Research on the Hoof

A pronghorn is released in western ColoradoColorado Parks and Wildlife has announced surveys of bighorn, pronghorn and elk, and Washington State is examining the health of its elk herd.

A Colorado Division of Wildlife press release describes the bighorn and elk surveys as major research projects. The aim of the elk study is to get a better idea of the population and to find elk migration patterns. The bighorn study will investigate the decline of one of the three populations of sheep in the survey area.

Read the whole press release for more details about the Colorado bighorn and elk study, including survey methods.

The pronghorn study will investigate why fawn survival is so low in a population introduced into western Colorado about 10 years ago, another Division of Wildlife press release says. In related news, on March 1, 74 pronghorns were released to supplement a population in the Gunnison Basin.

Read the pronghorn press release here, for more details, including survey techniques.

Biologists from the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife are examining elk organs and teeth submitted by hunters to determine the health of the herd, says an article in the Eugene Register-Guard. The teeth were used to determine the age of each animal. The organs are examined for fat, the article says. There’s a formula that converts the amount of fat observed on the organs to a percentage of fat on-the-hoof.

The fatter the better, since fat reserves are needed to get through the winter.

Read the whole article here.

Photo: A pronghorn antelope is release March 1, 2012, by Colorado Parks and Wildlife. The pronghorn was captured in Limon earlier in the day and released near Delta to supplement a small herd in that area. Photo: Colorado Parks and Wildlife

Columbia Basin Pygmy Rabbit’s Last Stand

Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife is making what may be a final attempt to restore the Columbia Basin pygmy rabbit to its native habitat. A 2007 attempt to reintroduce zoo-bred rabbits into the wild ended in most of the naive rabbits being eaten by predators.

This time the rabbits will be released into a fenced enclosure, with gradual exposure to predators through smaller enclosures with tunnels to the outside. The rabbits are not pure-bred Columbia Basin pygmies, but have been bred with pygmy rabbits from Idaho and Oregon, which are not endangered. In fact, most other pygmy rabbits in the West thrive.

Read more in this article in the Idaho Statesman. An InsideScience report on the restoration is available via US News and World Report. Or read the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife press release. Read the US Fish & Wildlife Service’s species profile (well technically, a “distinct population segment” profile) here.

Photo: A pygmy rabbit of unknown distinct population segment, likely from Idaho, courtesy of the US Fish & Wildlife Service. Photo Credit: R. Dixon (IDFG) and H. Ulmschneider (BLM)

Swans were poisoned, not shot

In January five trumpeter swans were found dead around the Dungeness Valley on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington State. One of them was believed to be shot because X-rays showed 41 shot ­gun pellets in the bird’s body. Trumpeter swans came near to extinction at the beginning of the 20th Century, and while they have recovered, the number of deaths in one area, and the possible shooting, were a concern.

However, further tests showed that all five of the swans had lethal levels of lead in their livers.

Local wildlife managers don’t know where the swans could have ingested the lead shot. Swans and other birds swallow stones and grit to help them grind up food in their gizzards. The wildlife managers will keep an eye out for further lead poisoning cases in the region in the future.

Read more info in this report from a local radio station. And in this article from the Peninsula Daily News.

I tried really hard to work in an “eat lead” joke here, but I just couldn’t do it.

Photo: Thomas G. Barnes, University of Kentucky, courtesy of the US Fish and Wildlife Service

Swans were poisoned, not shot

In January five trumpeter swans were found dead around the Dungeness Valley on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington State. One of them was believed to be shot because X-rays showed 41 shot ­gun pellets in the bird’s body. Trumpeter swans came near to extinction at the beginning of the 20th Century, and while they have recovered, the number of deaths in one area, and the possible shooting, were a concern.

However, further tests showed that all five of the swans had lethal levels of lead in their livers.

Local wildlife managers don’t know where the swans could have ingested the lead shot. Swans and other birds swallow stones and grit to help them grind up food in their gizzards. The wildlife managers will keep an eye out for further lead poisoning cases in the region in the future.

Read more info in this report from a local radio station. And in this article from the Peninsula Daily News.

I tried really hard to work in an “eat lead” joke here, but I just couldn’t do it.

Photo: Thomas G. Barnes, University of Kentucky, courtesy of the US Fish and Wildlife Service