New Hampshire Nature Notes
by Eric Orff

Summer sailing along. Thinking cool late August nights will be here soon enough.

Wednesday 07/24/2013

New Hampshire's second Wildlife Forum held at the Huge Gregg Conservation Center Tuesday night on the coast brought out a huge crowd of close to 70. The forum was co-sponsored by the Coastal Adaptation Working group and the National Wildlife Federation. Jaws dropped as NH Fish and Game moose biologist Kris Rines described the impacts of our warming winters and extreme heat summers with moose numbers down some 40 percent in the last decade. She pegged the burden of that loss on too warm winters causing a spike in winter tick numbers particularly devastating to the young calves. Some winters nearly all perish to winter ticks. Calves may need to replace their blood supply twice over or more to survive due to ticks. Most don't.

This loss of calves has been compounded with extreme summer heat keeping cows from feeding and putting them underweight to produce calves the next spring.

Fish and Game marine biologist Jessica Carloni showed a shrinking Northern shrimp population in the Gulf of Maine due to extreme warming of the waters. In fact the 2013 two month season was nearly a complete bust. Most years New Hampshire shrimp fishermen land close to $5 million dollars in shrimp.

Dr. Pam Hunt a NH Audubon biologist talked about climate change on our birds. Our state bird, the purple finch, has had a 50 percent reduction in numbers the last decade. They are a bird of the north and will flee further north with a warming climate she said.

Eric Orff