Monthly Archives: February 2012

New State (And National) Listings of Endangered Species

Posted on by
Reply

Gray petaltail, endangered in New JerseySix species of dragonfly are among the newly listed threatened and endangered species in New Jersey, according to a press release from the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection. The changes to the list focused on flying species. Most of the animals were birds, and in addition to the dragonflies, the Indiana bat was added to the state endangered species list. (It was already on the federal endangered species list.)

Non-breeding bald eagles were moved from endangered to threatened, reflecting their continued recovery in the state. Other bird species whose status was changed to reflect improved numbers are the non-breeding bird populations of osprey, peregrine falcon, red-shouldered hawk, northern goshawk, short-eared owl, and vesper sparrow, and the breeding population of Cooper’s hawk.

The black rail, golden-winged warbler and red knot were listed as endangered and American kestrel, cattle egret and horned lark were listed as threatened.

The ruling, which took effect Tuesday, also created a new category: “species of special concern.”

Read the press release here.
Read an article in the Asbury Park Press or
the Atlantic Highlands Herald.

The press release did not include the name of the dragonfly species listed, so here they are:

Endangered
Petaltail, gray (dragonfly) Tachopteryx thoreyi

Threatened
Baskettail, robust(dragonfly) Epitheca spinosa
Clubtail, banner (dragonfly) Gomphus apomyius
Clubtail, harpoon (dragonfly) Gomphus descriptus
Jewelwing, superb (dragonfly) Calopteryx amata
Snaketail, brook, (dragonfly) Ophiogomphus asperses

Earlier this month the state of California provided coverage to two species of yellow legged frogs under the California Endangered Species Act, according to a press release from the California Department of Fish and Game.

Sierra Nevada yellow-legged frog (Rana sierrae) was listed as a threatened species and the southern mountain yellow-legged frog (R. muscosa) as an endangered species, the press release reports.The frogs have disappeared from 75 percent of their historical habitats because of chytrid fungus and because they are being eaten by non-native trout.

Read a brief article on the listings in the San Jose Mercury News, here.
Read the state’s Notice of Findings here. (Very brief.)

Finally, Canada has moved to list three bat species, the tri-colored bat (AKA eastern pipistrelle), the little brown myotis (AKA little brown bat), and northern myotis (AKA northern long-eared bat) as endangered species because of white nose syndrome. Read an article in the Edmunton Journal here.

Photo: Gray petaltail by Eric Haley

Writing the Book on Wolverines

Posted on by
Reply

Before recent research on wolverines in the greater Yellowstone region, not much was known about these predators, says an article in the Billings Gazette. To wrap up the eight-year project, the article says, the research team, lead by Bob Inman of the Wildlife Conservation Society, has published an article in the Journal of Wildlife Management.

The article “Spacial ecology of wolverines at the southern periphery of distribution” was published online in December 2011. (Subscription or fee required.)

The Billings Gazette article implies that we’ll be seeing more research from this study published soon.

The Wolverine Blog (yes, there is one) offers a link to the blog of Forrest McCarthy, one of the researchers on the project. Read it for a behind-the-scenes view of the research, here.

Photo: Wolverine, Credit: Steve Kroschel, courtesy US Fish and Wildlife Service

New Tech: Survey Drones

Posted on by
2

USGS scientist and sUAS pilot Leanne Hanson holding the Raven A. USGS photo.

Call it a remote-controlled helicopter and it sounds like a toy. Call it a drone, and you know it is battle tested.

A drone helicopter, much like the ones used by the military, is being employed by Phil Groves, a wildlife biologist with the Idaho Power Company to survey for salmon redds, says an article in the Idaho Statesman. The US Geological Survey also uses them in Idaho to survey pygmy rabbits, it says.

The use of drones had been strictly limited by the FAA, the article says, but Congress recently introduced a law that will allow commercial uses by September 30, 2015.

In the article Groves says that the drones are much safer than conducting the surveys by helicopter. He was inspired to use the drone by the death of two fisheries colleagues in the Idaho Department of Fish and Game.

Read the entire article in the Idaho Statesman, here.

Of course, this isn’t the first time drones have been used to survey wildlife.
Read about the US Geological Survey’s work with drones and sandhill crane monitoring, here. (Includes links to more info.)
Read about drones in the tropics in Yale Environment 360, here.
Read about a seabird survey on the Rocky Mountain Tracking, Inc. blog, here.

Photo courtesy US Geological Survey

Mountain Goats Threaten Bighorns in Tetons

Posted on by
Reply

Mountain goats were introduced to the greater Yellowstone region decades ago, say articles in the Missoulian and the Jackson Hole News & Guide.

Since then, the goats have popped up in various locations around Jackson Hole, Wyoming Game and Fish wildlife biologist Doug Brimeyer said in an article in the Missoulian.

“In the Tetons, the bighorn sheep winter habitat is a relatively few isolated wind-swept slopes at high elevation, because they’ve lost their migration,” Wyoming Game and Fish habitat biologist Aly Courtemanch said in the Missoulian article. “They’re already surviving on this marginal winter habitat up there.

“It’s reasonable to expect that mountain goats, if they became established, would out-compete bighorn sheep for that very limited winter range.”

Researchers from Idaho, Montana and Wyoming are studying the situation, lead by Bob Garrott, of Montana State University’s Fish and Wildlife Ecology and Management Program.

The team will collar 12 goats with a GPS system that will send location data every six hours for two years. A second collar will activate when the GPS collar falls off and will provide less detailed information.

Read the Missoulian article here.
Read a shorter version of the story in the Billings Gazette, here.

There’s no link to the Jackson Hole News & Guide story that kicked off this flurry of coverage, because it doesn’t appear to be available on the newspaper’s website.

Photo: Bighorn in Montana. By Ryan Hagerty, courtesy US Fish and Wildlife Service

Scale-destroying Fungus Found in Wild Snakes

Posted on by
Reply

In 2008 three eastern massasauga rattlesnakes were discovered in an Illinois park with deformed heads. Another was found in the same park in 2010. Tests revealed that the snakes were suffering from a fungal infection — a fungus in the genus Chrysosporium to be exact.

The news is breaking now because the comments a veterinarian involved was covered in an Associated Press article. You can read the article in the Boston Globe, here. The article says that the fungus has been found in rattlesnakes in New Hampshire and Massachusetts, too.

The rattlesnake species is a candidate for federal Endangered Species listing, the article says.

As it turns out, the researchers involved published a letter in the journal Emerging Infectious Diseases in December 2011. The researchers describe the fungus as being similar to another fungus found in bearded dragons, a non-native pet lizard. That fungus is in another genus, though. A very similar fungus was also been reported in a captive black rat snake.

The fungus is described as being able to break down keratin, which is what snake scales are made out of.

Read an html version of the Emerging Infectious Diseases article, here.
Find the PDF version here.

Photo: Pretty poison, a healthy eastern massasauga rattlesnake, courtesy of the US Fish and Wildlife Service

Bear Hunts

Posted on by
Reply

Last week the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission announced that it would go ahead with its black bear management plan, as well as with the plan to remove the animal from the state’s threatened species list. (Read the press release here. For the management plan itself, go here.) Florida has seen an increase in black bears, which has fueled speculation that the Commission might allow bear hunting in the future, a point mentioned in this article in the Tampa Bay Newspapers.

As black bear populations grow in the East, discussion of hunting as a management tool is prevalent. This NPR story on bear population increases in the Appalachians addresses the issue. Earlier this winter the desire to have fewer bears in suburban areas in New Jersey was contrasted with the desire of some not to kill any bears. Read one of the many stories covering the controversy at NJ.com.

Photo of Florida black bear cub courtesy of the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.

Bear Hunts

Posted on by
Reply

Last week the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission announced that it would go ahead with its black bear management plan, as well as with the plan to remove the animal from the state’s threatened species list. (Read the press release here. For the management plan itself, go here.) Florida has seen an increase in black bears, which has fueled speculation that the Commission might allow bear hunting in the future, a point mentioned in this article in the Tampa Bay Newspapers.

As black bear populations grow in the East, discussion of hunting as a management tool is prevalent. This NPR story on bear population increases in the Appalachians addresses the issue. Earlier this winter the desire to have fewer bears in suburban areas in New Jersey was contrasted with the desire of some not to kill any bears. Read one of the many stories covering the controversy at NJ.com.

Photo of Florida black bear cub courtesy of the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.

Mystery of the “Cactus Bucks”

Posted on by
Reply

For ten years hunters and residents of western Colorado, near the north fork of the Gunnison River have been reporting mule deer with strange antlers to the Colorado Division of Wildlife. A Colorado Division of Wildlife press release says: “In these male animals the antlers grow in odd shapes, never develop fully and do not lose their velvet.”

These mule deer with the fuzzy, misshapen antlers have been called “cactus bucks.”

The cause of the deformity is a mystery, although division biologists believe that hemorrhagic disease is to blame.

Colorado Parks and Wildlife biologists recently collared eight infected animals and will follow them to see whether they shed their “cactus” antlers or grow new, normally developed ones in the future.

Read the Colorado Parks and Wildlife press release here. (So far news outlets have just reprinted the press release.)

In other cervid disease news: Three wild deer have tested positive for bovine tuberculosis in Michigan (at the top of the mitten’s index finger), according to an article in USA Today. Humans are not at risk, according to the State of Michigan’s emerging disease information. However, wild deer populations are at risk, as is the status of the region’s livestock, which may face greater regulations.

Read the story in USA Today, here.
The Michigan emerging disease info on bovine TB is here.

Photo: Kyle Banks, district wildlife manager for Colorado Parks and Wildlife in the Hotchkiss area, holds one of the “cactus bucks” collared in January 2012 as part of a five-year study. Courtesy of Colorado Parks and Wildlife.

WNS Surveillance Concept

Posted on by
Reply

If your state has not yet been struck by white nose syndrome (WNS), or if you are in an area of your state not yet struck by WNS, you’ve probably needed to develop a system of surveillance that isn’t intrusive on hibernating bats and doesn’t take up a ton of staff time.

The favored method of WNS surveillance — sending staffers to known bat hibernation sites to observe and survey bats — is both intrusive and time consuming.

Scientists from the National Parks Service and the Southeastern Cooperative Wildlife Disease Study describe a new surveillance concept in a letter to the journal Emerging Infectious Diseases.

To survey the region around Mammoth Cave National Park, the national park service used bats that had previously been collected for rabies testing and had been proven not to have rabies.They narrowed their search by testing only bat species known to be susceptible to WNS and only those collected from November to April, when WNS is more likely to be detectable.

In a pilot test, the technique did detect one WNS-positive bat.

Read the letter to Emerging Infectious Diseases, here.

It’s important to keep in mind that the external parts of the WNS fungus can be brushed off at any contact, so that the tell-tale fuzzy white fungus may not be visible on bats that have been previously handled.

This Journal of Veterinary Diagnostic Investigation paper tells you what the lab should be looking for under the microscope. There is also a PCR test for the fungus.

Photo: Bat with white nose syndrome in a mine in Vermont. Courtesy US Fish and Wildlife Service

Public Continues to Misunderstand Sudden Bird Deaths

Posted on by
3

A starling, like the birds killed on I-95 in Maryland in FebruaryHundreds of starlings fell to the asphalt yesterday afternoon during rush hour on Interstate 95 near Laurel, Maryland, in the Washington, DC area. Traffic backed up as motorists tried to avoid running over the birds.

The Washington Post and ABC7 quote Maryland Department of Natural Resources biologist Peter Bedel as saying the birds likely just flew into a truck.

Lots of pics and videos of dead birds; lots of conjecture about the Aflockolypse of New Year’s Eve 2011.

Read the Washington Post story.
See the ABC7 story.
Here’s a brief in the Baltimore Sun.

Photo: A starling (not dead) by Dr. Thomas G. Barnes, courtesy of US Fish and Wildlife Service.