing at the end of the ranch’s three-mile drive, where it joined up with the dirt county road. Box 6, Pryor, it read.On the twelfth day after Wayne Jr. had prized the three dollars fifty from his worn dungarees, the course arrived.Within three weeks, Wendell was driving the entire family to distraction. Tap, tap, tapping to get attention, then waggling his fingers around with intensity and consistency that was both curious and alarming.Wendell had found a way to communicate if only someone would take the time to learn to understand him.Continue: tinyurl.com/ydk67tvt ... See MoreSee Less

Rough Country for Coyotes

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Rough Country for Coyotes By Oliver Starr 2012

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Wolfwatcher

19 hours ago

Local wolf pack wiped out?FOR MORE THAN A YEAR, naturalist and wildlife researcher Gary Schroyen followed the activities of five wolves that ranged around Metchosin and East Sooke.In many ways, images captured on Schroyen’s wildlife cameras demonstrated that the pack, which he named the Meteask wolf pack, could live harmoniously among humans.Most area residents were unaware of the proximity of the wolves, which lived on deer and small mammals, and Scott Norris of the BC Conservation Officer Service confirmed that there have been no reports of the pack killing pets or livestock.“We’re not really getting any [complaints]…Nothing more than a sighting or a potential sighting. We haven’t had calls from concerned people at all,” Norris told Focus.All of which makes the deliberate killing of the wolves more tragic, say residents and wildlife observers who are mourning the loss of the animals and pushing for the provincial government to tighten regulations around wolf hunting and trapping.Read more here: bit.ly/3wkTjgcPhoto: Pacific Wild ... See MoreSee Less

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Posts Tagged: pacific

Some of the Pacific Northwest’s Wolves Have Coastal Genes

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