Wildlife

A look at the environment was the subject of a nature 'stomp' Saturday at Bristol Township's Silver Lake Nature Center. At left, the group wades through Black Ditch Creek. Above, Chris Tenaglia (left) and Mike Cherkowski examine their finds.

Will we restabilize the world's human population but still crowd out our wildlife? That seems all too likely, since the world is currently encouraging family planning but discouraging high-yield farming. Ironically, the environmental movement has fostered both policies. The environmentalists have correctly helped to elevate our priority on wildlife. Last fall's Cairo population conference pledged another $17 billion for family planning worldwide - mainly to prevent a growing human population from crowding out wild creatures.

More than 60 woodcarvers will be demonstrating their art and selling their work at the annual fall show of the South Jersey Wood Carvers, which will be held next Saturday and Sundayat the National Guard armory in Mount Holly. As it has for the last three years, the association will donate the proceeds from admission fees to Deborah Heart and Lung Center in Browns Mills. Because show organizers wanted to expand the show this year from one to two days, the show has been moved from Lenape High School in Medford to the armory on Route 38. Sixty-four carvers from New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland and Virginia will be selling carvings ranging from traditional duck decoys to elk, moose and other wild game.

FAIRFIELD, Pa. - When Tom Stoner thinks about his friend David L. Grove, the state wildlife conservation officer fatally shot on patrol a few miles from here Thursday night, the stories come spilling out. He recounts how Grove, 31, once found two young boys illegally using bait to hunt deer in his territory 50 miles west of Harrisburg. He apprehended them and then tracked down their father. "The father was teaching the kids to break the law," Stoner said. "David recognized that.

A lot more than history has accumulated at Fish House Cove since the days when Lenni Lenape Indians gathered wild rice, peas and blackberries there in the matted marsh grass on Pennsauken's Delaware River shore. Strong river currents have left their deposits: Wooden pilings and a weathered, but still inflated, basketball are visible in the cove's silty tidal flat. On the bank of Tippin's Pond, separated from the cove by a single ribbon of railroad track, are a heap of plasterboard chips, a rusted mattress spring and beer bottles.

America is squandering one of its most valuable natural resources with wanton disregard. Throughout the United States, thousands of endangered or threatened animals are killed illegally each year by hunters who cavalierly break the laws designed to protect our nation's wildlife population. Sunday at 7 p.m., the National Audubon Society and Superstation TBS examine this issue in "Greed, Guns and Wildlife," narrated by Richard Chamberlain. It is a one-hour look at the shocking reality of poaching in this country.

A casual visitor to Jeanne Cramer's office at the Animal Welfare Association's Voorhees headquarters likely would find her poring over a ledger sheet, toting up the debits and credits that are a bookkeeper's stock in trade. But Cramer, who lives in Deptford, is much more than the association's bookkeeper. She also is director of its wildlife division - which, more often than not, casts her in the role of rescuer and substitute mother of homeless wild animals. What that means, said Cramer, "is that I'm called upon to rescue wild animals and to help train volunteers in the care and feeding of animals like raccoons, opossums, skunks or rabbits until we can release them into the wild.

The venture began in a storefront on Huntingdon Pike 16 years ago and has grown into a wildlife preserve of almost 400 acres. When the Pennypack Watershed Association was formed in 1970, David Witwer was its only full-time employee - an executive director with a part-time secretary. Now, the association has eight full-time workers and one part-time employee, a 22-member board of directors, 30 regular volunteers and about 120 other volunteers. The association, located at 2955 Edge Hill Rd. in Huntingdon Valley, will celebrate the 10th anniversary of the wildlife park dedication on Saturday afternoon.

The cleanup of Haddon Lake, a project started last month by the Camden County Park Commission, has yielded bottles, toys, car tires, shopping carts and a muskrat lodge. It is the lodge that Dave Orleans, a naturalist with the commission, finds so appealing. He said the discovery was significant because, as the cleanup project continued and the water became cleaner, the lake would be able to attract "more and more" wildlife. "I think this is one of those cases where what is good for the animals is good for the people," Orleans said.

Mention lawn ornaments, and some noses get turned up and brows get furrowed: "I hate those pink flamingos. " Although a drive through just about every Bucks County community could probably turn up at least a small flock of the often disdained birds, lawn ornaments this year, in general, seem to have moved away from the bright and gaudy. In their place, many homeowners have erected ornaments that reflect the county's own abundant wildlife, according to experts at local garden centers.

The bald eagle was lying on its back in a pool of blood in, of all places, a Broomall parking lot. Joe Simmonds, the maintenance man at Congregation Beth El-Ner Tamid, spotted its dark form as he emptied trash into a Dumpster. He put a traffic cone by the huge bird so no one would run over it, and he called 911. The bird was breathing. It was alive, just barely. Wildlife officials trying to coax it back to health now think the male eagle was beset by a triple dose of misfortune.

CHEYENNE, Wyo. - For wildlife enthusiasts hoping to catch a glimpse of wolves, grizzly bears, and bison at Yellowstone National Park, the best place to be on the lookout may soon be a cellphone. New smartphone apps enable people to pinpoint where they have recently seen critters in Yellowstone. People who drive to those locations can - at least in theory - improve their odds of seeing wildlife compared with the typical tourist's dumb luck. An app called Where's a Bear promises "up to the second" animal sightings in Yellowstone.

HANOI, Vietnam - Nguyen Huong Giang loves to party but loathes hangovers, so she ends her whiskey benders by tossing back shots of rhino horn ground with water on a special ceramic plate. Her father gave her the 4-inch brown horn as a gift, claiming it cures everything from headaches to cancer. Vietnam has become so obsessed with the fingernail-like substance that it now sells for more than cocaine. "I don't know how much it costs," said Giang, 24, after showing off the horn in her high-rise apartment overlooking the capital, Hanoi.

  A wildlife camera helped to capture a serial burglar whose three-month crime spree victimized 13 homeowners in three Chester County townships, District Attorney Tom Hogan said Tuesday. Larry Samuel, also known as Elijah Samuel, 32, of Coatesville, is accused of committing the crimes in East Fallowfield, Valley, and Sadsbury Townships from Oct. 27 through Feb. 1, Hogan said. The stolen items were electronics, jewelry, and 10 firearms, including semiautomatic weapons. "He targeted homes around where he lived," Hogan said.

A 4.4-acre meadow wedged among elegant stone homes in tony Wynnewood is all that is left of the Toland family farm, which once sprawled across 300 acres from the Main Line railroad tracks almost to Montgomery Avenue. Over the last century, the farm was whittled away piece by piece to create a new residential development, though as recently as the 1970s, cows grazed in an open pasture, and chickens scurried around a barnyard just blocks from Wynnewood Shopping Center. Then last year, the matriarch of the family, Polly Toland, decided to sell her own home, adjacent to the meadow, and move to a retirement home.

WEST PALM BEACH, FLA. - A burgeoning population of huge pythons - many of them pets that were turned loose by their owners when they got too big - appears to be wiping out large numbers of raccoons, opossums, bobcats and other mammals in the Everglades, a study says. The study, published yesterday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences , found that sightings of medium-size mammals are down dramatically - as much as 99 percent, in some cases - in areas where pythons and other large, non-native constrictor snakes are known to lurk.

AVALON, N.J. - New Jersey environmental regulators say this Jersey Shore town may be doing something stinky in its effort to control skunks. Avalon officials have been capturing and moving skunks - about 80 of them in the last year - and the state Division of Fish and Wildlife wants to know where they are being taken. A permit is needed to move wildlife to another town because the animals could cause problems in their new homes, an agency spokesman told the Press of Atlantic City.

This, you know: Cross-country skiers will choose a secluded forest trail over a popular black diamond run every time. But, shhhh, don't tell: Backcountry ski trails don't come much better than those on many national wildlife refuges. That's still largely a secret. Scenic wildlife refuges ideal for winter exploration by ski and snowshoe hide in many Northern states. The terrain and difficulty level vary widely. Some refuges lend ski equipment free or rent it at low cost. Wildlife sightings are a bonus.