The Barn Owl as a Red-Winged-Blackbird Predator in Northwestern Ohio

Author Institution: Department of Biology, Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green, Ohi

PEST BIRDS AND MODERN ARCHITECTURE

We are offering some remarks on what the entomologist would call the areas of cultural control. Our interest in this approach developed out of a series of information discussions we\u27ve had concerning regional planning pro-grams at Penn State. Our ideas on the applications of this to bird management are not well developed; we\u27d be happy to hear your suggestions and comments. The ideas of cultural control are not new and are only one of many approaches. But perhaps we are reaching a stage of public concern about bird problems and about environmental contamination which make the climate for long range plan-ning and cooperation more favorable. Most of the investigators and PCOs engaged in the management of bird populations are aware that the problem has two basic approaches: attacking the birds directly or making the environment unsuitable. Both these approaches are generally applied after the bird problem has developed. In the terminology of the medical profession, we are treating symptoms. We build our cities, shopping centers, and airports and wait for the bird populations to develop. Then we use our ingenuity to attempt to remove the birds with poisons, repellents, or structural modifications, while at the same time, someone has to clean up the mess and mollify irritated citizens and customers. In this report, we shall suggest some of the ways of reducing bird problems at the design level—a method that can be considered ecological exclusion or preventive pest control

Information Resources for Animal Control and Wildlife Damage Management

A bumper sticker reads, “If you think education is expensive, you oughta try ignorance.” That statement could not be truer in regard to wildlife damage management. Being willing to learn is a critical attitude for everyone involved in wildlife damage management. Since wildlife damage management intersects so many other disciplines, no single person can be an expert in all of them. In addition, the arrival of an invasive species, changes in building practices (e.g., egress windows, ridge vents), or the implementation of new regulations can confound traditional practices and require new control methods. Thus, it is important to provide a resource that provides detailed, updated and accurate information. Since the publication of the 1994 Prevention and Control of Wildlife Damage handbook, there has been a remarkable increase in the volume and quality of information related to wildlife damage management. The rise of the digital age has empowered people to transmit their knowledge and ideas in writing, pictures, and video. A few decades ago, local, state, and federal government wildlife biologists were the primary practitioners of animal control and damage management. Private pest management firms involved in vertebrate animal problems were primarily limited to the control of urban birds and commensal rodents. This situation has changed substantially since the 1990s. The nuisance wildlife control industry has matured. The increased involvement of the private sector in wildlife control unleashed the creative forces of entrepreneurs in the development of new techniques and products. Until the mid-1980’s, most scientific information about wildlife damage management was scattered in articles in academic jounrals (e.g., Journal of Wildlife Management), “grey literature” (i.e., unpublished reports and conference proceedings), and government documents (i.e., U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and Forest Service publications). Since then, wildlife damage management research has achieved greater prominence as demonstrated by the addition of new outlets and changes in publication policies. The emergence and rapid growth of the nuisance wildlife control industry has supported development of several trade magazines, association newsletters, listservs, bulletin boards, and numerous websites. A few decades ago, relevant research papers only numbered a few hundred a year, now computer search engines return thousands of hits, putting a premium on effective search strategies to obtain information. Digital copies of papers of are often available at no or nominal cost. The volume of information related to wildlife damage management is now enormous. In this publication, we have highlighted important works to supplement the sources found in the various publications of the Wildlife Damage Management Technical Series. In addition, we have focused on information resources that are easily obtained, used primarily for the North American audience, and published since 1994. Materials from journals and other publications with restricted access are mentioned only when we believe the utility of the information justifies the effort involved to obtain them. The numerous websites referenced were checked for current access during October 2019

Information Resources for Animal Control and Wildlife Damage Management

A bumper sticker reads, “If you think education is expensive, you oughta try ignorance.” That statement could not be truer in regard to wildlife damage management. Being willing to learn is a critical attitude for everyone involved in wildlife damage management. Since wildlife damage management intersects so many other disciplines, no single person can be an expert in all of them. In addition, the arrival of an invasive species, changes in building practices (e.g., egress windows, ridge vents), or the implementation of new regulations can confound traditional practices and require new control methods. Thus, it is important to provide a resource that provides detailed, updated and accurate information. Since the publication of the 1994 Prevention and Control of Wildlife Damage handbook, there has been a remarkable increase in the volume and quality of information related to wildlife damage management. The rise of the digital age has empowered people to transmit their knowledge and ideas in writing, pictures, and video. A few decades ago, local, state, and federal government wildlife biologists were the primary practitioners of animal control and damage management. Private pest management firms involved in vertebrate animal problems were primarily limited to the control of urban birds and commensal rodents. This situation has changed substantially since the 1990s. The nuisance wildlife control industry has matured. The increased involvement of the private sector in wildlife control unleashed the creative forces of entrepreneurs in the development of new techniques and products. Until the mid-1980’s, most scientific information about wildlife damage management was scattered in articles in academic jounrals (e.g., Journal of Wildlife Management), “grey literature” (i.e., unpublished reports and conference proceedings), and government documents (i.e., U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and Forest Service publications). Since then, wildlife damage management research has achieved greater prominence as demonstrated by the addition of new outlets and changes in publication policies. The emergence and rapid growth of the nuisance wildlife control industry has supported development of several trade magazines, association newsletters, listservs, bulletin boards, and numerous websites. A few decades ago, relevant research papers only numbered a few hundred a year, now computer search engines return thousands of hits, putting a premium on effective search strategies to obtain information. Digital copies of papers of are often available at no or nominal cost. The volume of information related to wildlife damage management is now enormous. In this publication, we have highlighted important works to supplement the sources found in the various publications of the Wildlife Damage Management Technical Series. In addition, we have focused on information resources that are easily obtained, used primarily for the North American audience, and published since 1994. Materials from journals and other publications with restricted access are mentioned only when we believe the utility of the information justifies the effort involved to obtain them. The numerous websites referenced were checked for current access during October 2019

The Luminosity Function of Young Star Clusters In "The Antennae" Galaxies (NGC 4038/4039)

The WFPC2 of the HST has been used to obtain high-resolution images of NGC 4038/4039 that go roughly 3 magnitudes deeper in V than previous observations made during Cycle 2 (-14 < M_V < -6). To first order the luminosity function (LF) is a power law, with exponent \alpha = -2.12 +/- 0.04. However, after decoupling the cluster and stellar LFs, which overlap in the range -9 < M_V < -6, we find an apparent bend in the young cluster LF at approximately M_V = -10.4. The LF has a power law exponent -2.6 +/- 0.2 in the brightward and -1.7 +/- 0.2 in the faintward. The bend corresponds to a mass ~ 10^5 M_{\odot}, only slightly lower than the characteristic mass of globular clusters in the Milky Way (~2x10^5 M_{\odot}). The star clusters of the Antennae appear slightly resolved, with median effective radii of 4 +/- 1 pc, similar to or perhaps slightly larger than those of globular clusters in our Galaxy. However, the radial extents of some of the very young clusters (ages < 10 Myr) are much larger than those of old globular clusters. A combination of the UBVI colors, \Halpha morphology, and GHRS spectra enables us to age-date the clusters in different regions of The Antennae. We find two groups of young star clusters with ages <~ 20Myr and ~100Myr, as well as an intermediate-age group (~500 Myr) and a handful of old globular clusters from the progenitor galaxies. Age estimates derived from GHRS spectroscopy yield 3 +/- 1 Myr for Knot K (just south of the nucleus of NGC 4038) and 7 +/- 1 Myr for Knot S in the Western Loop, in good agreement with ages derived from the UBVI colors. Effective gas-outflow velocities from Knots S and K are estimated to be about 25-30 km/s. However, the measured widths of the interstellar absorption lines suggest dispersion velocities of ~400 km/s along the lines of sight to Knots S and K.Comment: 56 pages, 4 tables and 23 figures, texts in AAS style, to be published in A

Airborne Particles in Museums

Presents one in a series of research activities aimed at a better understanding of the origin and fate of air pollution within the built environment

The Evolution of Damped Lyman-alpha Absorbers: Metallicities and Star Formation Rates

The damped Lyman-alpha (DLA) and sub-DLA quasar absorption lines provide powerful probes of the evolution of metals, gas, and stars in galaxies. One major obstacle in trying to understand the evolution of DLAs and sub-DLAs has been the small number of metallicity measurements at z < 1.5, an epoch spanning \~70 % of the cosmic history. In recent surveys with the Hubble Space Telescope and Multiple Mirror Telescope, we have doubled the DLA Zn sample at z < 1.5. Combining our results with those at higher redshifts from the literature, we find that the global mean metallicity of DLAs does not rise to the solar value at low redshifts. These surprising results appear to contradict the near-solar mean metallicity observed for nearby (z ~ 0) galaxies and the predictions of cosmic chemical evolution models based on the global star formation history. Finally, we discuss direct constraints on the star formation rates (SFRs) in the absorber galaxies from our deep Fabry-Perot Ly-alpha imaging study and other emission-line studies in the literature. A large fraction of the observed heavy-element quasar absorbers at 0 < z < 3.4 appear to have SFRs substantially below the global mean SFR, consistent with the low metallicities observed in the spectroscopic studies.Comment: 6 pages,3 figures, To appear in "Probing Galaxies through Quasar Absorption Lines", Proceedings IAU Colloquium 199, 2005, Eds. P. R. Williams, C. Shu, and B. Menar