New Wildlife Resources Director in Utah

greg sheehan utahIn Utah, Greg Sheehan has been named as the new director of the Division of Wildlife Resources, according to a recent press release from the division.

Sheehan, a department employee with 20 years’ experience, has been the DWR’s Administrative Services chief since 2002. The release quotes Mike Styler, executive director of the Utah Department of Natural Resources as saying that “Greg brings a business background to the position, but he’s much more than an MBA.”

Read more about Sheehan in the Division’s press release, here.

Wild Cat News

Three Florida panthers (Puma concolor) were hit and killed by vehicles in a one week period this November, the Naples News reports. That brings the Florida panther death total to 23 for the year. It’s possible that this year will tie or break the record number of panther deaths of 25, set in 2007. But more important, the trend of the total number of deaths each year generally increasing over the last 10 years.

What does it all mean? Another article in the Naples News quotes Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission panther team leader Darrell Land as saying the trend is no reason to worry. He says in the article that more panthers mean more deaths. He also says that known panther births are keeping pace with the panther deaths.

Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) does not agree, saying in a press release that something needs to be done to stem the mounting death toll of the federally endangered species.

However, it was the Naples News article that noted:

In 2004, PEER represented former U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologist Andy Eller in an unsuccessful attempt to get his job back after he questioned the science his agency was using to approve development in panther habitat and was fired.

In other wild cat news, disease may not be the first thing you think of when you think of predators in urban areas. But Fluffy and Fido have to worry about catching (and giving) diseases to bobcats in addition to worrying about winding up as a bobcat’s dinner, a recent paper in the Journal of Clinical Microbiology says. Actually, the paper focuses on disease transmission between humans and bobcats, which may be farther off anyone’s radar, and the diseases mentioned are familiar to pet owners.

NBCNews.com has the LiveScience story, here.
You can find at least the abstract for the Journal of Clinical Microbiology paper, here. (Full access requires a subscription or fee.)

Finally, the ninth mountain lion (Puma concolor) confirmed in Kansas in modern times was seen in a trail camera photo this month, although the photo was taken in October, a press release from the Kansas Department of Wildlife, Parks and Tourism says. Read the press release here.

Photo: courtesy Missouri Department of Conservation

Coyote/Wolf Hybrids in the East

A recent study published in Molecular Ecology, which studied the hybridization between eastern wolves, gray wolves and coyotes in and around Algonquin Provincial Park (APP) in Ontario found that about 36 percent of the animals tested were hybrids of two or three of the three Canis types.

West of the park the genes tested switched sharply from eastern wolf to coyote and hybrids. South and northwest of the park, the genes were a bit more complicated. However, the most remote locations with the most moose also had the animals with greater wolf ancestry.

The eastern coyote is generally larger than its western counterpart, and it appears to behave differently, too. The genetics of the eastern coyote could help inform the management of coyotes in the region, so papers like this are worth noting.

Reading the article in Molecular Ecology requires a subscription or a fee, but you can access it here.

Photo: coyote, by Steve Thompson, courtesy US Fish and Wildlife

Girls and Hunting

According to the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources:

Girls are the fastest growing segment of Wisconsin’s hunting population. The number of licensed women gun deer hunters in Wisconsin is projected to increase by 50 percent to 75,000 in 20 years. As of opening day, females represented 32 percent of resident first-time license buyers and 30 percent of resident first-time junior gun deer licenses.

 

A very unscientific survey of the photos in a local Vermont newspaper celebrating youth hunting day, showed not quite one-quarter of the young hunters pictured with a deer were girls.

Read the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources page, including videos, here.

In other deer hunting news, the season tallies are starting to come in. You can find Minnesota’s here. And you can find numbers on Missouri’s season, the biggest in years, here and here. In Alabama, hunters are self-reporting on-line. Read the story from the Alabama Media Group.

Photo: Mother and daughter hunt together in Wisconsin, courtesy of the Wisconsin Dept. of Natural Resources.

Wyoming Funding Woes

Think your fish and wildlife department’s funding would be secure, if only hunting and fishing license sales were healthy? It seems that even excellent hunting and fishing license sales don’t guarantee a healthy budget, as the situation in Wyoming seems to show.

A Caspar Star-Tribune editorial says that tourism is Wyoming’s number two industry, and many of those tourists come to hunt and fish in the state. Still, that doesn’t prevent the state Game and Fish department from going hat-in-hand to state legislators when they need raise license fees to keep up with inflation. When Fish and Game makes an unpopular decision, the legislature just says, “no.”

That may be a problem that many state fish and wildlife departments would rather deal with than the funding problems they have now in their own states, but it does show that things are rough all over.

Read the entire editorial in the Caspar Star-Tribune, here.

Talking Turkey

The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation’s Wildlife Health Unit is asking turkey hunters to be on the lookout for lymphoproliferative disease virus (LPDV). The virus, which causes lesions similar to the ones seen in the oh-so-common avian pox, was first confirmed in New York this spring.

Perhaps because of its resemblance to avian pox, LPDV has only been discovered in wild turkeys in the United States recently, when it had previously only been known in domestic turkeys in the United Kingdom and the Middle East, according to the quarterly newsletter from the Southeastern Cooperative Wildlife Disease Study. The newsletter also suggests that LPDV is more likely to cause lesions or nodules on a turkey’s legs or feet than the more common avian pox is.

Read the NYS DEC’s first request for more information on LPDV, here. (2nd item)
Read the department’s more recent request, here.
Read the Southern Cooperative Wildlife Disease Study Briefs, here. It includes some details about what LPDV looks like under a microscope.

There will be no State Wildlife Research News on Thursday or Friday of this week because of the holiday. Have a very happy Thanksgiving!

Photo: a healthy Rio Grande wild turkey, photographed  by Robert Burton, courtesy of US Fish and Wildlife and the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department. (For a photo of LPDV, see the NYS DEC write-up or the newsletter, but don’t say we didn’t warn you.)

Talking Turkey

The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation’s Wildlife Health Unit is asking turkey hunters to be on the lookout for lymphoproliferative disease virus (LPDV). The virus, which causes lesions similar to the ones seen in the oh-so-common avian pox, was first confirmed in New York this spring.

Perhaps because of its resemblance to avian pox, LPDV has only been discovered in wild turkeys in the United States recently, when it had previously only been known in domestic turkeys in the United Kingdom and the Middle East, according to the quarterly newsletter from the Southeastern Cooperative Wildlife Disease Study. The newsletter also suggests that LPDV is more likely to cause lesions or nodules on a turkey’s legs or feet than the more common avian pox is.

Read the NYS DEC’s first request for more information on LPDV, here. (2nd item)
Read the department’s more recent request, here.
Read the Southern Cooperative Wildlife Disease Study Briefs, here. It includes some details about what LPDV looks like under a microscope.

There will be no State Wildlife Research News on Thursday or Friday of this week because of the holiday. Have a very happy Thanksgiving!

Photo: a healthy Rio Grande wild turkey, photographed  by Robert Burton, courtesy of US Fish and Wildlife and the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department. (For a photo of LPDV, see the NYS DEC write-up or the newsletter, but don’t say we didn’t warn you.)

Mood Indigo Snake in Alabama

In 2005, the Alabama Division of Wildlife and Freshwater Fisheries staff began investigating of the status of the Eastern indigo snake in the state. Two years of intensive field investigation did not discover any of this federally-listed species, so the department, along with several partners, began to reintroduce them.

Since 2010, 78 wild indigo snakes into the Conecuh National Forest in Alabama. According to the USDA blog:

Some of the released snakes were bred in captivity from wild-caught snakes from Georgia through the cooperation of the Georgia Department of Natural Resources and Fort Stewart. The snakes were raised at Auburn University and the Atlanta Zoo. Each captive-raised snake with this project has been implanted with a passive integrated transponder tag for permanent identification as well as a radio transmitter to track and assess their survivorship. Auburn University will monitor the snakes movements and survival in the Conecuh National Forest.

In 2011, the US Forest Service recognized the Alabama Division of Wildlife and Freshwater Fisheries for their indigo snake restoration project. Other partners in the project include Conecuh National Forest, Auburn University, the Georgia Department of Natural Resources, The Orianne Society, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Zoo Atlanta, and the U.S. Department of Defense.

Oh, and the average indigo snake is about seven feet long, making it one of the largest snakes native to North America. It is not venomous.

You can read more about the project in a press release from the Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, here. (And no, I don’t feel the slightest bit sheepish about mentioning this release 20 days later. The “recent” award was given in 2011, after all.)

Here’s the press release from the time of the first snake release.
And here’s the USDA blog, with more information.

Photo: Indigo snake, courtesy of the Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources.

Mood Indigo Snake in Alabama

In 2005, the Alabama Division of Wildlife and Freshwater Fisheries staff began investigating of the status of the Eastern indigo snake in the state. Two years of intensive field investigation did not discover any of this federally-listed species, so the department, along with several partners, began to reintroduce them.

Since 2010, 78 wild indigo snakes into the Conecuh National Forest in Alabama. According to the USDA blog:

Some of the released snakes were bred in captivity from wild-caught snakes from Georgia through the cooperation of the Georgia Department of Natural Resources and Fort Stewart. The snakes were raised at Auburn University and the Atlanta Zoo. Each captive-raised snake with this project has been implanted with a passive integrated transponder tag for permanent identification as well as a radio transmitter to track and assess their survivorship. Auburn University will monitor the snakes movements and survival in the Conecuh National Forest.

In 2011, the US Forest Service recognized the Alabama Division of Wildlife and Freshwater Fisheries for their indigo snake restoration project. Other partners in the project include Conecuh National Forest, Auburn University, the Georgia Department of Natural Resources, The Orianne Society, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Zoo Atlanta, and the U.S. Department of Defense.

Oh, and the average indigo snake is about seven feet long, making it one of the largest snakes native to North America. It is not venomous.

You can read more about the project in a press release from the Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, here. (And no, I don’t feel the slightest bit sheepish about mentioning this release 20 days later. The “recent” award was given in 2011, after all.)

Here’s the press release from the time of the first snake release.
And here’s the USDA blog, with more information.

Photo: Indigo snake, courtesy of the Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources.

Stickers Help Fund 2015 Heron Survey

According to the Heron Observation Network of Maine (HERON) blog:

The great blue heron was designated as a Species of Special Concern in Maine in 2007 due to a decline in breeding pairs along the coast. Little was known about the inland breeding population before 2009 when the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife ramped up its monitoring efforts by creating the Heron Observation Network.

Through HERON, volunteers across the state monitor known great blue heron colonies during the breeding season, collecting information that helps state biologists understand the species’ population trend and prioritize future conservation efforts.

In addition to the data collected by volunteers, it is important to periodically do a statewide aerial survey to find new heron colonies that may have recently popped up.

To help fund the next aerial survey, scheduled for 2015, HERON is partnering with Burly Bird (a Maine-based conservation sticker company) to create a UV-coated vinyl sticker that shows a black and white silhouette of a great blue heron.

The stickers can be purchased from the Burly Bird website or through the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife’s online store.

The Maine Sun-Journal covered the story, here.