Category Archives: Canada

Rattlesnakes and Grizzlies: Endangered?

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Face to face with an eastern rattlesnake or a grizzly bear, you might not feel that it was the animal that was endangered. However, the eastern rattlesnake came closer to a possible Endangered Species Act listing earlier this month when the US Fish and Wildlife Service began a 12-month review of the species’ status.

Read more in the Chicago Tribune.

Meanwhile, in Canada, the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada found no solid evidence of decline in the nation’s grizzly bear population overall, so it denied the species endangered species status, instead designating the western population a species of “special concern.”

Read all about it in the Ottawa Citizen.

Caribou Cam

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It’s not easy studying the behavior of woodland caribou. If it’s not deep snow and freezing temperatures, then it’s bugs. Lots of bugs. However, a team of Canadian researchers attached high resolution cameras to five caribou (Rangifer tarandus caribou) and recorded video and took GPS readings for 20 weeks.

Not the woodland caribou in the study. Other woodland caribou.

According to their paper in the Wildlife Society Bulletin, the resolution on the video was good enough for the scientists to identify the plant species that the caribou ate. Six percent of the footage was unusable because of fogging or snow, but for the most part the project removed some of the mystery of woodland caribou behavior.

“Critter Cams” have been used by the National Geographic Society, in part, if not mostly, to create entertaining videos for the general public, but in this case, the caribou cam has contributed information on an otherwise difficult to study animal.

Read the Wildlife Society Bulletin paper here. (Requires subscription or fee.)

Photo: Woodland caribou, photo by Erwin and Peggy Bauer, courtesy of the US Fish and Wildlife Service

Tool: Infrared Monitoring

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Thermal image of wolf with a spot mimicing mangeIn a recent study on the origins of the fungus that causes white nose syndrome in bats, the bats in the study were monitored with infrared cameras. This allowed the researchers to see when the bats were rousing (they need to warm up first).

Read a mention of the infrared monitoring in this Associated Press story on the Yahoo News site.
You can also find the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences paper here, but you need a subscription or to pay a fee to read the whole paper.

A more common use for infrared imaging has been for wildlife surveys. For example, Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency has used thermal imaging to survey the ratio of bucks to does and does to fawns for deer management. But this technology can do more.

Scientists are using infrared thermal imaging cameras to detect sarcoptic mange in Yellowstone wolves. The patches of bare skin caused this form of scabies stress the animal because the calories used up to compensate for the heat loss can doom the animal.

Read an article on an early stage of the study in the Billings Gazette.
Read information from the US Geological Survey, here.
And a tip of the hat to Wired Magazine, which dedicated a full page to the story in its May 2012 issue. (Sorry, no direct link because the May issue wasn’t online when this was posted.)

While the Billings Gazette article describes the scientists renting a $40,000 camera, in the Wired Magazine update, $4,000-$5,000 per camera is the price mentioned. There seem to be a lot of possibilities for using infrared thermal imaging in wildlife management that go beyond surveys.

Photo: Thermal image of a wolf with a small bald spot on its rear leg, from the initial test of concept. Courtesy of the US Geological Survey.

New State (And National) Listings of Endangered Species

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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

Parks, Trails and Wildlife

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We generally think of any wildlife population inside of a national park as being safe from human disturbance. That, however, is not quite true, according to a study published in the journal Ecology and Society last month.

The study, which used data from three Canadian national parks, Banff, Kootenay and Yoho, found that when hiker traffic increased on a trail, both wolves and elk avoided the area. In areas where hiker traffic was less than two people per hour, elk made themselves at home, while wolves stayed away, creating a predator-free refuge for the elk.

There was a brief story in the Toronto Globe and Mail. The Sierra Club blog summarizes the research along with other, similar findings. And there is a press release in ScienceDaily.

But read the paper itself in Ecology and Society. The devil is in the details, and the details weren’t necessarily parsed in the news stories. How these findings will apply to trails and parks in your state likely depends on a lot of things — from ecosystem type to the level of development around the park to average level of hiker traffic — and particularly to increases in the numbers of hikers.

Photo: This trail is in a US National Wildlife Refuge. Courtesy US Fish and Wildlife Service

Black Bear Safety

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This paper in the Journal of Wildlife Management is timely. Black bears are awake, looking for food, and, not finding much in nature, are looking to garbage cans and bird feeders (or, as at my house yesterday, a compost bin), when they can get at them.

Canadian scientists, with help from a scientist at the Massachusetts Division of Fisheries and Wildlife and a Brigham Young University researcher, investigated over a century of fatal black bear attacks on humans, and got a big surprise. The conventional wisdom about bear attacks — that they are mostly mothers defending their young — did not hold up to analysis.

The study found that male bears were involved in 92 percent of fatal black bear attacks. The people’s food or garbage likely played a role in the attack 38 percent of the time. Ninety-one percent of the time, the person who was killed was alone or with one other person.

The number of fatalities was a surprise as well, at least to me. The scientists studied 63 deaths. The rate of fatal attacks seems to be increasing, with 86 percent of the attacks occurring between 1960 and 2009. And while I had imagined the mid-Atlantic US to the southern Appalachians as offering a dangerous mix of big black bears and lots of people, it turns out that Canada is home to most black bear fatalities, with 44 of the 63 fatal attacks. (With another five in Alaska, leaving the contiguous U.S. states with just 14.)

Read more about the study in the Toronto Globe and Mail, complete with a nice map.

Read the abstract, or the whole article with subscription or for a fee, in the Journal of Wildlife Management.

Photo credit: Waverley Traylor, courtesy US Fish and Wildlife Service

Black Bear Safety

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This paper in the Journal of Wildlife Management is timely. Black bears are awake, looking for food, and, not finding much in nature, are looking to garbage cans and bird feeders (or, as at my house yesterday, a compost bin), when they can get at them.

Canadian scientists, with help from a scientist at the Massachusetts Division of Fisheries and Wildlife and a Brigham Young University researcher, investigated over a century of fatal black bear attacks on humans, and got a big surprise. The conventional wisdom about bear attacks — that they are mostly mothers defending their young — did not hold up to analysis.

The study found that male bears were involved in 92 percent of fatal black bear attacks. The people’s food or garbage likely played a role in the attack 38 percent of the time. Ninety-one percent of the time, the person who was killed was alone or with one other person.

The number of fatalities was a surprise as well, at least to me. The scientists studied 63 deaths. The rate of fatal attacks seems to be increasing, with 86 percent of the attacks occurring between 1960 and 2009. And while I had imagined the mid-Atlantic US to the southern Appalachians as offering a dangerous mix of big black bears and lots of people, it turns out that Canada is home to most black bear fatalities, with 44 of the 63 fatal attacks. (With another five in Alaska, leaving the contiguous U.S. states with just 14.)

Read more about the study in the Toronto Globe and Mail, complete with a nice map.

Read the abstract, or the whole article with subscription or for a fee, in the Journal of Wildlife Management.

Photo credit: Waverley Traylor, courtesy US Fish and Wildlife Service

White nose syndrome in Ohio, New Brunswick

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The Ohio Department of Natural Resources has confirmed the presence of white nose syndrome in bats hibernating in an abandoned mine in the Wayne National Forest in Lawrence County, Ohio. The infected bats were found during surveys in February and March. The Southeastern Wildlife Disease Study in Athens, Georgia evaluated samples taken at the mine and confirmed the presence of the syndrome.

The press release was issued by the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, and can be found here. So far the local news reports are just reprinting the press release.

In other white nose syndrome news, the syndrome has struck a third Canadian province, New Brunswick. The infected bats were found hibernating in a cave in Albert County, New Brunswick about two weeks ago. The syndrome seems to be hitting the New Brunswick bats harder than it did bats in Quebec or Ontario.

There are stories on the discovery in the Bangor Daily News (Maine), and on CBC News (Canada).

Photo credit: Wayne National Forest and US Fish and Wildlife Service
Photo: A bat during the survey that discovered WNS in Ohio.

More raccoons survive rabies with shots

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Raccoon: US Fish & Wildlife

Just four of the 26 wild-caught, captive raccoons that were fed an oral rabies vaccine on bait developed an immune response to the disease, a Canadian study has found. The raccoons that that received the vaccine by intramuscular injection were more likely to develop an immunity response (18 out of 27). When infected with rabies over a year after vaccination all the raccoons that developed an immune response after the vaccine survived, whether the vaccine was delivered orally or by injection.

The paper appeared in the Journal of Wildlife Disease.

More raccoons survive rabies with shots

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Raccoon: US Fish & Wildlife

Just four of the 26 wild-caught, captive raccoons that were fed an oral rabies vaccine on bait developed an immune response to the disease, a Canadian study has found. The raccoons that that received the vaccine by intramuscular injection were more likely to develop an immunity response (18 out of 27). When infected with rabies over a year after vaccination all the raccoons that developed an immune response after the vaccine survived, whether the vaccine was delivered orally or by injection.

The paper appeared in the Journal of Wildlife Disease.