NYS Creates Recovery Plan for Northern Cricket Frog

Northern_cricket_frog_at_Neal_Smith_National_Wildlife_RefugeThe northern cricket frog is one of New York State’s two endangered amphibians. New York State law does not require recovery plans for endangered species, but the state Department of Environmental Conservation has proposed one for this species, a recent department press release says.

The plan includes conserving appropriate, but unoccupied habitat. The plan also included reintroducing frogs to unoccupied habitat, but only “if suitable habitat still remains, northern cricket frog habitat requirements are understood, and a funded and scientifically sound protocol is in place to monitor northern cricket frog abundance and assess potential causes of decline at any re-introduction site.”

In other words, more research is needed. There is a very brief paragraph about data gaps, and an even briefer one about recovery partnerships. A long list of potential tasks, includes sections on research and recovery tasks.

The comment period on the plan closes a week from today, Feb. 21, 2014.

Download the recovery plan here.
Read the NYS DEC press release about the plan here.
Read a Reptile Magazine article about the plan here.

Photo: Northern cricket frog at  Neal Smith National Wildlife Refuge in Iowa. Photo by Sara Hollerich, used courtesy US Fish and Wildlife Service.

NY Halts Hunting of Free-Range Boar

feral swine pigletIn an attempt to stop the spread of free-range Eurasian boar, the State of New York has proposed to ban the public from hunting or trapping them. Public comments are open until January 25, 2014.

The press release says: “Hunters pursuing wild boars in locations where baited traps have been established by DEC or USDA can also undermine these costly and labor-intensive capture efforts. Shooting may remove one or two animals but the rest of the sounder [pack] scatters and rarely comes back together as a group, thereby hampering eradication efforts.”

In the press release, NY State Department of Environmental Conservation Commissioner Joseph Martens is quoted as saying, “Many hunters have offered to assist our efforts by hunting for boars wherever they occur, but experience has shown this to be counter-productive,” Martens said. “As long as swine may be pursued by hunters, there is a potential conflict with our swine eradication efforts.

Read the NYS DEC press release, here.

Photo: A feral swine piglet. By Steve Hillebrand, courtesy US Fish and Wildlife Service

Rattling support for the eastern massasauga

From the US Fish and Wildlife Service’s Conserving the Nature of the Northeast blog:

eastern massasaugasThree years of research, more than $60,000 in funding, and continual habitat manipulation is the secret to resurrecting a degraded swamp in New York into basking habitat for one of the state’s slithering residents.

The eastern massasauga rattlesnake (Sistrurus catenatus) is listed as endangered by the state of New York and is a candidate for federal protection under the Endangered Species Act. In the meantime, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service continues working to recover the species.

The massasauga lives in wet areas made of peat layers from years of decomposing plants. The layers hold water like a sponge, with new plants growing on each layer. Just two swamps in the Empire State support the species, but one has been so severely degraded that few massasaugas can actually survive there.

Keep reading…

Photo: Eastern massasauga, courtesy USFWS

Alligators in New York

Seventeen alligators, all about four feet long, have been found on New York’s Long Island in the past 10 months, including three alligators turned in at a reptile pet amnesty event in April. New York Department of Environmental Conservation personnel likely never thought they would become expert alligator handlers.

The most recent alligator sighting was in Calverton, NY on Friday. Read and watch the story from Hudson Valley News 12, here.

But this is only the latest alligator sighting on the eastern end of Long Island. Back in May, the New York Post reported on the cluster of alligator sightings and captures. Read that story here. At the very end there is a map of all the sightings.

The NY Daily News did a story on the three alligators turned in at an amnesty day for illegal reptile pets in April. Read the Daily News story here.

A press release from the NYS DEC is here.

 

Alligators in New York

Seventeen alligators, all about four feet long, have been found on New York’s Long Island in the past 10 months, including three alligators turned in at a reptile pet amnesty event in April. New York Department of Environmental Conservation personnel likely never thought they would become expert alligator handlers.

The most recent alligator sighting was in Calverton, NY on Friday. Read and watch the story from Hudson Valley News 12, here.

But this is only the latest alligator sighting on the eastern end of Long Island. Back in May, the New York Post reported on the cluster of alligator sightings and captures. Read that story here. At the very end there is a map of all the sightings.

The NY Daily News did a story on the three alligators turned in at an amnesty day for illegal reptile pets in April. Read the Daily News story here.

A press release from the NYS DEC is here.

 

NY, Vt. WNS Bats Winter in Maine

bat bunker wnsThirty bats from New York and Vermont, some of which were visibly infected with white nose syndrome (WNS), were moved to a specially-prepared military bunker in Maine to spend the winter. Nine bats survived, a higher percentage than would have been expected if they had been left in the wild. Those bats were returned to the locations where they were found.

“We learned a lot from this experiment,” said Vermont Fish & Wildlife bat project leader Scott Darling in a department press release. “These bats were visibly infected before being placed in the bunker, so we wouldn’t have expected many of them to survive in their natural cave environment.”

Read the Vermont Fish and Wildlife press release here.
Read the US Fish and Wildlife Service, Northeast’s blog here — with many wonderful photos. (Scroll down a bit to get to the main story about the bunker and WNS.)
Read a guest post on the USFWS white nose syndrome blog from the assistant manager at the National Wildlife Refuge where the bats wintered here. (With the same photos, and a link to a Flicker page.)Read an article from the Rutland (Vermont) Herald here. (But be warned that its articles go behind a paywall in a week, sometimes sooner.)

And in related news, here’s a report from the Barre/Montpelier Times-Argus and Rutland Herald, about further WNS research in Vermont this winter. (It may also disappear behind a paywall.)

Photo: The bunker door at the Aroostok National Wildlife Refuge in late March. by Steve Agius, courtesy USFWS

NYS Raising Hellbenders

hellbenderHellbenders are the America’s largest aquatic salamander and can reach over two feet in length. In New York, they are only found in the Allegheny and Susquehanna River river drainages. According to the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, eastern hellbenders were listed as a species of special concern in the state in 1984.

One survey of the hellbenders in the Susquehanna River drainage found that all of the salamanders were over 25 years old, showing that no young had survived in that population for quite a while, according to NYS DEC.

Hellbenders raised at the Buffalo Zoo have been released into the wild starting in 2009. A recent issue of the NYS DEC Field Notes says that 146 juvenile hellbenders have been released into the Allegheny River, and recently, one of them has been recaptured, after having gained 40 grams.

The rest of the 400 hellbenders raised in the Buffalo Zoo program are scheduled to be released in 2013, the newsletter says.

NY State Seeks Rabbit Heads

NE cottontail 2

The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation is seeking cottontail rabbit heads from hunters east of the Hudson River. The eastern cottontail is almost identical in appearance to the imperiled New England cottontail. The only sure way to tell the two rabbit species apart is by sampling DNA or looking at the shape of the skull. The collected heads will allow both.

To gather more information about the distribution of the New England cottontail in the state, as well as possibly turning up the once widespread Appalachian cottontail (S. obscurus), the NYS DEC is turning to rabbit hunters in Westchester, Putnam, Dutchess, Columbia or Rensselaer County, or in the Sterling Forest State Park in Orange County to contribute the heads from their prey.

More information is available on the NYS DEC New England cottontail survey web page, here.

You can keep an eye out for the extremely short notice in the DEC’s Field Notes newsletter, here. It is in the Nov. 30 edition, which wasn’t posted yet when this went on-line.

Photo: A New England cottontail, source unknown.

Talking Turkey

The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation’s Wildlife Health Unit is asking turkey hunters to be on the lookout for lymphoproliferative disease virus (LPDV). The virus, which causes lesions similar to the ones seen in the oh-so-common avian pox, was first confirmed in New York this spring.

Perhaps because of its resemblance to avian pox, LPDV has only been discovered in wild turkeys in the United States recently, when it had previously only been known in domestic turkeys in the United Kingdom and the Middle East, according to the quarterly newsletter from the Southeastern Cooperative Wildlife Disease Study. The newsletter also suggests that LPDV is more likely to cause lesions or nodules on a turkey’s legs or feet than the more common avian pox is.

Read the NYS DEC’s first request for more information on LPDV, here. (2nd item)
Read the department’s more recent request, here.
Read the Southern Cooperative Wildlife Disease Study Briefs, here. It includes some details about what LPDV looks like under a microscope.

There will be no State Wildlife Research News on Thursday or Friday of this week because of the holiday. Have a very happy Thanksgiving!

Photo: a healthy Rio Grande wild turkey, photographed  by Robert Burton, courtesy of US Fish and Wildlife and the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department. (For a photo of LPDV, see the NYS DEC write-up or the newsletter, but don’t say we didn’t warn you.)

Talking Turkey

The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation’s Wildlife Health Unit is asking turkey hunters to be on the lookout for lymphoproliferative disease virus (LPDV). The virus, which causes lesions similar to the ones seen in the oh-so-common avian pox, was first confirmed in New York this spring.

Perhaps because of its resemblance to avian pox, LPDV has only been discovered in wild turkeys in the United States recently, when it had previously only been known in domestic turkeys in the United Kingdom and the Middle East, according to the quarterly newsletter from the Southeastern Cooperative Wildlife Disease Study. The newsletter also suggests that LPDV is more likely to cause lesions or nodules on a turkey’s legs or feet than the more common avian pox is.

Read the NYS DEC’s first request for more information on LPDV, here. (2nd item)
Read the department’s more recent request, here.
Read the Southern Cooperative Wildlife Disease Study Briefs, here. It includes some details about what LPDV looks like under a microscope.

There will be no State Wildlife Research News on Thursday or Friday of this week because of the holiday. Have a very happy Thanksgiving!

Photo: a healthy Rio Grande wild turkey, photographed  by Robert Burton, courtesy of US Fish and Wildlife and the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department. (For a photo of LPDV, see the NYS DEC write-up or the newsletter, but don’t say we didn’t warn you.)