Category Archives: endangered species

Columbia Basin Pygmy Rabbit’s Last Stand

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Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife is making what may be a final attempt to restore the Columbia Basin pygmy rabbit to its native habitat. A 2007 attempt to reintroduce zoo-bred rabbits into the wild ended in most of the naive rabbits being eaten by predators.

This time the rabbits will be released into a fenced enclosure, with gradual exposure to predators through smaller enclosures with tunnels to the outside. The rabbits are not pure-bred Columbia Basin pygmies, but have been bred with pygmy rabbits from Idaho and Oregon, which are not endangered. In fact, most other pygmy rabbits in the West thrive.

Read more in this article in the Idaho Statesman. An InsideScience report on the restoration is available via US News and World Report. Or read the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife press release. Read the US Fish & Wildlife Service’s species profile (well technically, a “distinct population segment” profile) here.

Photo: A pygmy rabbit of unknown distinct population segment, likely from Idaho, courtesy of the US Fish & Wildlife Service. Photo Credit: R. Dixon (IDFG) and H. Ulmschneider (BLM)

Isolated populations further endanger NE cottontail

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Photo: US Fish & Wildlife

Genetic analysis of the remaining New England cottontail populations show that five population clusters of rabbits are not mingling, which makes the survival of some of the populations even less likely than was already thought.

The University of New Hampshire based team of researchers found that New England cottontail rabbits in southern Maine, and central and southeastern New Hampshire formed one population cluster; Cape Cod, Massachusetts was home to another cluster; parts of eastern Connecticut and Rhode Island were home to a third cluster; and western Connecticut, southeastern New York and southwestern Massachusetts had a fourth cluster. One isolated population in eastern Connecticut was home to the fifth cluster, which was genetically isolated, even from the two other population clusters nearby.

The researchers say that immediate conservation efforts should focus on shoring up New England cottontail populations in Maine, New Hampshire, and on Cape Cod. Eventually, they say, the connectivity between the populations needs to be restored.

The New England cottontail is not a federally endangered species. It was found “warranted by precluded,” by the US Fish and Wildlife Service. Translated into English, that means they found that it probably deserves protection, but they just don’t have the resources to do it.

Read the article in the journal Conservation Genetics, here.

For more on the New England cottontail, and why it looks just like an eastern cottontail, but isn’t one, read more in the Outside Story nature column.

Light, fertilization, and biodiversity

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Fertilizing a grassland will cause plant biodiversity there to decrease. It’s not known why this is so, and one theory says that it is because some fast-growing species shade out slower-growing species. A recent study in the journal Ecology Letters says that it’s not a lack of light, or at least not just a lack of light, that is stifling diversity. The study found that the impact of light availability varied greatly in years when there were droughts.

In dry years more light meant less diversity, but in wet years, more light meant more diversity. Either way, fertilization meant species diversity went down, no matter what the light situation was.

With nutrient pollution such a widespread problem, getting to the bottom of this would be useful in protecting rare plants and threatened ecosystems.This paper doesn’t offer the answer, but adds another piece to the puzzle.

Find the paper here.

A previous paper on the subject appeared in the journal Science two years ago. Find that paper here.

Photo: Bobolink, a grassland bird, courtesy of the US Fish and Wildlife Service

Light, fertilization, and biodiversity

Posted on by
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Fertilizing a grassland will cause plant biodiversity there to decrease. It’s not known why this is so, and one theory says that it is because some fast-growing species shade out slower-growing species. A recent study in the journal Ecology Letters says that it’s not a lack of light, or at least not just a lack of light, that is stifling diversity. The study found that the impact of light availability varied greatly in years when there were droughts.

In dry years more light meant less diversity, but in wet years, more light meant more diversity. Either way, fertilization meant species diversity went down, no matter what the light situation was.

With nutrient pollution such a widespread problem, getting to the bottom of this would be useful in protecting rare plants and threatened ecosystems.This paper doesn’t offer the answer, but adds another piece to the puzzle.

Find the paper here.

A previous paper on the subject appeared in the journal Science two years ago. Find that paper here.

Photo: Bobolink, a grassland bird, courtesy of the US Fish and Wildlife Service

Eastern cougar declared extinct

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The US Fish and Wildlife Service has declared the Eastern cougar subspecies extinct. The declaration was part of an Endangered Species Act (ESA) review. Next, the Service will propose that the Eastern cougar be removed from the federal endangered species list because extinct species are not covered under the ESA. The designation does not include the Florida panther, which is considered another subspecies.

The designation Eastern cougar refers to the subspecies that once ranged from Maine to South Carolina, and west to Michigan down through Tennessee.

The straight-up news coverage, including all the details on the various subspecies and extirpation-versus-extinction, can be found in The New York Times, National Public Radio, CNN, and Reuters. It’s served up with a twist of Thoreau in the Boston Globe. And the Canadians say it just ain’t so in this article from the Montreal Gazette.

The US Fish and Wildlife press release came from Region 5.

Photo: Not an Eastern cougar, but another, unknown, P. concolor subspecies.

“Bad dog!”

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Feral dogs and dogs running loose threaten wildlife by killing them, stressing them, and passing along diseases. You knew that. This paper in the journal BioScience has the data, and some solutions. Mostly it’s a good resource if you need a quick review of the dog issue.

 
The BioScience paper also received coverage in the popular press. Read a sampling here:

Reuters/Mother Nature Network
Yahoo! News
Red Orbit

This article in High Country News from three years ago really brings the issue to life.

How did the flying squirrel cross the road?

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Photo: NC Wildlife Commission

Endangered Carolina northern flying squirrels can now safely cross the Cherohala Skyway in western North Carolina thanks to telephone-pole-like crossing structures. Before the poles were installed, in 2008, the squirrels did not cross the Skyway because the distance between the trees on either side of the road exceeded their gliding ability. The northern flying squirrel populations on each side of the roadway did not interbreed.

The squirrels’ use of the poles has been documented with video cameras mounted on the pole tops.

The North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission hopes to allow trees to grow closer to the Skyway, which will allow them to eventually remove the poles.

More details, and a video, are available from the Commission’s press release.

How did the flying squirrel cross the road?

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Photo: NC Wildlife Commission

Endangered Carolina northern flying squirrels can now safely cross the Cherohala Skyway in western North Carolina thanks to telephone-pole-like crossing structures. Before the poles were installed, in 2008, the squirrels did not cross the Skyway because the distance between the trees on either side of the road exceeded their gliding ability. The northern flying squirrel populations on each side of the roadway did not interbreed.

The squirrels’ use of the poles has been documented with video cameras mounted on the pole tops.

The North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission hopes to allow trees to grow closer to the Skyway, which will allow them to eventually remove the poles.

More details, and a video, are available from the Commission’s press release.

Are they eating people food?

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Is a particular species eating human-provided food? A group of researchers studying the endangered San Joaquin kit fox found that analyzing the stable isotopes of carbon and nitrogen in the foxes’ fur painted a more accurate picture of the foxes’ diet than scat analysis alone. The team’s analysis is based on the idea that corn, a C4 grass, is the basic building block of modern, industrial food. Therefore, in areas of the country where C3 grasses predominate, looking for that skewed C13/N15 stable isotope signature can point towards a diet of modern, industrial people food.


The researchers found that the kit foxes living in an urban area in California had a C13/N15 signature almost identical to the people living in the area. And while they found the occasional scrap of food wrapper, because there are no bones or hair, the foxes’ people-food meals (which might have been garbage, or dog food left on the back porch), otherwise left little evidence in scat.

The researchers note that this technique has widespread uses. They also note that C4 grasses are native to some areas of the country, particularly in the South and West, and and would influence results there.


The paper, in The Journal of Mammalogy is open access.


Photo: B. “Moose” Peterson. Courtesy US Fish and Wildlife Service