Dennis Ivey wrote:
>
> "Michael S. Lorrey" wrote:
>
> > Species don't obviously, evolve in the blink of an eye to occupy an empty niche.
> > Typically one from a neighboring niche expands into it then begins to breed to
> > the optimum for that niche, unless being multi-niche capable is an evolutionary
> > advantage. As an example, I can bring up predators in New England. Cougars have
> > not been seen in New England for more than 100-150 years (or, for that matter,
> > anywhere north of Virginia).
>
> A minor point, but there is one or more cougars/mountain lions in the Delaware,
> Pennsylvania, New Jersey tri state area for the past 3 years. Tracks and
> sitings have been occuring, with much disbelief, until someone caught it on
> video tape near an elementary school.
The same thing has been happening in New England the last 5-10 years, someone
caught the tail end of one on video last summer. IMHO they've been migrating up
the Appalachians from Florida over the last 40 years as development has been
causing pressure down there...Floridians have been decrying the decreasing
population down there, when they actually are not dying off, just moving out.
>
> I sometimes wonder about some of the odd
> things Brin's transparent society cameras would capture. Rats, bears, cougars, and
> other
> wildlife in the suburbs. Could be the basis for a new reality TV series:-)
I would have loved to have caught on camera this bear that tried to eat its way
through the wall at a corner of my cabin, where the kitchen is (my older brother
had left a small bag of dogfood sitting in that corner, which the bear obviously
smelled.)
You can actually buy game cameras through Cabelas and other hunting supply
outlets, as well as IR systems that you can place on game trails to create
databases of the frequency that they are used, as well as date and time info.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Mon Oct 02 2000 - 17:37:59 MDT