The Three-Minute Outdoorsman: Wild Science from Magnetic Deer to Mumbling Carp

265 Pages·2014·1.304 MB·English

by  Robert M. Zink

the
three-minute
outdoorsman

the three-minute
outdoorsman
wild science from magnetic deer
to mumbling carp
Robert M. Zink
University of Minnesota Press
Minneapolis • London
iiiiii
Some essays in this book were previously published in Outdoor News and Ameri-
can Waterfowler.
Photograph on page 205 by Gunnar Ries.
Photographs on pages 1, 67, 113, and 157 by U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
Photograph and map on pages 162–63 from Storrs L. Olson, Horace Lof-
tin, and Steve Goodwin, “Biological, Geographical, and Cultural Ori-
gins of the Loon Hunting Tradition in Carteret County, North Carolina,” The
Wilson Journal of Ornithology 122, no. 4 (2010): 716–24; reprinted courtesy of
The Wilson Journal of Ornithology.
Copyright 2014 by Robert M. Zink
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a
retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechani-
cal, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of
the publisher.
Published by the University of Minnesota Press
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Minneapolis, MN 55401–2520
http://www.upress.umn.edu
Design and production by Mighty Media, Inc.
Interior and text design by Chris Long
A Cataloging-in-Publication record for this book is available from the Library of
Congress.
Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper
The University of Minnesota is an equal-opportunity educator and employer.
20 19 18 17 16 15 14 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
contents
Preface ix
All Things Deer
1. A Short History of Deer in North America 2
2. A Message from Our Native Birds:
Deer Hunters Needed 8
3. The Science of Chronic Wasting Disease and Its
Relevance for Management of White-Tailed Deer 11
4. Urban Deer: Hunting versus Birth Control 23
5. It’s Taken Centuries, but We Now Know Why
Deer Don’t Ask to Use Your Compass 28
6. Why Are Medical Researchers Interested in Antlers? 31
7. Isn’t It Obvious Why Deer Have Antlers? 35
8. A New Kind of (Un)Natural Selection on
Deer Antlers: Hunting 39
9. My Deer Doctor: Take Two Acorns and
Call Me in the Morning 42
10. Trying to Outfox Deer Ticks and Lyme Disease 47
11. Deer and Their Subspecies: Fact or Fiction? 52
12. Can Game Managers Control the Number of Deer? 56
13. Mountain Lions, Prions, and Sick Deer 60
14. The Rut (Maybe More Than You Wanted to Know) 63
in The WooDs
15. Hunting Spots for Wild Turkeys at the Last
Glacial Maximum 68
16. Wolves, Coyotes, and Deer 72
17. Lead, Lead, Everywhere? 75
the three-minute outdoorsman
18. Politics and the Lead Ammo Debate 78
19. Getting the Lead Out (of Chukars) 82
20. Sounding the Alarm, Mourning Dove Style 86
21. Moaning Moose and Topi Lies 89
22. Turkeys and Love: What’s Actually Happening
Out There in Spring? 92
23. Looking Back at Turkey Season:
What You Might Not Have Seen 95
24. When Black Bears Attack! 97
25. I Wouldn’t Have Seen It If I Hadn’t Believed It:
A Look at the Ivory-billed Woodpecker Controversy 101
26. Recent Developments in the Climate Change News 104
27. Night of the Dead Birds, or Too Much Hitchcock? 108
28. Eagle Attacks Toddler! Then Again, Maybe Not 111
in The WATer
29. Recreational Fishing Alters Fish Evolution 114
30. Duck Hunting in the Low Country; or,
How’s Your Kooikerhondje? 117
31. Predators and Ducklings in the North Dakota Prairies 120
32. Long-Term Sexual Tensions between Male and
Female Ducks 124
33. Vigilance in Ducks: More Than Meets the Eye(lid) 128
34. What Little We Knew about the Labrador Duck
Just Got Littler 132
35. Mumbling Along: Lessons from the Past about
Stopping the Spread of Exotic Species 134
36. What You Don’t See under Your Boat 139
37. Never Be a Baby Bird 141
38. Oh, No! Duck Hunting Videos Might Not Be Realistic! 145
39. Snow Geese and Polar Bears: Collision Course? 148
40. Species Conservation at the State Level: A Fish-Eye View 152
vi
THE THREE-MINUTE OUTDOORSMAN
AnimAls AnD Us
41. Reconsider Your Walk with Fido? 158
42. Loon Hunting: A Bygone Tradition 161
43. Market Hunting and the Demise of the Eskimo Curlew 165
44. The Ethics of Baiting and High-Fence Ranch Hunting:
A Perennial Debate 169
45. Hunters and Conservationists at Odds over
Shooting Shorebirds 177
46. A Conversation about Hunting in the Netherlands 180
47. Back from the Dead: Mother Goose Goes to the Poor House,
Cooked 183
48. Cats Outdoors and Native Birds: An Unnatural Mix 188
49. Five Million U.S. Residents Don’t See the Problem
with Their Cat Killing Just One Bird a Day 191
50. Cats on Birds: A More Insidious Side 195
51. Some We Love, Others Not So Much 197
52. RICO, the Circus, and Conflicts between
Hunters and Nonhunters 200
AnimAl inTelligence
53. A New Respect for Porcupine Quills 206
54. Outfoxed Again: Foxes Use Built-In Range Finders! 209
55. How Do Ground-Nesting Grouse Ever
Breed Successfully? An Oily Subject 212
56. Our Chickadees Are Smarter Than Theirs 216
57. Neck-Deep in Guano: A Recent History of
Chimney Swifts 218
58. Shake, Rattle, and Spray, Doggie Style 222
59. Drahthaar Follies 225
60. “Trash Birds,” the Law, and Amazing Biology 227
61. The Dating Game, Antelope Style 231
62. Camouflage: One of Life’s Universals 234
63. One More Cup of Coffee 237
Postscript: Confessions of a Three-Minute Outdoorsman 241
vii

preface
“Your new hunting vest looks, umm, great,” my friend
remarked as we stood next to his truck in the predawn light out-
side my house. After a long absence from Minnesota in pursuit
of becoming a university professor who studies birds, I was about
to embark on my first real grouse hunt. “However, you can’t wear
it,” he said. “Your vest is camo, and we have to wear blaze orange
in the field.” Super. Feeling stupid is always a great way to begin a
trip. Based on my knowledge of birds, I had thought that trying to
sneak up on a grouse—which has color vision, even likely in the
UV range—would demand an environment-matching vest. I was
wrong. I recognized that I might have a lot of “book knowledge”
gained from reading scientific papers, but some important points
were obviously lost in translation. There were very smart people
who knew just as much as I did, but they knew different things.
Later I would learn that my vest worked well for duck hunting so
the purchase wasn’t wasted. But for the time being, a borrowed
blaze-orange vest gave me access into the unbelievably fascinat-
ing world of grouse hunting. An ongoing journey in the parallel
worlds of academia and the outdoors began.
It wasn’t just grouse hunting. I became immersed in hunting
turkeys, ducks, geese, deer, fishing, and so on. I took hunting trips
to Texas and Africa. As I continued my “day job” as a scientist
studying birds, I appreciated more and more the gulf between the
book learners and those whose knowledge comes directly from
the outdoors. True, scientists often venture afield, even conduct-
ing experiments. But sometimes they find it challenging to con-
nect with people who have learned a lot just being outside. Or
they don’t know what nonscientists would find interesting, and
lacking their backgrounds, it doesn’t occur to them that a particu-
ix