Monthly Archives: December 2012

Montana Surveys Bats

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gray batThe Montana Natural Heritage Program is collecting baseline information on the state’s bats that will be vital if the state is ever struck with white nose syndrome (WNS), an article in the Flathead Beacon reports.

The survey has lead to the discovery of three additional bat species in Glacier National Park, the article says. The project has been assisted by the North Rocky Mountain Grotto caving club and the Bigfork High School cave club.

According to information from the Montana Natural Heritage Program, Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks is a partner in the project.

Read the Flathead Beacon article here.
Read more information about the project, plus additional bat research being conducted by the Montana Natural Heritage Program here.

Photo: bat, courtesy of the US Fish and Wildlife Service

Florida Announces Python Contest

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python challenge logoNon-native Burmese pythons are disrupting the south Florida ecosystem by devouring native wildlife. The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) and its partners have used just about every tool in the box to try to control Burmese pythons in the state. Now it is trying one of the oldest wildlife control methods out there: competitive harvesting.

The FWC says, in a press release that the goal of the 2013 Python Challenge is to increase public awareness of this ecological threat. The contest will last a month, beginning January 12, 2013, and will award $1,500 dollars for the most Burmese pythons collected and $1,000 for the longest Burmese pythons in two categories of contestant, the general public and state python permit holders.

Contestants must complete on-line training to identify Burmese pythons and pay a $25 registration fee. The prize money, a Miami Herald article reports, will come from the entry fee and commission partners.

Now for a bit of editorializing: if it works, it will be the best $5,000 the commission never spent. But the risks are alarming. The on-line training appears insufficient (find it here). The better of the many possible poor outcomes is that the prize money won’t inspire enough people to scour south Florida’s public wetlands for what can be a dangerous snake. Part of the contest rules require that you own a GPS device or a smart phone to track your own movements during the python hunt, which is yet another barrier to participation.

At worst, greed and inexperience will mean people are hurt and native snakes slaughtered. Let’s hope FWC got it exactly right. If they did, it could provide a valuable model for other invasive species efforts.

Read the FWC press release here.
Read the Miami Herald article here.
Find the Python Challenge website here.

Raptor-Killing Poison Ban Starts Soon in Canada

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Bald_EaglePotent second generation anticoagulant rodenticides (ARs; aka, rat poisons) kill birds, particularly raptors in the United States and Canada. Canada will ban sales of these poisons on January 1, while in the U.S. talk of banning consumers from using the poisons has been around for a while, but never seems to be enacted.

“In a study of more than 130 dead birds of prey found in and around Vancouver, Canada, ‘virtually 100%’ of the owls and a large proportion of the hawks had residues of at least one second-generation AR in their livers,” said a news story in the journal Nature last month.

The Canadian Cooperative Wildlife Health Centre blog illustrates just how tough it can be to diagnose AR poisoning in raptors. A toxics screen of the bird’s liver may be the only sign that AR poisoning was the cause of death, the blog says.

Read the Nature article, here.
Read the CCWHC blog post, here.

We’ve covered this subject before. Read one of our previous posts, here.

Photo: bald eagle by Dave Menke, USFWS

Hunting and Food Safety

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hunting at sunsetMost of the news from state wildlife agencies across the country this week are about hunting: seasons opening and closing, whether the numbers are up or down for a particular season. For the folks at the Canadian Cooperative Wildlife Health Center, that’s a good reason to take a look at food-safety issues associated with hunter-killed wildlife.

For the most part, the news is good. Taking care when field dressing and butchering the meat avoids the most common problems, they say. The occasional wound or parasite is to be expected, the entry says, and is no cause for alarm.

For all the details, plus a link to common sense wild meat handling guidelines, see the CCWHC blog entry, here.

We’ll hear more from the CCWHC blog on Monday.

Photo courtesy US Fish and Wildlife

NM Crane Mystery

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mystery crane NMIt’s not so much of a mystery, as a quirky little crane that has attracted media attention nationwide. Back in November, Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge in New Mexico posted a photo on its Facebook page of a crane that was darker, thinner, smaller and had more compact feathers than the flock of sandhill cranes it was with.

The refuge is known for its sandhill cranes, so it made sense that this was simply a color morph, or a crane that had preened dark mud into its feathers. But the guessing game had begun, with the most outrageous guess supposing that this was a hybrid between a sandhill crane and a trumpeter, native to South America.

The photo of the bird that is getting the most exposure is by Clint Henson of the New Mexico Department of Game & Fish.

Read more about the guessing game in the San Francisco Chronicle, here.
The Bosque del Apache NWR Facebook page is worth a visit just for the many stunning photos, of cranes, other creatures and beautiful vistas.

Photo: Mystery crane and sandhill friends, courtesy of the Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge.

NY State Seeks Rabbit Heads

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NE cottontail 2

The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation is seeking cottontail rabbit heads from hunters east of the Hudson River. The eastern cottontail is almost identical in appearance to the imperiled New England cottontail. The only sure way to tell the two rabbit species apart is by sampling DNA or looking at the shape of the skull. The collected heads will allow both.

To gather more information about the distribution of the New England cottontail in the state, as well as possibly turning up the once widespread Appalachian cottontail (S. obscurus), the NYS DEC is turning to rabbit hunters in Westchester, Putnam, Dutchess, Columbia or Rensselaer County, or in the Sterling Forest State Park in Orange County to contribute the heads from their prey.

More information is available on the NYS DEC New England cottontail survey web page, here.

You can keep an eye out for the extremely short notice in the DEC’s Field Notes newsletter, here. It is in the Nov. 30 edition, which wasn’t posted yet when this went on-line.

Photo: A New England cottontail, source unknown.

Midwest Otter Recovery

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otter_pair_maxwellRiver otters now occupy more than 80 percent of Indiana counties, says Scott Johnson, nongame biologist with the Indiana Department of Natural Resources in a department press release.

That is remarkable, because in 1942 river otters had been extirpated from the state. A restoration program began in 1995, 303 otters were transported from Louisiana and released at 12 sites in northern and southern Indiana.The otters thrived and in 2005 they were removed from the state’s endangered species list.

More recently, otters have moved into central Indiana, finding habitat in an area that was long thought not to be ideal, says Johnson.

In what is perhaps the modern sign of wildlife restoration success, the otters are now considered a nuisance to some Indiana pond owners. The IDNR received 34 river otter complaints last year and issued 10 control permits in 2012.

Read the IDNR press release, here.

In Illinois, river otter restoration may be considered even more successful. Last week, National Public Radio reported that Illinois had reinstated an otter trapping season for the first time in 90 years. The story’s headline says that the state has been overrun by otters.

Read or listen to the NPR story, here.

Photo: River otters, courtesy Indiana Department of Natural Resources

Midwest Otter Recovery

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otter_pair_maxwellRiver otters now occupy more than 80 percent of Indiana counties, says Scott Johnson, nongame biologist with the Indiana Department of Natural Resources in a department press release.

That is remarkable, because in 1942 river otters had been extirpated from the state. A restoration program began in 1995, 303 otters were transported from Louisiana and released at 12 sites in northern and southern Indiana.The otters thrived and in 2005 they were removed from the state’s endangered species list.

More recently, otters have moved into central Indiana, finding habitat in an area that was long thought not to be ideal, says Johnson.

In what is perhaps the modern sign of wildlife restoration success, the otters are now considered a nuisance to some Indiana pond owners. The IDNR received 34 river otter complaints last year and issued 10 control permits in 2012.

Read the IDNR press release, here.

In Illinois, river otter restoration may be considered even more successful. Last week, National Public Radio reported that Illinois had reinstated an otter trapping season for the first time in 90 years. The story’s headline says that the state has been overrun by otters.

Read or listen to the NPR story, here.

Photo: River otters, courtesy Indiana Department of Natural Resources