Hierarchy

©Terry R. Thomas/www.nature-track.com

In its world, the great horned owl is a top predator and it will persecute all other owls that attempt to live within its territory.

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The large pile of feathers at my feet once belonged to a long-eared owl; the size, barring and tawny color were unmistakable even if I hadn’t seen two other long-eared owls in the same area. It seemed strange though that this nocturnal predator could be killed and eaten by something.

Then I remembered the barn owls at Deer Parks WMU. The manager had alerted me to their presence in January but I was out of town. When I returned I gave him a call to check up on them. The barn owls were no longer around, he told me. Perplexed, I asked where they had gone. Well, it turned out that they hadn’t really left as he was finding bits and pieces of them scattered about; a wing here, a head there or piles of feathers like the ones I was now looking at. He said that the same thing had happened last year.

It wasn’t a disease, bad weather or simple misfortune that dispatched the barn owls or even the long-eared owl. There is another owl that claims these night skies and abides no trespass by smaller interlopers. The great horned owl is sovereign in these parts and all other owls that want a place at the table in their neighborhood eat there at their own risk.

The same is true for the dog world. I well remember watching three wolves lounging on the snow in Lamar Valley. They had eaten their fill from a nearby elk carcass and were just lazing about. That is until a pair of coyotes with far more temerity than brains, tried to grab a snack from the carcass. One of the wolves stood and stretched and the coyotes knew they had pushed their luck too far. They both were at a full run in seconds. One bailed off a cornice and escaped. The wolf focused on the other coyote, barked for his pack mates to join him and closed the100 yard gap like a bullet. The three of them bowled the coyote over and tore it apart in seconds.

Wolves don’t tolerate coyotes in their territory, something biologists documented in Yellowstone National Park shortly after wolves were reintroduced there in 1995. It didn’t take long for the new kings of the mountain to exert dominance over their smaller cousins. According to one researcher, within a year of reintroduction, wolves may have killed 25 percent of the coyotes in Lamar Valley.

Lest you feel too sorry for the coyotes, realize that coyotes play the same deadly game with their smaller cousins, the foxes. One Yellowstone study found that, “71 percent of interactions between coyotes and foxes in the Lamar Valley are aggressive, with 40 percent fatal to the fox.” And foxes would do it too, I’m sure, if they had smaller clan to persecute.

These are turf wars, not hunger-based killings. The sated wolves that I watched didn’t consume any of the coyote they killed, it was simply the equivalent of running a competing drug dealer off the block.

Gray wolves, coyotes and foxes, great horned owls, barn owls and long-eared owls all still coexist in the same ecosystems but size will always matter.

 

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Wildlife License Plates

Great news! as of 2024, there are three NEW designs for license plates. They still are bluebird, cutthroat trout and elk, but they are beautiful.

Idaho Wildlife license plates provide essential funding that benefits the great diversity of native plants and wildlife that are not hunted, fished or trapped—over 10,000 species or 98% of Idaho’s species diversity. Game species that share the same habitats (such as elk, deer, antelope, sage-grouse, salmon, trout) also benefit from these specialty plates.

No state tax dollars are provided for wildlife diversity, conservation education and recreation programs. Neither are any revenues from the sale of hunting or fishing licenses spent on nongame species. Instead, these species depend on direct donations, federal grants, fundraising initiatives—and the Idaho Wildlife license plates.

Both my vehicles have Bluebird Plates. I prefer the bluebird because the nongame program gets 70 percent of the money from bluebird plates, but only 60 percent of the money from elk and trout plates - 10 percent of the money from elk plates supports wildlife disease monitoring and testing programs (to benefit the livestock industry) and 10 percent from cutthroat plates supports non-motorized boat access.

Incidentally, in 2014, the Idaho Legislature denied the Department of Fish and Game the ability to add new plates or even to change the name of the elk and cutthroat plates (very specific) to wildlife and fish plates, a move that would have allowed for changing images occasionally and generating more revenue. It would seem that they believe that we Idahoans don't want a well funded wildlife program.

I think it is time we let the Legislature know that Idahoan support wildlife funding and that we would like to see these generic plates come to fruition.