Comments for Rhode Island Natural History Survey

Comment on First Gray Wolf in Mass. in 160 Years by Richard Hutchings

Richard Hutchings — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 21:35:03 +0000

I saw what I beleive to be a wolf this morning on River Vue Ave in warwick. Looked to be about as big as my Golden which is 87 lbs. From what I’ve read, coyotes weigh between 25 and 50.

Comment on First Gray Wolf in Mass. in 160 Years by Jesse

Jesse — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 21:07:02 +0000

I find this quite interesting.Many of my friends won’t, or refuse, to believe it, because R.I has no wolves.However it is quite possible.I am moving to North Kingstown and i must say when i read this- i was quite shocked, and excited.(I must admit i have a fetish for wolves)I’ll keep a look out for these sightings because i enjoy hiking and taking random walks in woods, and i major in Astrology so i am out at nights.

Comment on First Gray Wolf in Mass. in 160 Years by David

David — Sat, 14 Jan 2012 01:37:42 +0000

There was a reason our ancestors killed them off. They are eating machines. They really don’t care what they eat, they just eat.

We CAN NOT count on our DEM to give us HONEST answers, PRIME EXAMPLE: The standard answer we got throughout the early 80′s about Black Bears in RI..

” There are NO Bears in RI.” They now produce a pamphlet titled “Living with Bears in RI.”

We actually had a Ram and two sheep killed here in SK last fall. It was clearly a bear by the tracks, not to mention the three other sitings, one of wHich was in my dogs food bowl before I had brought it in. WHAT WILL THEY SAY WHEN A WOLF GRABS ONE OF OUR KIDS ON THEIR WAY TO THE BUS???

It was a bunny rabbit ?

Comment on First Gray Wolf in Mass. in 160 Years by john

john — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 19:18:47 +0000

I agree that a lot of the sightings are coyhybirds and people think they are wolves but to rule out some of them being gray’s isn’t not an option. We’ve seen more and more black bear here, fisher cats, bald eagles why not the wolf? I’m sure people were told they were crazy when the coyote poulation started coming this way and people were seeing them. I hike and hunt and also work nights so I’ve seen my share of coyotes and only 2 times in my life I questioned their size. I once saw 2 coy’s in the Oankland beach area and one of them was in the 60-80 lbs range. Then recently mid day I saw one along rt 95 in the Rt 117 area that was standing in a field and was in the 70-90 lb range (big dogs). I have also recently come across some dog tracks out hunting that were 6-7inch front to back and 4 – 41/2 inch wide. Now I’m thinking if it was someones dog it had to be a great dane or mastiff but there were no human tracks near them.

Comment on BioBlitz 2005 by dgregg

dgregg — Wed, 10 Aug 2011 19:19:44 +0000

Thanks for your question about Mount Hope. Although we’re not a history organization (natural history is about animals and plants, not human history) I happen to know that the amusement park at Mt. Hope was in business in the late 19th century. It was a destination for working people in Fall River when Fall River was jammed with immigrant mill workers. There were cottages to rent, a carousel, and other attractions and steamers put in at a pier to disembark visitors from Fall River. The park was bankrupt in the early 20th century when Mr. Rudolf Haffenreffer became interested in it. Haffenreffer was from a brewing family in Roxbury, Mass., and when he grew up he went into the same business in Fall River. By around 1905 he owned most of the breweries and beer business in the city. He probably viewed the amusement park both as a business to buy cheap and turn around for a profit but also as a market for his beer. He bought it, but never reopened it or sold it. He ended up buying more and more adjoining land and redoing buildings on it to improve it as both a working farm and as a summer home/country estate for himself and his family. Upon his death, some of it was sold, the rest was donated to Brown University. You should be able to find a book on the history of the estate and especially his interest in native american artifacts called “Passionate Hobby.” I know that the Pettaquamscutt Historical Society in Kingston sells it, as does the Haffenreffer Museum that is still associated with Brown.

Comment on First Gray Wolf in Mass. in 160 Years by matt

matt — Wed, 10 Aug 2011 05:52:37 +0000

I live in warwick and i was hearing a wolf call all night in my backyard( backyard is all woods) i youtubed a wolf call at that exit time and it was the exact noise i was hearing it was going all night. It even woke my mom up and i also showed her the nose and she said it was definately a wolf call. About a week later i was driving on 95 in west warwick and i saw a large animal dart across the road, looked like a dog on steroids.

Comment on BioBlitz 2005 by John Card

John Card — Mon, 25 Jul 2011 13:51:43 +0000

Do you have any more information concerning the Amusement Park that existed on Mount Hope in about 1900?

Comment on First Gray Wolf in Mass. in 160 Years by dgregg

dgregg — Mon, 11 Jul 2011 14:57:17 +0000

Eastern coyotes are common and widespread in Rhode Island. These coyotes are much larger than their western counterparts and throughout the northeast range to 50 lbs or more. They also have longer legs and proportions than dogs so they look much larger than a dog of the same weight. Their coat colors vary quite a bit, including a gray or brindled gray. For a lot of great photos and other info on coyotes in Rhode Island, visit the Narragansett Bay Coyote Project website.

Comment on White Nose Syndrome Update February 2011 by dgregg

dgregg — Mon, 11 Jul 2011 14:48:42 +0000

Co-occurrence does not constitute causation, as they say (the old saw about robins causing daffodils or umbrellas causing rain). In fact there are many things that have happened at approximately the same time as the increase in cellphones in addition to WNS and CCD, for instance the return of coyotes to the eastern U.S., the decline in flounder stocks on George’s Bank, and war in Iraq and Afghanistan, so why single out WNS and CCD? The FDA site on radiation points out that if there was a link between cell phone radiation and cancer, for instance, we’d see a steep increase in it, but there’s been a decline. That site also has a lot of other good information on the state of the science over EMFs.

There’s also an old expression in medicine that applies…”If you hear hoofbeats, don’t look for zebras.” It is the same sentiment as Occum’s Razor, a philosophical tool that holds that the simplest explanation for something is usually the best. In the case of WNS there is a much more parsimonious explanation: a pathogenic fungus from Europe, that North American bats had no immunity to, was introduced into North American caves by the rapidly increasing “sport” of caving. They are starting to zero in on an explanation for CCD that involves recent trends in beekeeping. In this case the most parsimonious explanation for CCD is that these well-known deleterious trends in beekeeping are causing CCD rather than some effect of EMF that’s been undetectable by numerous scientific efforts. Beekeepers have been spreading pathogens and parasites, subjecting hives to multiple stresses including poor nutrition, and importing lousy quality bees and supplies from China. There’s no need to resort to EMFs to explain the problem.

Another common scientific principle that may apply is that theories are tested by being disproven…they must be falsifiable. Rather than looking first at what observations prove the theory, ask instead what evidence would disprove it. So what evidence is there that would disprove a link between EMF and WNS, for instance? Maybe look for a relationship between the amount of EMF a bat population is exposed to and the prevalence of WNS in that population? EMF rates no doubt vary around the northeast and so does WNS so use statistics to objectively compare the two distributions.

Comment on White Nose Syndrome Update February 2011 by Carol

Carol — Fri, 08 Jul 2011 22:10:34 +0000

I realize those websites I posted are science fair projects, but certainly it wouldn’t be too difficult for scientists to test their accuracy one way or another. And both WNS in bats and CCD is honeybees arrived around the same time…right along with the exponential growth of wireless technology…and some researchers have found a link between CCD and EMFs.

I’ve tried emailing WNS researchers about this theory, but none of them seem to want to be bothered. I just hope it’s not too late when they figure out that staring at these microbes under the microscope, cave closures and the like aren’t going to stop the disease. We need to turn off the EMFs…and soon.