Speaking of Anoles?

[sophia]

Does anyone here know what causes mass populations of anoles to just disappear from ones yard. I usually judge the health of our upkeep landwise, from the overall health of the frog, toad, and anole population. In the last several months I haven't seen one, single anole in this yard and we don't use chemical fertilizers, pesticides and such in the yard. One thing that was changed here, were that a bunch of rednecks beside and behind us, logged off most of their trees and I wondered if perhaps this could cause a decline in their populations. It's just very strange, I usually have at least a half dozen of them on the deck in my plants and on the wall at any given time in summer.

I'm rather concerned about it because we live relatively near a Nuclear facility that stores spent fuel for two other facilities besides it's own and that's the only thing that comes to mind, because here on the hill, the three homeowners have not done 'any' spraying of pesticides this year, although we have put out 'Seven Dust' for fleas and ticks in our dog lots, but to my knowledge, this isn't supposed to hurt reptiles unless large amounts are ingested directly. I wonder if it is so insidious as to be 'nuclear' (which I doubt), which leaves me very curious about the recent deforestation, our yard being a green patch of 4 acres in a waste land that surrounds us!


Any ideas?

Tay

[Nicky]

CATS!!! 1 word for you cats. Peoples cats they let them out and they wonder around they see movment they kill. I like cats and all but there the olny preditors that kill for fun. they're absoultly horrible for reptile and amphibian population. Sometimes it's the owners fault because they teach them theres not much you can do to defend there population unless u write a letter maybe to your mayor about making a law about letting cats run arounf lose? i dunno there not much to be done sorry to hear this happing to your population it happened to us at or cabin once we had soo many fox snakes withen the next 5 months most of them dissapered because of peoples pets we saw some cats do it we shewed them away but it was to late.

maybe it wuz the chemicals um in that case u can call up some proffesionals maybe to chech your land or enviromentlist they can maybe help

[sophia]

Thanks doll, we do have a surplus of cats this year to be sure. Our neighbors are constantly trying to starve their animals to death and we end up being their caretakers!

As for the local environmental agency, they're a freaking joke. I called the wildlife (DNR) about the red cockaded woodpecker because one was nesting on the property next door, so that they could lay out a protection perimeter for it, NOTHING WAS DONE and all the trees ended up being cut anyway. Those folks are useless!

Tay

[backdraft1320]

I agree NCDNR is useless when I was living in Canton we had a cougar near the house we called everyone we could think of but nobody would help. With wildlife issues in NC you pretty much have to handle them your self just be careful in doing so.

[sophia]

It really sucks doesn't it. I'm telling you I don't know what they pay them for Dave! We have a cougar here around the property as well, she escaped pregnant from Carnivore Preservation Trust, she's beautiful. I don't mind her so much, I'm glad she is only killing deer and small prey, because I'd hate to have to shoot a redneck for hurting her! (G) I can't help it, I love em.

I tell ya, these guys are so stupid it hurts and several years ago I was in excellent physical shape, had a background in law enforcement and applied for a position with them, they turned me down because I had kidney problems within the last two years!!! They need someone willing to do the job that cares about the animals, because it's clear that they dont!

Tay

[beyowulf]

The Ministry of Natural Resources outside Ottawa isn't muck better...we had a bush wolf (coyote mix) chase a fawn into our back fence and the deer broke its back. We don't have a gun, and it was off season, so we had to call the MNR to coma and shoot the poor thing and it took them TWELVE HOURS!!! It was alive and conscioous the whole time and there was nothing we could do, I've never fet worse...

[sophia]

Yikes, that's really bad Beyowulf, you'd think they could put it in persepctive and think, 'what if my child was laying there suffering, would I want it to take someone 12 hours to get them help?" I think not!

Sorry to hear that, I would have had a rough time with that myself.

Tay