Monthly Archives: February 2013

Global Owl Project

Posted on by
Reply

burrowing owlsWhen I saw that The New York Times had published an article on the Global Owl Project, I put that news at the top of my list. A new global effort to study owls that was robust enough to attract the attention of the Gray Lady is something you would want to know about, I thought.

The article itself is more of a round-up of cool owl facts. That’s interesting enough, I suppose. But really, it included almost nothing on the Global Owl Project.

Read The New York Times article here.

But what about the Global Owl Project? A glance at its website shows that it has been around for several years. In fact, the site says that the project was supposed to last five years and wrap up in 2008. Six papers on owls were published under its aegis. (Including a recently-uploaded report on how to build artificial burrows for burrowing owls, which looks helpful.)

Get info on the project from its briefing paper (here).

Photo: Burrowing owls by Lee Karney, used courtesy of the US Fish and Wildlife Service

Moose: CWD in Canada and New Study in Montana

Posted on by
Reply

mooseThe Edmonton Journal reports that chronic wasting disease (CWD) has been discovered in an adult bull moose that was killed in a vehicle collision in southern Alberta last year. It is the first case of CWD in a moose in Canada, the article says, adding that the disease has previously been found in moose in Colorado and Wyoming.

Read the Edmonton Journal article here.

In Montana, the moose population has been in decline in the last several years, with last year’s moose hunt seeing the lowest numbers in 50 years. An article in the Flathead Beacon says that Montana has joined the states initiating a long-term research project to try to uncover the cause of the decline.

Twelve cow moose have been radio collared for a 10 year study, the article in the Flathead Beacon says. The study will also include analyzing blood samples. Nick DeCesare is the lead biologist for the study, assisted by Jesse Newby.

Read the complete store in the Flathead Beacon, here.

Photo: Not Canadian, eh? A New Hampshire moose by Alan Briere, courtesy of NH Fish and Wildlife

Ducks and Hunting

Posted on by
Reply

Ducks vs. EthanolA new paper in the Wildlife Society Bulletin says because duck stamp revenues pay to conserve duck habitat, that ironically, a reduction in duck hunting threatens duck populations. The study found a correlation between duck stamp sales and duck populations, with a steady decline in both in recent years.

Read the Wildlife Society Bulletin abstract here. (Subscription or fee required for full access.)

The BBC News’ environment correspondent tried to get his mind around the idea that more duck hunting means a more secure duck population. This is something that state wildlife professionals may never ponder, since the fact that hunting license fees and the federal sporting goods tax is often the only funding for wildlife conservation (game or non-game species) that many states receive. It might be interesting to look at the thought process of someone coming to the idea anew.

Read the BBC News article based on the Wildlife Society Bulletin here.

Photo: mallard duck drake, by Erwin and Peggy Bauer, courtesy of the US Fish and Wildlife Service

Yellowstone Wolf Study Threatened

Posted on by
Reply

Gray_wolfThe loss of several collared wolves to hunters has put a decades-long study in Yellowstone National Park in jeopardy, the Great Falls Tribune reports. “So far this year, hunters have killed 12 percent of the park’s wolf population…” the article states.

Because humans have been no threat to wolves for decades inside the national park, the wolves are naive when they encounter hunters just outside its borders. Some are dead within hours of leaving the park, the article says. Montana has allowed wolf hunting since 2009, Wyoming introduced wolf hunting this year.

The research conducted on collared wolves in the park has resulted in 68 papers in peer-reviewed journals, the article says. It also notes that the death of a few key wolves has threatened the existence of entire packs within the park.

Read more in the Great Falls Tribune.

Photo: Gray wolf by Gary Kramer, courtesy of US Fish and Wildlife Service

AAAS Report: Partnering with Zoos

Posted on by
Reply

aaasYou may think of zoos as a place where people go to gawk at captive animals. Or you may think of zoos as vital partners in your role managing wildlife for the people of your state. The US Fish and Wildlife has a significant track record in working with zoos to conserve federally endangered species. Could you do the same on a state level?

At the AAAS annual meeting in Boston earlier this week, John Fraser of New Knowledge Organization made the case for zoos’ role in conservation as more than mere arks that protect endangered species when the wild isn’t safe.

Fraser said that when it comes to handling animals, no one does it better than zoos, because no one has more practice. He said that zoos are the place to turn for expert advice and even hired help when you need to handle certain wild animals in your research.

He also pointed out that zoos can provide research subjects when for whatever reason studying the species in the wild won’t do. He said that because zoos have experience with the entire life-cycle of a species, they can provide information that can inform conservation in the wild and even the needs of other, similar species.

Finally, he noted that the gawking public often only learns to appreciate a species when they’ve seen it up close in a zoo, and in that way zoos can provide a public relations platform for conservation efforts.

AAAS Report: Ecosystem Services

Posted on by
Reply

aaasAre you a bean counter or a scientist? According to two different sessions focused on ecosystems services at the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) annual meeting in Boston last weekend, you should probably be both.

A Saturday morning session, featuring Jane Lubchenco, still of NOAA, as a discussant, illustrated just how sophisticated ecosystem services accounting has become. And while there was even a representative from the World Bank who discussed both the general and specific accounting principles at work in analyzing ecosystem services, it wasn’t all about money. The key term is values, especially cultural values.

The key concept is asking stakeholders what they want, whether it is from a fishery or a forest, then balancing conflicting wants in a way with broad benefits. Lisa Mandle of the Natural Capital Project introduced the concept of “serviceshed,” which is a concept that tries to prevent there being winners and losers of ecosystem services.

An example is when a wetland is destroyed in an urban area, and then, thanks to the Clean Water Act, a new one is created or preserved in a rural area — outside of the original serviceshed. In theory, the ecosystem benefits from the preserved wetland. In practice, the people in the city lose the ecosystem services provided by the wetland (flood control, pollution abatement, fish, etc.), while the people in the rural area gain even more of them.

Extensive examples of ecosystem services driving conservation efforts were given from South Africa and Quebec, Canada.

The star of this show was the Natural Capital Project, so check out their website and their InVEST ecosystem services modeling tool.

AAAS Report: Future of Conservation

Posted on by
Reply

aaasIn a session at the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) annual meeting this weekend in Boston about the future of conservation, Peter Kareiva, chief scientist for The Nature Conservancy, said that in the global ecosystem, multinational corporations like Cargill, Rio Tinto, and Dow are “keystone species” that conservation can only ignore to its peril.

John Robinson of the Wildlife Conservation Society was skeptical about the value of ideas like naturalness and wilderness. He said there has been a shift from valuing nature for its own sake toward creating conservation goals through an analysis of the cultural values associated with the aspect of nature under threat.

Both speakers promoted an ecosystems services approach to conservation.

The third panelist, Alan Thornhill, spoke about his recent experience as a science adviser at the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, the agency that oversees continental shelf oil-drilling leases. Thornhill said that the agency actually had hundreds of scientists on staff, but their information was buried under layers of bureaucracy. The Deepwater Horizon catastrophe allowed those scientists’ voices to be heard, he said, by forcing the agency the agency to reorganize, which brought the science function closer to the executive level.

Earlier in the day there had been an entire panel devoted to ecosystem services, and we’ll cover that session tomorrow.

 

 

Minnesota Cancels Moose Hunt

Posted on by
Reply

MN moose_header“The state’s moose population has been in decline for years but never at the precipitous rate documented this winter,” said Tom Landwehr, Minnesota Department of Natural Resources commissioner in a press release announcing the cancellation of Minnesota’s moose hunting season.

The commissioner noted that the state’s limited moose hunt was not the cause for the population’s decline.

The 2013 moose hunt was cancelled after aerial survey revealed the sharp drop in the moose population, the press release says. The survey was part of an on-going study of the state’s moose decline. (Previously covered here.)

The hunt’s cancellation was covered on NBC News’ national news. Read the article here.
Read the Minnesota DNR press release here.
Read more about the department’s moose mortality research project, on its webiste, here.

Photo: courtesy of Minnesota Dept. of Natural Resources

Citizen Science Round-up

Posted on by
Reply

wolf_track_ruler_411021_7On Friday, the Great Backyard Bird Count, a massive citizen science project run by Audubon and the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, begins.

Read about the count in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, here.
Or visit the count’s website, here.

Perhaps in the spirit of the Great Backyard Bird Count, there is a lot of citizen science news this week. In Wisconsin, citizen volunteers are doing acoustical bat surveys with the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources. Read about it in the Kenosha News.

No cases of raccoon rabies have been identified in the Canadian province of Quebec for the third straight year, and citizen surveillance helped, the Canadian Cooperative Wildlife Health Centre reports. Citizen reports of potential raccoon rabies cases increased by 18 percent, while visits to the provincial rabies control website increased by 25 percent, the blog says. The blog includes a link to the province’s press release, but the press release is in French.

The California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW), U.S. Forest Service (USFS) and the Society for Conservation of Bighorn Sheep (SCBS) are looking for volunteers to help biologists with a bighorn sheep survey in March. The survey has been conducted since 1979. They are asking volunteers to attend an orientation session the evening before the survey. Read the CDFW press release here.

The Michigan Department of Natural Resources has both been asking for and getting valuable help from citizen volunteers. One recent request is for volunteers on Michigan’s lower peninsula to report any sightings or tracks of wolves from February 11 through March 8. Read the press release here.

The department is also asking for more volunteers to join its annual frog and toad survey, conducted in spring. This year will be the 18th annual survey. Read the frog and toad survey press release here.

Michigan DNR may be confident asking for all this help, because it has already gotten help from citizens. Earlier this month it gave a Partners in Conservation award to a 32-year-old dairy farmer who gathered and distributed information about an outbreak of epizootic hemorrhagic disease in deer in two counties. Read the press release here.

Photo: Wolf track, courtesy of the Michigan Department of Natural Resources.

Citizen Science Round-up

Posted on by
Reply

wolf_track_ruler_411021_7On Friday, the Great Backyard Bird Count, a massive citizen science project run by Audubon and the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, begins.

Read about the count in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, here.
Or visit the count’s website, here.

Perhaps in the spirit of the Great Backyard Bird Count, there is a lot of citizen science news this week. In Wisconsin, citizen volunteers are doing acoustical bat surveys with the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources. Read about it in the Kenosha News.

No cases of raccoon rabies have been identified in the Canadian province of Quebec for the third straight year, and citizen surveillance helped, the Canadian Cooperative Wildlife Health Centre reports. Citizen reports of potential raccoon rabies cases increased by 18 percent, while visits to the provincial rabies control website increased by 25 percent, the blog says. The blog includes a link to the province’s press release, but the press release is in French.

The California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW), U.S. Forest Service (USFS) and the Society for Conservation of Bighorn Sheep (SCBS) are looking for volunteers to help biologists with a bighorn sheep survey in March. The survey has been conducted since 1979. They are asking volunteers to attend an orientation session the evening before the survey. Read the CDFW press release here.

The Michigan Department of Natural Resources has both been asking for and getting valuable help from citizen volunteers. One recent request is for volunteers on Michigan’s lower peninsula to report any sightings or tracks of wolves from February 11 through March 8. Read the press release here.

The department is also asking for more volunteers to join its annual frog and toad survey, conducted in spring. This year will be the 18th annual survey. Read the frog and toad survey press release here.

Michigan DNR may be confident asking for all this help, because it has already gotten help from citizens. Earlier this month it gave a Partners in Conservation award to a 32-year-old dairy farmer who gathered and distributed information about an outbreak of epizootic hemorrhagic disease in deer in two counties. Read the press release here.

Photo: Wolf track, courtesy of the Michigan Department of Natural Resources.