The Three-Minute Outdoorsman Returns: From Mammoth on the Menu to the Benefits of Moose Drool

Spending time in nature can raise some serious questions. After contemplating your own mortality, you may start to wonder: Why don’t deer noses freeze in the winter? What does mammoth taste like? Do fish feel pain? These are important questions, and Robert M. Zink has the answers. Bringing together the common and the enigmatic, The Three-Minute Outdoorsman Returns includes over seventy three-minute essays in which Zink responds to the queries that have yet to cross your mind. Drawing on his zoological background, Zink condenses the latest scientific discoveries and delivers useful, entertaining information on the great outdoors. Can a sheep’s horns be too big? Was the Labrador duck a hybrid? Why did I miss that clay target? A large section on deer covers topics ranging from deer birth control backfiring, new information on Chronic Wasting Disease, supplemental feeding, and deer genetics. Other essays explore land, aquatic animals, and humanity’s relationship with nature, thus making this book of wild science an essential for any outdoors person.  

Table of Contents:
List of Figures Preface Part 1. Stuff about Deer 1. Chronic Wasting Disease, Deer, and You 2. The “Common Ground” among Genetics, CWD, and Bedbugs 3. Deer Teeth and CWD 4. CWD and Prions 5. Let’s Expose a Bunch of People to CWD and See What Happens 6. What Does per Capita Cheese Consumption and the Number of People Who Died by Becoming Tangled in Bedsheets Have to Do with CWD and Scrapie? 7. Cats and Deer: It Just Gets Worse 8. Adaptations of Deer Evolving through Time 9. Things Deer Do 10. Why Don’t Deer Noses Freeze in the Winter? 11. Deer as Long-Term Survivors 12. Deer and Optometrists 13. Deer Numbers amid Changing Landscapes versus Our Memories 14. Good Morning, Deer, Did You Sleep Well? 15. Deer Parasites for Fifty Dollars 16. Should Deer Use Bug Spray? 17. Fawn Hide and Seek 18. Now You See Them (Deer), Now You Don’t 19. Birth Control to Manage Deer Backfires Part 2. Nature Amazes on Land 20. Can a Sheep’s Horns Be Too Big? 21. Moose Drool 22. The Worlds We Don’t See: Mysophobes Beware 23. Stripes of the Zebra 24. The Answer, My Friend, Is Peeing in the Wind? 25. From Billions to Martha 26. Rewilding 27. Was the Labrador Duck Real? 28. Looking Like a Duck Decoy 29. How Long Have Man and Dog Been Best Friends? 30. My Dog Does What in Which Direction? 31. Wildlife with Weather Stations 32. What’s Wrong with Fewer Large Carnivores? 33. You Are What You Eat, So Be Careful or You Might Be Goosed 34. Hare Today, Gone Tomorrow 35. Nebraska Cranes, Now and Then 36. Turkey Talk 37. What Does Mammoth Taste Like? 38. Why Are Pronghorns So Fast? 39. Old Man River Doesn’t Mean Much to a Duck 40. Phantom Roads and Birds 41. How About a Road Trip to Mars? 42. If You Are What You Eat, and What You Eat Stinks, Do Your Friends Say Something? 43. A Long-Term Perspective on Ruffed Grouse Part 3. Nature Amazes in the Water 44. Cod Almighty 45. Do Fish Eat Cormorants? 46. Do Fish Feel Pain? 47. When Catfish Are Hungry, Watch Your Step 48. The Science behind Catch-and-Release 49. Catch and Release Effects on Northern Pike 50. What Happens to Northern Pike That Swim Off with a Lure in Their Mouths? 51. Too Many Big Fish in a Lake Can Be a Bad Sign 52. Can Fisheries Science Inform Fisheries Management? 53. The Resurrection Ecology of Water Fleas Tells Us about Changes in a Minnesota Lake 54. How Do You Say 1,,,,,,,,,,? 55. Gape and Suck Part 4. Humans and Nature 56. Alternative Facts and Managing Game and Fish Populations 57. No Food, No Clean Water, No Wildlife Habitat and Noise, Air, Soil, and Water Pollution: What Is It? 58. Big Mammals Gone—Who or What Done It? 59. Government Agencies Need to Step Up against Cats Outdoors 60. Pascal’s Wager and Climate Change Skepticism 61. A Scientific Program Dedicated to Eradicating Feral Cats: Eradicat! 62. How Exactly Does “Science” Work? Part 5. Stuff for Hunters 63. Never Let the Truth Get in the Way of a Good Story about Cecil 64. Hunting for Meat 65. What Do Conceal-and-Carry Permits Have in Common with Four-Wheel Drive? 66. How Could over Four Hundred Pellets Possibly Miss a Clay Pigeon? 67. I Wouldn’t Kill an Animal, but I’m Not a Vegetarian 68. On Being a Vegetarian 69. Killing Feral Hogs Is Bad for the Environment—Huh? 70. Maybe It’s Where You Put the Arrow, Not What You Put at the End of It 71. Is Lead Dead in Hunting? 72. Getting the Lead Out, Take 2 73. Putting the “Safe” in Your Gun’s Safety 74. Rattling, for Success 75. Keeping Old Dogs in the Loop Postscript: Perspectives and Parting Thoughts