Category Archives: endangered species

19 New Protected Species in Nova Scotia

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plymouth gentianNineteen new species have been added to Nova Scotia’s list of species at risk, bringing the total listed in the province to 60, according to a Nova Scotia Department of Natural Resources press release and a CBC News report.

Three bat species are on the list, including the little brown bat, the northern bat and the tri-colored bat, which are all listed as endangered. Three bird species have been added to the list as endangered: the barn swallow, Bicknell’s thrush, Canada warbler, and the rusty blackbird. The olive-sided flycatcher and the eastern whip-or-will have been listed as threatened.

The black ash tree is listed as threatened. There are only 12 known mature trees in the province, the department press release says.

For the complete list of species, see the Nova Scotia DNR website, here. (New species are marked with the year 2013.)

Read the Nova Scotia DNR press release here.
Read the CBC News story here.
The web page with the complete list of at risk species is here.

Photo: The Plymouth gentian has been listed as endangered in Nova Scotia. Courtesy of the Nova Scotia DNR.

Wisconsin Nongame Program Changes Name

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Wisc DNRAfter 40 years as the Wisconsin Bureau of Endangered Resources, the program charged with caring for that state’s endangered resources is now known as the Bureau of Natural Heritage Conservation. The change took place on July 1.

“Our name has changed but our mission is the same,” says Erin Crain, who took over in October 2012 as bureau director, in a Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources press release. However, the same press release mentions changes in organization and budget with the goal of filling long-standing vacancies in field positions.

Read the entire press release from the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, here.

Revised Plan for Ferrets

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black-footed ferret“The most feasible action that would benefit black-footed ferret recovery is to improve prairie dog conservation,” said Pete Gober, black-footed ferret recovery coordinator for the US Fish and Wildlife Service in a service press release. “If efforts are undertaken to more proactively manage existing prairie dog habitat for ferret recovery, all other threats to the species will be substantially less difficult to address. Down listing of the black-footed ferret could be accomplished in approximately 10 years if conservation actions continue at existing reintroduction sites and if additional reintroduction sites are established.”

The press release announced a draft of a revised recovery plan for the black-footed ferret.

You can read the USFWS press release here.
The Arizona Game and Fish Department release is here, in a newsletter. It’s the second article from the bottom.
Arizona has been a site of black-footed ferret recovery. Read a reporter’s first-hand account of an annual survey, here.More info on black-footed ferret recovery can be found here.

Photo: Black-footed Ferret. Credit: Kimberly Tamkun / USFWS

Revised Plan for Ferrets

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black-footed ferret“The most feasible action that would benefit black-footed ferret recovery is to improve prairie dog conservation,” said Pete Gober, black-footed ferret recovery coordinator for the US Fish and Wildlife Service in a service press release. “If efforts are undertaken to more proactively manage existing prairie dog habitat for ferret recovery, all other threats to the species will be substantially less difficult to address. Down listing of the black-footed ferret could be accomplished in approximately 10 years if conservation actions continue at existing reintroduction sites and if additional reintroduction sites are established.”

The press release announced a draft of a revised recovery plan for the black-footed ferret.

You can read the USFWS press release here.
The Arizona Game and Fish Department release is here, in a newsletter. It’s the second article from the bottom.
Arizona has been a site of black-footed ferret recovery. Read a reporter’s first-hand account of an annual survey, here.More info on black-footed ferret recovery can be found here.

Photo: Black-footed Ferret. Credit: Kimberly Tamkun / USFWS

New Sierra Bighorn Herd in California

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Sierra bighorn“Our recovery goals are both numeric and geographic,” said Tom Stephenson, California Department of Fish and Wildlife bighorn recovery program leader, in an article in The Los Angeles Times about the recent establishment of a new herd of federally endangered Sierra Nevada bighorn sheep.

“This is the first reintroduction effort of a new herd of Sierra Nevada bighorn sheep since 1988,” he said in a CDFW press release. The release explains:

During the week of March 25, 2013, ten female and four male bighorn sheep were captured from two of the largest existing herds in the Sierra Nevada and reintroduced to the vacant herd unit of Olancha Peak at the southern end of the range in Inyo County.

The newly created herd is the tenth herd of Sierra bighorn between Owens Lake and Mono Lake, the release says. Three additional herds are needed to meet recovery goals. There are now 500 Sierra bighorns, which as an increase from the low of just over 100 of them.

Read more in The Los Angeles Times, here.
Read the CDFW press release here.

Photo: A Sierra bighorn is released in a new area to create a new herd. Courtesy CDFW.

Kansas Kicks Off 5 Year Review

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kansas piping ploverThe Kansas Department of Wildlife, Parks and Tourism (KDWPT) has begun a review of threatened, endangered, or species-in-need-of-conservation (SINC) species, a department press release says. The review is required every five years by state law.

The last time Kansas reviewed its lists, in 2008, it added the shoal chub, plains minnow, and delta hydrobe snail to the threatened list and removed the bald eagle and peregrine falcon.

The KDWPT relies on a task force, which includes members from universities and federal agencies, to make suggestions for changes to the list. The task force’s recommendations are presented to the KDWPT Secretary and the Kansas Wildlife, Parks and Tourism Commission.

The public can petition the task force to include (or remove) a species. The form (a PDF) is available on-line, here.

Read the KDWPT press release here.
Read more information about the state’s endangered and threatened species list here.

Photo: Piping plovers are threatened in Kansas. Courtesy KDWPT.

USFWS Turns ESA Take Permits Over to Florida

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Florida_Scrub_JayLast year the US Fish and Wildlife Service quietly handed over the responsibility for issuing incidental take permits for species listed under the federal Endangered Species Act to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, according to the Tampa Bay Times.

Now, two environmental groups, the Center for Biodiversity and Conservancy of Southwest Florida, have given the US Fish and Wildlife Service 60 days to settle with them, or they will sue.

The Tampa Bay Times article notes that Florida developers were pleased with the switch to state control over the federal endangered species law. That may be because, the article says, two members of the eight member Florida commission are developers and a third is a paving contractor.

The feds turned over EPA enforcement to the Florida state government as well, the article notes.

Read the whole Tampa Bay Times article here.

Photo: Florida scrub jay, courtesy US Fish and Wildlife Service

Butterfly Heads and Tails

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Great_purple_hairstreak_on_Common_dogbaneRecently published research from the Florida Museum of Natural History’s McGuire Center for Lepidoptera and Biodiversity provides experimental confirmation that the thing that looks like a second head on the back wings of some hairstreak butterflies does indeed protect the butterflies from predators, as has long been guessed.

The surprise was what predator it provided protection from. The conventional wisdom has said that adaptive coloration protects butterflies from birds, the researcher, Andrei Sourakov, says in a University of Florida press release. But this research showed that  the fake heads were very successful at deterring jumping spiders — which easily took down other butterflies without fake heads on their hind-wings.

This may not be much help in day-to-day wildlife management, but it is a cool piece of research, and with several hairstreaks endangered or threatened at the state level, you never know when you’ll be writing up a hairstreak management plan.

The University of Florida press release.
The open access Journal of Natural History paper.

Photo: Great purple hairstreak by Dr. Thomas G. Barnes/University of Kentucky, used courtesy of the US Fish and Wildlife Service

Lots o’ Legislation

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Gray_wolfI know, you are trying to focus on science and have no interest in the political scene. And I know that lots of bills get passed, but few of them become laws. Every once in a while, it is worth mentioning the gears of law, though. In this case it is worth mentioning because both the Idaho and Utah legislatures were very busy in late February creating new laws about endangered species.

The Associated Press reported that a bill that passed the Idaho Senate “would make it against state policy for federal officials to introduce or reintroduce any threatened or endangered species in Idaho without state approval.”

But there’s not much more than that on the bill. Read it the brief piece on The Oregonian website, here.

Utah was extra busy. They’ve got three bills in the works. One House bill would, according to the Salt Lake City Tribune, “allow county assessors to reduce a property’s tax burden if its value is impacted by designation as critical habitat for threatened or endangered species.”

Another House bill, “asks the federal government to not designate any private land in San Juan County as sage grouse habitat,” says the Salt Lake City Tribune. And a Senate bill which, “endorses Iron County taking over recovery of the Utah prairie dog” from the US Fish and Wildlife Service.

The Utah legislature also put $300,000 in its budget to prevent the federal government from reintroducing the gray wolf into the state, another Salt Lake City Tribune article says. The article says that federal officials deny that any such reintroduction is planned.

Read the Salt Lake City Tribune article on the wolf payment here.

And props to Brian Maffly, the Salt Lake City Tribune reporter on both of those stories for making dull legislative news lively and easy to understand.

Photo: gray wolf by Gary Kramer, used courtesy USFWS

The Word on Birds

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ovenbirdThe recent issue of The Auk (subscription or fee required to read full articles) has several articles of interest to state wildlife biologists:

It has long been assumed that early successional forests are important habitat for young ovenbirds. A paper by Andrew Vitz, now with the Massachusetts Division of Fisheries and Wildlife, tested that hypothesis experimentally. He found that the density of understory vegetation was a factor in the birds’ survival, but that the birds could do well in smaller patches of early successional habitat, such as microhabitats within mature forests.

Read the ovenbird paper here.

A paper on California spotted owls found that two is the magic number for a number of offspring. Owls that were part of a pair of nestlings had higher survival rates that onlies or triplets. The research also found that the number of young produced is a good indicator of habitat quality.

Read the spotted owl paper here.

Piping plovers hatched earlier in the season in the Great Lakes region had a higher survival rate than those born later in the season, another paper reported. Nest sites that were closer to trees also had lower survival rates. The older the plover chicks were, the more likely they were to live another day. Because the Great Lakes population of piping plovers is federally endangered (with other populations being threatened), these factors can help inform management strategies.

Read the piping plover paper here.

Photo: ovenbird, courtesy Wisconsin Division of Natural Resources