The Westchester Land Trust, the Hudson Highlands Land Trust and the Eastern New York Chapter of The Nature Conservancy are among the 13 local, regional and national land conservation groups being honored Saturday by Scenic Hudson. To read more about all the honorees, go here. After the break, I’m highlighting the three local honorees.

Nothing like relying on your snake as your attack animal of choice. Lucky for the Bridgeport police, this python was no Kaa.

There’s a big push on lately to bring “lapsed anglers” back to boat and shore and entice them to start fishing again. The state has been part of that effort.

Maybe because it’s more or less summer, I’ve been hearing a public service announcement about this on the radio lately. The spot extols the Norman Rockwellian virtues of fishing and explains how a day with line in hand can wash away all your worries and tension.

While that PSA may be relaxing, the same, I think, can’t be said about this other one this other one I found – courtesy of the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources. Part of the same campaign, it ends with a little girl beseeching her father to take her fishing “because my wedding will be sooner than you think.”

Here’s a photo of the black bear currently treed in Peekskill, courtesy of our roving bear correspondent, Terry Corcoran. The bear is hanging out in a tree in front of the First Hebrew Congregation of Peekskill on Route 6. State wildlife authorities toting a tranquilizer gun are on their way from the Department of Environmental Conservation office in New Paltz. As Terry reports, the plan is to tranquilize the bruin and remove him to less-congested pastures.

The dark blotch in the middle of the tree is the bear.

Here’s a video of a similar operation in Montana.

Here’s a story about bears in neighboring Connecticut and more info on bears is in this recent blog post.

Want to meet the leading world authority on orangutans? If so, Willie Smits, an internationally known conservationist, will be speaking tomorrow at The Wainwright House in Rye. Smits will be speaking about his book, “Thinkers of the Jungle: The Orangutan Report.” The book covers the plight of orangutans in Indonesia.

Here’s a video of orangutans.

From the announcement about Smits’ appearance:

“Thinkers of the Jungle is a unique documentation of an exceptional and very special endangered species’ way of life, based on the very latest research on the subject. The book features previously unpublished photographic material as well as the findings of new scientific research on protecting the climate, the environment, and the orangutan.

Thinkers of the Jungle also reveals the story of Dr. Willie Smits, a man who evolved from a protector of orangutans to a protector of the climate. Dr. Smits’ efforts in the preservation and rejuvenation of the orangutans’ natural habitat is what has made him such a special man. With his profound knowledge in forestry, he has initiated an up-to-now matchless project when he in 2000 presented the idea to revive burnt down and dead areas with new rain forest. Soon thereafter, the Orangutan Survival Foundation acquired destroyed forest areas near the town of Samboja in Borneo, and the invention of a distinct mold containing a micro-biological accelerator of growth resembling the natural composition of rain forest soil enabled Smits to replant the area with different plants initially cultured in his tree nursery. The results were staggering and successful.”

Bruce Springsteen never sang about them, but it seems many of the black bears found in Rockland and Orange counties are Jersey bears, according to the state Department of Environmental Conservation. Wendy Rosenbach, a DEC spokeswoman, told me that yesterday, when we were talking about the bear in Somers. The DEC knows this because the bears are sporting tags placed on them by NJ wildlife authorities.

Here’s yesterday’s bear post. You can follow that to DEC’s bear information page, which includes tips on living with bears.

And, here’s another story of a bear encounter. It was sent in by a Kent resident who lives on Bowen Road:

This past April, on a Saturday night, we had a visit from a very large, very beautiful Black Bear. It was 9:45 PM. My friend Marty had just left for home. I was sitting at the computer and my wife was watching TV. My house is basically a ranch style, set sideways with two huge sliding glass doors looking out on a wrap around deck which faces the street. All of a sudden my dogs started going crazy, my wife yelled ‘Johnny!’ and got up and headed towards the sliders. I looked out, and here was this very large bear walking towards the door. I must first tell you that the previous Thursday, my bird feeders were taken down from the deck by what I assume was the same bear. Anyway, this bear ambled right up to the glass, and suddenly we were eye to eye. He was very dark brown, or black except for a golden colored muzzle and two gold rings around his eyes. My dogs, who are very little, wanted at him. My wife calmly walked around me and locked the slider. At this, the bear stared for a moment, very non-threatening, turned and ambled off the deck and into the night.

Photo is courtesy of Una Sterman of Somers, who briefly hosted the bear in her yard Tuesday afternoon.

Sha la la la la la la . . .

Seems it’s wandering-bear season, according to accounts from Mahopac, Connecticut, Massachusetts and beyond.

For starters, check out my colleague Susan Elan’s account of the Mahopac black bear. Then there’s the bear over in Connecticut who was peering in residents’ windows. And in Massachusetts, wildlife authorities tranquilized and relocated a bear found in city of Worcester.

The animals are no longer creatures of large forests, according to the state Department of Environmental Conservation.

“Once thought to inhabit only large forests, over the past two decades, black bears have been expanding their range throughout New York and can now be found in a variety of habitats including developed areas.”

“They are ususally weaned at around 6 to 8 months of age, but remain with the mother and den with her during their second winter of life, until they are about 17 months old. At this time the female is coming into estrus and forces the young out of her territory.”

Want to know why horseshoe crabs are important, both to us and birds, fish, reptiles and amphibians? Then read this story in the science section of today’s NY Times.

Here’s an entire Web site dedicated to the creatures that predate dinosaurs by millions of years.

The photo by TJN photographer Carucha L. Meuse shows a horseshoe crab at the Marshlands Conservancy in Rye in 2006.

The nest of a ruby-throated hummingbird sounds like something from a children’s tale, a materials list compiled by fairies.

“Made of thistle and dandelion down, held together with spider web and covered on outside with lichens.”

I bring up ruby-throated hummingbirds because of this wind chime . The wind chime hangs on my front porch. It attracts hummingbirds. They zip up to the thing, ponder the pink flower hanging beneath the chimes for a few seconds and then zip away.

We routinely spot them in the garden or zooming around the yard. I put up a hummingbird feeder last year but no one seemed to be interested in it. Maybe I’ll try again.

You never know just where in a budget belt-tightening might occur. In Illinois, state officials considered leaving the roadkill to scavengers — vultures, crows, coyotes, etc. — instead of having highway crews burn fuel while picking up carcasses from the roadsides. But a $20 million supplemental appropriation made them change their minds and resume scraping up the dead.