Monthly Archives: March 2011

Bighorn sheep use overpass

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Photo: Arizona Game & Fish

Bighorn sheep have already been photographed using a wildlife highway overpass in Arizona, south of Hoover Dam. The overpasses were completed in January.

Arizona Game and Fish officials were concerned when they heard that Highway 93, in northwest Arizona, was going to be widened. The area is home to the nation’s largest contiguous population of bighorn sheep. Experience had shown that big horn sheep are wary of wildlife underpasses, which are much more popular with the sheep’s predators. Since bighorn sheep like to stay high, and were approaching the highway from the ridgelines anyway, four overpasses were incorporated into the 15-mile-long highway expansion project.

For more information about the project and the results, read this article in the Prescott Daily Courier. You can find information on the project from the Arizona Game and Fish Department here, and includes video.

White nose syndrome in Ohio, New Brunswick

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The Ohio Department of Natural Resources has confirmed the presence of white nose syndrome in bats hibernating in an abandoned mine in the Wayne National Forest in Lawrence County, Ohio. The infected bats were found during surveys in February and March. The Southeastern Wildlife Disease Study in Athens, Georgia evaluated samples taken at the mine and confirmed the presence of the syndrome.

The press release was issued by the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, and can be found here. So far the local news reports are just reprinting the press release.

In other white nose syndrome news, the syndrome has struck a third Canadian province, New Brunswick. The infected bats were found hibernating in a cave in Albert County, New Brunswick about two weeks ago. The syndrome seems to be hitting the New Brunswick bats harder than it did bats in Quebec or Ontario.

There are stories on the discovery in the Bangor Daily News (Maine), and on CBC News (Canada).

Photo credit: Wayne National Forest and US Fish and Wildlife Service
Photo: A bat during the survey that discovered WNS in Ohio.

Rock snot found in Connecticut

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Photo: Conn. DEP

Didymosphenia geminata, an invasive alga known as “didymo,” or rock snot, was found in the West Branch of the Farmington River in Connecticut on March 18. Several anglers reported the didymo sighting to the Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection. A lab in Vermont confirmed that the alga is didymo, and the department announced the finding on March 29.


Didymo was found in several states in the northeastern U.S. in the summer of 2007, including New York, New Hampshire, and Vermont. This is the first time it has been found in Connecticut.


Didymo is considered an invasive species because it can grow in dense mats that carpet the stream bottom. It’s not clear where didymo originated. It’s been known in streams in northern Europe and northern North America for some time. It was first found in the Southern Hemisphere, in New Zealand, in 2004. Researchers suspect it is being transported from place to place through recreational activities like fishing (on waders), and kayaking.


For more on the Connecticut situation, including prevention strategies and background on the algae, read the article in The Hartford Courant, or the Connecticut DEP press release.

Rock snot found in Connecticut

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Photo: Conn. DEP

Didymosphenia geminata, an invasive alga known as “didymo,” or rock snot, was found in the West Branch of the Farmington River in Connecticut on March 18. Several anglers reported the didymo sighting to the Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection. A lab in Vermont confirmed that the alga is didymo, and the department announced the finding on March 29.


Didymo was found in several states in the northeastern U.S. in the summer of 2007, including New York, New Hampshire, and Vermont. This is the first time it has been found in Connecticut.


Didymo is considered an invasive species because it can grow in dense mats that carpet the stream bottom. It’s not clear where didymo originated. It’s been known in streams in northern Europe and northern North America for some time. It was first found in the Southern Hemisphere, in New Zealand, in 2004. Researchers suspect it is being transported from place to place through recreational activities like fishing (on waders), and kayaking.


For more on the Connecticut situation, including prevention strategies and background on the algae, read the article in The Hartford Courant, or the Connecticut DEP press release.

Isolated populations further endanger NE cottontail

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Photo: US Fish & Wildlife

Genetic analysis of the remaining New England cottontail populations show that five population clusters of rabbits are not mingling, which makes the survival of some of the populations even less likely than was already thought.

The University of New Hampshire based team of researchers found that New England cottontail rabbits in southern Maine, and central and southeastern New Hampshire formed one population cluster; Cape Cod, Massachusetts was home to another cluster; parts of eastern Connecticut and Rhode Island were home to a third cluster; and western Connecticut, southeastern New York and southwestern Massachusetts had a fourth cluster. One isolated population in eastern Connecticut was home to the fifth cluster, which was genetically isolated, even from the two other population clusters nearby.

The researchers say that immediate conservation efforts should focus on shoring up New England cottontail populations in Maine, New Hampshire, and on Cape Cod. Eventually, they say, the connectivity between the populations needs to be restored.

The New England cottontail is not a federally endangered species. It was found “warranted by precluded,” by the US Fish and Wildlife Service. Translated into English, that means they found that it probably deserves protection, but they just don’t have the resources to do it.

Read the article in the journal Conservation Genetics, here.

For more on the New England cottontail, and why it looks just like an eastern cottontail, but isn’t one, read more in the Outside Story nature column.

Invasive plants change, but don’t master all conditions

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Invasive plant species do change more in response to environmental conditions than other plant species, a team of Australian researchers has found. This ability to change has long been considered a key factor in what makes invasive species, well, invasive. In their paper in Ecology Letters, the research team analyzed the published literature on 75 pairs of similar plants, where one of the pair was a known invasive, and the other a non-invasive species. They were able to confirm that the invasive plants had greater phenotypic plasticity.

They also found, however, that the ability to change didn’t necessarily help the invasive plants when times got tough. They found that the non-invasive plants fared better when there was a low or average amount of resources, such as light, nutrients, or water. They point out that invasive species are jacks of all trades, or at least all environmental conditions, but masters of only some.

They note in a very brief section that while the increase of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere generated by human activity favors invasive species, the stressful environmental conditions (such as drought) that the accompanying climate change brings can favor non-invasive species.

The paper in Ecology Letters is open access, and is available here.

Prairie dogs, cattle, and grass

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Photo: U.S. Fish & Wildlife
Western folklore says that prairie dogs and cattle compete for grass. However, a cattle-exclusion study found that the prairie dog population increased in plots where there were cattle compared to the prairie dog population in plots where cattle were excluded. The authors say the two species have a synergistic impact on the grassland habitat. Read more in the journal Ecology.
A 2007 paper in Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment said that prairie dog populations over a certain level would reduce weight gain in cattle grazing in the area. You can read a Denver Post newspaper article onthe study here.

Feds Honor State Biologists

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Heidi Holman

Three state biologists and one tribal biologist have been named US Fish & Wildlife Service Recovery Champions for 2010. According to the announcement, Recovery Champions, “are U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service staff and their partners whose work is advancing the recovery of endangered and threatened species of plants and animals.”

The state biologists who won the award are Heidi Holman and Lindsay Webb of the New Hampshire Fish and Game Department, Misty Buchanan of the North Carolina Natural Heritage Program, and Dan Carney of Blackfeet Fish and Wildlife in Montana.

The award honors the New Hampshire scientists for helping to restore the Karner blue butterfly, which was at the brink of extirpation from New Hampshire when their work began. More information about their work for the Karner blue is available in a New Hampshire Fish and Game press release, and in the Recovery Champions announcement.

Misty Buchanan was honored for her work with two plants, rough-leaf loosestrife and golden sedge. She was named for her survey work on 27 listed plant species in North Carolina, which located populations of those species, and provided information about their health. That expertise made her a valuable partner to the US Fish and Wildlife Service.

Dan Carney was recognized for his work with grizzly bears on the Blackfeet Indian Researvation in Montanta. The US Fish and Wildlife Service cites his tireless work in defusing conflicts between the grizzly bears and humans, as well as his management plan, and research as key factors in the grizzly bear recovery in the hundreds of square miles of bear habitat on the reservation. He works for the Blackfeet Nation. A US Fish and Wildlife press release has more info. His award generated TV coverage.

More info on the work of all of these wildlife biologists is available from the Recovery Champions announcement.

Photo: Heidi Holman participates in a controlled burn. Photo credit: NH Fish and Game

Upcoming Research Round-up

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The New York Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit is planning two black bear studies.One will study New York’s black bear population as it moves into new areas. GPS-collared bears will be tracked in core habitats and fringe areas. The researcher will compare how bears chose habitats and when they use habitats in the core areas to where to when they are active in newly populated areas. Another study will use DNA to estimate the population of black bears in those newly-occupied regions of the state. The study will use mitochondrial DNA markers from hair samples snagged on barbed-wire snares for a mark-and-recapture survey of sorts. More details are available in the NY Cooperative Unit’s newsletter.

In Oklahoma, biologists with the Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation are planning a big study of bobwhite quail to gather the data needed to try to rebuild bobwhite quail populations in the Rolling Plains in the western part of the state. The study will investigate toxins, weather, parasites, and predators as potential causes of the bobwhite quail population’s decline. The biologists will coordinate their efforts with biologists in west Texas, since the Rolling Plains region crosses state lines. Read more in the Oklahoman. More info on quail in the Rolling Plains is available from the Rolling Plains Quail Research Ranch (which is in Texas).

Photos: Bobwhite: Dan Sudia, US Fish &Wildlife; Black bear, US Fish & Wildlife

Harnessing March Madness – Great Lakes SmackDown

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A great example of how to liven up important conservation information is the Great Lakes SmackDown!, created by two graduate students at Michigan State University. (In the spirit of academia, their work is done for the Great Lakes Echo, a news service that is a program of the Knight Center for Environmental Journalism at MSU. Got it?)

Graphic: John Kalmar. Great Lakes Echo

This March, an invasive species version of the NCAA basketball tournament has a Sweet Sixteen of invasive plants and animals facing off to determine which of the exotic losers is the most destructive to the Great Lakes region. This time the focus is on land-based invaders, and the competitors include the mute swan, the feral hog, and the gypsy moth.

After perusing fighter profiles, participants submit their brackets, then vote to influence the outcome of each bout.

Last October, a similar SmackDown pitted eight aquatic invaders against each other for the title of “most destructive.” The quagga mussel, aka “The Quagmeister” finished on top. Twenty-five people submitted brackets, and there were over 100 votes in the polls. Best of all, the SmackDown received local newspaper and radio coverage.

“The fact that we pulled it together and got very positive feedback from readers, scientists and our colleagues was a success in itself,” said Alice Rossignol, who coordinates the SmackDown with Rachael Gleason. She expects this March’s SmackDown to be even more successful, thanks to public relations assistance from Michigan State University.

While everything about the SmackDown is executed with Comedy Central-worthy humor, you don’t have to be funny to pull off a similar project, the coordinators said.

“If you have a new idea that discusses an issue in a new way, go for it,” said Rossignol. “The project’s character will be shaped for your own effort and how people interact and respond to it.”

“The SmackDown! was funny because it was fun — fun to read, fun to be a part of and especially fun to put together,” said Gleason, . “We wanted to relate to our readers and get them thinking about an important issue in a new way. And who doesn’t love filling out a March Madness bracket? After deciding on that theme, everything else, like the idea to characterize invasive species as cage fighters, fell into place”