Bill-

The main reason was that most stubbornly refused food. It's also true that even those thad did eat were sporadic feeders at best, and still seemed to languish-perhaps parasites were the culprit. As you point out, captive hatched animals thrive.

You're right, the species did seem to be locally very common (of course within their restrictive range of the Lake Erie marshes and Islands) up to the time I moved out of Ohio (1990).
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Brad Chambers
WWW.HCU-TX.ORG

The Avalanche has already started-it is too late for the pebbles to vote....

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