Wild Hogs Ruin Civil War Events In Miss.

Last year's frightening flooding of the Mississippi River didn't do any direct damage to the site of one of the pivotal battles of the Civil War. It did bring in some undesirable new neighbors.

Park officials say a pack of wild hogs seeking higher ground moved in and are rooting up the landscape at Vicksburg National Military Park, an 1,800-acre park where thousands of Union and Confederate troops fought and died in 1863.

They fear the hogs could undermine some of the park's 1,370 monuments, its national cemetery and trenches and earthworks on the bluffs above the river. The hogs could also startle or injure more than 1 million annual visitors.

"It looks like the world's biggest Rototiller has gone through some areas," park Superintendent Mike Madell said. "People think we plowed some of the areas they've been in."

The Mississippi River crested at record 57.1-feet in Vicksburg on May 19, forcing many animals, including hogs, deer and alligators, into new areas.

The hogs are mostly in the northern third of the park, and the dense brush between Graveyard Road and North Union Avenue. Damage to the earth is particularly noticeable around the Indiana Regiment marker.

Madell said rangers have removed 11 hogs since they first appeared in May 2011. He believes about another dozen are still on the loose.

"I came here two years ago and we had a small population," he said. "I'm pretty sure we got all of them, but the flood drove these in and they are finding plenty of food and good habitat, evidently."

"They could do some real damage to a very historic part of the park," Madell said.

Continued at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/11/wild-hogs-civil-war_n_1198955.html

Black Bears Sighted Due To Morganza Flooding

Officials Expecting High Mortality Rate Of Bear Cubs
POSTED: 3:24 pm CDT June 7, 2011

NEW ORLEANS -- More black bears have been sighted recently due to the opening of the Morganza Floodway, because the black bears are being pushed to drier ground, wildlife officials say.

State Department of Wildlife and Fisheries spokeswoman Maria Davidson, the large carnivore program manager, said the agency has received between five to seven calls about bear sightings near the flood basin.

Davidson said the department is expecting to see a high mortality rate of bear cubs as a result of the Morganza flooding. If the mother bear has multiple cubs, it is more trouble for her to keep track of all of them. That leads to cubs becoming separated from the family and possibly getting hurt, she said.

Davidson also said that last month, a mother bear was hit by a train and killed. Her cubs have not been located.

http://www.wdsu.com/news/28160932/detail.html

Beavers responsible for Poland's flooding

Beavers are partly to blame for the devastating floods that have swept Poland killing 15 people because the animals tunnel through vital defences protecting the cities, the interior minister has said.

The greatest enemy of the flood defences is an animal called the beaver. They live everywhere along the levees on the Vistula (river) and cause a lot of damage to them," Jerzy Miller said.


An estimated 50,000 of the large, mostly nocturnal, semi-aquatic rodents live in Poland where they enjoy a degree of protection, animal welfare services say.

However, local authorities have upped hunting quotas for the animals in the wake of the floods.


"Beavers dig tunnels in the flood defences, weakening them from inside. But they are not alone, there are also water voles," Pawel Fratczak, Poland's national fire brigade spokesman said.

Torrential rain in Poland's mountainous south have caused rivers, including the Vistula, Poland's largest, swell to levels unseen in more than a century.

Flood defences have already given way near the southeastern town of Sandomierz and in Plock, central Poland, causing flooding in several locations in those regions.

Thousands have been evacuated across the country, but according to Mr Fratczak thousands more have refused to leave their homes regardless of the risk posed by rising flood waters.

Forecasters predicted intermittent rain and storms across Poland until the middle of the week as the flood crest moves north on the Vistula and the Oder among others.

Poland's government has pledged two billion zloty (£412 million) in aid for people who lost their homes to rising waters.

Last week, Tusk said the cost of the flood damage could reach 10 billion zloty.

In 1997, Poland suffered its worst flooding in centuries which killed 54 people, caused billions of dollars in damage and forced the evacuation of over 150,000 people.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/