predators

April Is Poetry Month–3 poems for the first three days

/ Juliana Lightle / Leave a comment

I am a bit behind so decided to share three poems I wrote more than ten years ago about my favorite animal obsession, pumas. These poems were first published in my poetry memoir, On the Rim of Wonder, which is available on Amazon and Barnes and Noble.

I

My neighbor walked out her door

found a puma lying in the lawn.

Puma rose, stretched, disappeared.

At night when I open my gate

I wonder if she lurks

behind the cedar trees,

Pounce ready.

My daughter dreams puma dreams:

a puma chases her up a tree.

There are no trees here big enough to climb.

A Zuni puma fetish guards my sleep.

I run with puma

Night wild

Free.

I scream and howl

Moonstruck

Bloodborn.

I hike the canyon,

stroll around my house,

look for puma tracks.

I see none.

I would rather die by puma

than in a car wreck.

II

I watch for eyes, blue changing to amber and back.

I put my palm, fingers stretched to measure, into the footprint.

Too small, bobcat.

No puma.

My thin body squeezes between the rocks,

climbing quietly down the cliff.

Watching, listening, searching.

No puma.

Pale amber rushes across my vision line.

My heart quakes.

I watch; I wait.

It is Isabella, a golden whir chasing rabbits.

No puma.

At sunrise, I walk the rim,

watching.

At sunset, I walk the rim,

waiting.

At night, I walk the rim,

dreaming.

No puma, not yet.

III

I want

to walk

with you

in my dreams

scream your screams

feel your blood

rushing

your heartbeat

mine

soft golden fur

wound in my hair

your amber eyes

glowing

through my brown

death defying

together walking

moonlit

wild

free

Note: My puma obsession continues. This painting and several others of pumas hang in my house. I now have two puma Zuni fetishes. I hike in the mountains hoping to see one in the wild.

Puma III

/ Juliana Lightle / Leave a comment

Two more puma paintings grace my house, one in my bedroom and one in my office. The one in my office was painted by Amarillo artist Steven Cost and needs framing.

The following poem is the last of the three puma poems published in “On the Rim of Wonder.”

I want

to walk

with you

in my dreams

scream your screams

feel your blood

rushing

your heartbeat

mine

soft golden fur

wound in my hair

your amber eyes

glowing

through my brown

death defying

together walking

moonlit

wild

free

Another bill aims to take wolves off endangered list

/ Juliana Lightle / 1 Comment

For a number of years I have mulled over reasons why humans seem to hate wolves considerable more than other predators. I have my own “theories”. What are yours?

Wolf is my Soul's avatarWolf Is My Soul

January 10, 2017

A gray wolf moves through forested country in winter. Credit: MacNeil Lyons, National Park Service

The new Congress wasted little time in efforts to once again remove gray wolves from the federal endangered species list.

A bill introduced Tuesday by U.S. Reps. Collin Peterson, D-Minnesota; Sean Duffy, R-Wisconsin; and Liz Cheney, R-Wyoming, would overrule a federal court action and remove federal protections from wolves in the Great Lakes and mountain west.

That already happened once, but a judge’s decision in late 2014 restored federal protections after wolves spent about three years under state control.

The members of Congress, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, say wolves have recovered enough in those areas to remove protections. But wolf supporters say the wolf hasn’t recovered over enough of its original range to remove protections in the few states where it is thriving, like Minnesota and Wisconsin. Wolf supporters…

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Top predators like wolves, bears, lions and tigers have declined dramatically around the world over the past century

/ Juliana Lightle / Leave a comment

Some parts of Eastern Europe have worked at figuring out how to balance saving predators and protecting farmers and herders. Spain has programs to reimburse herders.

Rachel Tilseth's avatarWolves of Douglas County Wisconsin Media

Conservationists widen toolkit for predator management

Source:Berkeley News
By Brett Israel, 12/13/16

Top predators like wolves, bears, lions and tigers have declined dramatically around the world over the past century. One major driver of these declines is retaliatory killing by people following predator attacks on domestic livestock. This lethal approach to predator management is increasingly controversial not only because of ethical concerns, but also the role predators can play in healthy ecosystems. A new UC Berkeley study shows that many non-lethal methods of predator control can be highly effective in protecting livestock from predators and in turn, saving predators from people.
A tiger drags a cow at Jennie Miller’s study site in India

The Berkeley study examined 66 published, peer-reviewed research papers that measured how four categories of lethal and non-lethal mitigation techniques — preventive livestock husbandry, predator deterrents, predator removal, and indirect management of land or wild prey…

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Cougar Stories

/ Juliana Lightle / Leave a comment

As a person more than a bit obsessed with pumas, I just had to share this with others.

Wolf is my Soul's avatarWolf Is My Soul

Posted on November 24, 2016 by Leslie

I’ve become fascinated by cougars. Maybe because they are elusive, secretive, more akin to a ghost than an animal of flesh and blood. Which of course, begs the question: How do you get people to care about and protect an animal that they never see, nor probably will never see in their lifetime?

mom-and-kittenMom and six month old kitten

Visitors to Yellowstone National Park can be almost guaranteed, if they are persistent and patient, to view wolves and bears, elk, bison, and bighorn sheep. But only the rare individual will have the opportunity to see a cougar in the Park. They’ve been spotted at Calcite Springs, hanging on the basalt walls and occasionally through a scope from the Hellroaring overlook. Usually the Park sightings are called in by wolf watchers. Once radioed around, tourists hear about it through the airwaves, then flock to those locations. Sometimes the cat might be hanging…

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Court Mandates New Recovery Plan for Mexican Gray Wolves

/ Juliana Lightle / Leave a comment

For those following the fate of one of sub-species with few left in the wild.

Wolf is my Soul's avatarWolf Is My Soul

October 18,2016 By SUSAN MONTOYA BRYAN, ASSOCIATED PRESS

Federal wildlife officials are now under a court order to update a decades-old recovery plan for the endangered Mexican gray wolf, a predator that has struggled to regain a foothold in the American Southwest despite millions of dollars of investment in reintroduction efforts.

An Arizona judge on Tuesday dismissed the concerns of ranchers and others and signed off on a settlement between environmental groups and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Under the agreement, the federal agency must update the recovery plan by November 2017 while providing the court and other parties in the case with regular updates on the planning process.

Environmentalists have long argued that the agency had a legal obligation to adopt a recovery plan that spells out specific goals and milestones for returning the wolves to their historic range.

There are currently about 100 wolves in the wild…

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