Earthworms Cause Ovenbird Decline

Posted on March 6, 2012 by MadelineBodin

A recent paper in Landscape Ecology confirms that ovenbirds are found in lower densities in sugar maple and basswood forests in Wisconsin where invasive earthworms are found.

Ovenbird numbers have been in decline for decades in the Northeast and Midwest. Habitat loss is typically named as the chief culprit, although non-native earthworms were known to be a contributing factor.

Ovenbirds are a ground-nesting, forest-interior species. They rely both on large tracts of forested land and plenty of leaf-litter from which to build their beehive-oven-shaped nests. Earthworms, which are not native to the northern parts of the United States, quickly chew up fallen leaves and other forest debris, leaving the ovenbirds with few places to hide and little to build with.

Read the paper in Landscape Ecology, here. (Fee or subscription required.)
Read the Smithsonian Institution blog post on the findings, here.

The Smithsonian information has been reprinted widely around the web. A quick survey showed only verbatim copies of the blog post, but the coverage does appear to be widespread.

Photo: Ovenbird, courtesy of the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources

Climate Vulnerability of Taxa at the State Level

Posted on March 5, 2012 by MadelineBodin

Clapper rail, California Fish and Game Usually it is hard enough figuring out what’s stressing species right now to figure out which may need protection. Predicting the future — such as how land uses might change — adds another level of complexity. Figuring out the impact of climate change, with its assortment of predictive models, is more complex still.

A team from PRBO Conservation Science, a non-profit bird ecology research organization, took on the challenge of predicting the vulnerability of California’s bird species to climate change at the behest of the California Department of Fish and Game. The results were released by the science journal PLoS ONE last week.

Instead of applying existing, national models of species vulnerability, the research team developed their own framework. They were able to do this because of the abundance of data unique to California, the paper says.

“What’s most exciting about the study is that our unique approach is one that other scientists and resource managers can duplicate to help them conserve wildlife in the face of climate change,” said Tom Gardali, an ecologist with PRBO Conservation Science and the paper’s lead author, in a press release issued jointly by PRBO and the California Department of Fish and Game.

Read the PLoS ONE paper here. (Open access.)
Read the California Fish and Game release here. (It includes a link to a complete list of vulnerability ratings, by taxa.)

What do the paper’s findings mean on the ground, for California’s birds? Wetland taxa are the most vulnerable, notes a KQED climate blog, and many of the birds found to be vulnerable are found in San Francisco Bay.

The KQED Climate Watch blog says:

“That’s primarily because of sea level rise and also because there are already so many imperiled species that use that habitat in the bay,” says Tom Gardali…

Photo: The clapper rail is one of the at-risk birds identified by the climate change study. Photo courtesy California Fish and Game

More States Turning to Night Hunting for Problem Animals

Posted on March 2, 2012 by MadelineBodin

North Carolina, Arizona and Tennessee are among the states that are allowing night hunting for problem species like feral swine, coyotes and mountain lions when existing hunting practices fail to reduce populations, says an article in USA Today.

Night hunting is allowed in 42 states, the article says, quoting data from the Indiana-based National Predator Hunters Association.

In the article, a coyote coexistence advocate is quoted as saying that hunting does little to reduce population levels of the fecund coyote. That’s a sentiment shared by many wildlife managers was well, regarding both coyotes and feral swine.

Read the USA Today article here.
PDF article on feral swine in New Hampshire Fish and Game’s magazine.

Photo: Feral swine piglet. If only they were all this cute. By Steve Hillebrand, courtesy US Fish and Wildlife Service

Scent Marking Won’t Keep Coyotes Away

Posted on March 1, 2012 by MadelineBodin

Coyotes are territorial and mark their territories with urine. There are plenty of studies that show predator urine keeps prey away (such as keeping deer away from a garden with coyote urine). And using territorial marking has worked in repelling African wild dogs. But the trick doesn’t appear to work with coyotes.

A study reported in the last issue of The Wildlife Society Bulletin found that using coyote urine to mark off an area to keep other coyotes away, not only didn’t repel them, but only served to have coyotes linger in the area.

Read the article in Wildlife Society Bulletin. (Subscription of fee required, but the abstract pretty much tells you all you need to know.)

A Ph.D. student of that paper’s lead author did a similar study a few years ago, with captive coyotes, and got a similar finding. Read her doctoral thesis, with references to the predator/prey studies and other background info on the general concept — here.

Coyote photo by Steve Thompson, courtesy US Fish and Wildlife Service

New State (And National) Listings of Endangered Species

Posted on February 29, 2012 by MadelineBodin

Six 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 February 28, 2012 by MadelineBodin

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 February 27, 2012 by MadelineBodin

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 February 24, 2012 by MadelineBodin

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 February 23, 2012 by MadelineBodin

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 February 22, 2012 by MadelineBodin

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.

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