Category Archives: re-introduction

Wyoming Studies Mountain Goats

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mtn goat wyomingThe Wyoming Game and Fish Department recently captured four mountain goats in the western part of the state as part of an on-going study into the animals’ travel between Idaho and Wyoming, says an Associate Press article in the Billings Gazette.

An article in the Caspar Star-Tribune adds that, “the goats were tranquilized while biologists collected nasal and tonsil swabs, blood and fecal samples.”

Mountain goats are not native to Wyoming, the articles state. But apparently, they are native to adjoining Idaho. After being reintroduced to Idaho, some of the mountain goats wandered over to Wyoming.

Photo: Mountain goat, courtesy of the Wyoming Game and Fish Department

California Bites the Bullet

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condor_ScottFrierCalifornia banned lead ammunition within the range of the endangered California condors (Gymnogyps californianus) in 2008. Now environmental groups are moving to take the ban statewide to protect the condor and other large scavenging birds such as bald eagles from lead poisoning. The National Rifle Association protests.

An article in the San Jose Mercury News reports the NRA saying that because copper bullets cost $40 a box and don’t fly as true, while lead bullets cost $20 a box, the ban is equivalent to a ban on hunting, and that the groups’ ultimate goal is to ban guns. (The article also quotes an Audubon spokesman saying that of course the group does not oppose either hunting nor guns.)

An article in the British newspaper The Guardian links to a recent Proceeding of the National Academy of Sciences paper detailing the condors’ vulnerability to lead poisoning from ammunition. It seems the condors are such effective scavengers that even if only one percent of the carcasses or gut piles contain lead ammunition, 30 to 50 percent of the condors will feed from one of them.

Read the San Jose Mercury News article here.
Read The Guardian article here.
Find the PNAS abstract here. (Fee or subscription needed for full access.)

Photo: California condor by Scott Frier, courtesy Arizona Game and Fish Department

Prairie Chicken and Sage Grouse Reintroductions

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Male greater prairie chickenGreater prairie chickens are booming again this spring in Wah-Kon-Tah Prairie, Missouri. The species had been extirpated from the area until five years ago when the Missouri Department of Conservation translocated some greater prairie chickens from Kansas.

State biologists studying the birds have learned a lot about their habitat needs and have been surprised by the interplay between the donor population back in Kansas and the newly-established Missouri population.

The restoration offers hope to other states and regions trying to restore the greater prairie chicken, which is an endangered species in Missouri, when there is limited habitat available.

Read more in the Missouri Department of Conservation press release, here.

In Alberta, Canada, a two-year project to relocate some 40 sage grouse from Montana appears to be successful, says an article in the Calgary Herald. Human development, including oil drilling, had nearly wiped the species out in the province. Last year, poor weather hurt the reproduction of the introduced birds, but this year biologists believe the birds are nesting.

Read more in the Calgary Herald.

The key word mentioned in both reintroduction stories: “hopeful.”

Photo: Male greater prairie chicken courtship display, courtesy Missouri Department of Conservation

Good News for Trumpeters in Montana

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“Something went right” on the Flathead Indian Reservation in northwest Montana. The Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes have been re-introducing trumpeter swans there for more than a decade. This year the reservation was home to eight breeding pairs, just short of the tribes’ goal of ten breeding pairs. Over 100 cygnets have been hatched on the reservation during the program.


The program’s success was in the spotlight this week when the Trumpeter Swan Society held a conference in Montana.

Read the story in The Missoulian here.


Background on the trumpeter swan from the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology’s All About Birds.

Photo: Alaskan trumpeter swans. Photo by Donna Dewhurst, courtesy of the US Fish and Wildlife Service.