Category Archives: Wyoming

Writing the Book on Wolverines

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Before recent research on wolverines in the greater Yellowstone region, not much was known about these predators, says an article in the Billings Gazette. To wrap up the eight-year project, the article says, the research team, lead by Bob Inman of the Wildlife Conservation Society, has published an article in the Journal of Wildlife Management.

The article “Spacial ecology of wolverines at the southern periphery of distribution” was published online in December 2011. (Subscription or fee required.)

The Billings Gazette article implies that we’ll be seeing more research from this study published soon.

The Wolverine Blog (yes, there is one) offers a link to the blog of Forrest McCarthy, one of the researchers on the project. Read it for a behind-the-scenes view of the research, here.

Photo: Wolverine, Credit: Steve Kroschel, courtesy US Fish and Wildlife Service

Mountain Goats Threaten Bighorns in Tetons

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Mountain goats were introduced to the greater Yellowstone region decades ago, say articles in the Missoulian and the Jackson Hole News & Guide.

Since then, the goats have popped up in various locations around Jackson Hole, Wyoming Game and Fish wildlife biologist Doug Brimeyer said in an article in the Missoulian.

“In the Tetons, the bighorn sheep winter habitat is a relatively few isolated wind-swept slopes at high elevation, because they’ve lost their migration,” Wyoming Game and Fish habitat biologist Aly Courtemanch said in the Missoulian article. “They’re already surviving on this marginal winter habitat up there.

“It’s reasonable to expect that mountain goats, if they became established, would out-compete bighorn sheep for that very limited winter range.”

Researchers from Idaho, Montana and Wyoming are studying the situation, lead by Bob Garrott, of Montana State University’s Fish and Wildlife Ecology and Management Program.

The team will collar 12 goats with a GPS system that will send location data every six hours for two years. A second collar will activate when the GPS collar falls off and will provide less detailed information.

Read the Missoulian article here.
Read a shorter version of the story in the Billings Gazette, here.

There’s no link to the Jackson Hole News & Guide story that kicked off this flurry of coverage, because it doesn’t appear to be available on the newspaper’s website.

Photo: Bighorn in Montana. By Ryan Hagerty, courtesy US Fish and Wildlife Service

Wyoming Wins Praise on Sage Grouse Management

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It’s pretty rare to see a newspaper editorial praising a state wildlife plan, so we wanted to make sure that you saw this one, in the Casper Star-Tribune earlier this week.

The editorial notes that the feds are pleased too, quoting Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar at the sage grouse summit in Cheyenne last week: “We see Wyoming as a template for how we address the challenges the sage grouse is facing.”

It also notes that pleasing the feds has some benefits. Wyoming has received $17 million in federal funding (through the US Dept. of Agriculture) to conserve critical sage grouse habitat.

Read the entire editorial in the Casper Star-Tribune, here.

See State Wildlife Research News’ previous coverage of Wyoming’s sage grouse management plan, here. It includes a link to more detail about the plan itself.

Photo: Greater sage grouse by Stephen Ting. Courtesy US Fish and Wildlife Service.

Revised: BLM Takes the Lead in Sage Grouse Management

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Please note the revision to the earlier version of this post. Changes are in blue. 

About a month ago, according to the New York Times, top state wildlife agency officials in Nevada, Colorado, Idaho and Wyoming asked the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to take the lead in coordinating efforts to conserve the remaining greater sage grouse population, since more than half of the greater sage grouse’s remaining habitat is on BLM land. (Read the NYT article here.)

At the Western Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies’ summer conference earlier this month, BLM more or less agreed to that role, saying that, “In response to requests from state and local governments to facilitate ways to conserve greater sage-grouse and protect its habitat” it is putting together a strategy for greater sage grouse conservation that will emphasize partnerships and agreements between stakeholders. (Read the BLM announcement here.)

The BLM’s announcement breaks greater sage grouse habitat into two sections: an eastern section where the biggest threat is energy development (oil, gas and wind) and a western section where the greatest threats are invasive species (which other sources say is primarily cheatgrass), and wildfires. (Read the further info on the plan provided by BLM here.)

The NY Times article says that the BLM plan uses Wyoming’s “core area” strategy as its base. This strategy says that only five percent of the land can be developed within four miles of a known greater sage grouse lek (or breeding area). (Read Land Letter’s article on Wyoming’s “core area” strategy here.) And yes, that restricts development on some 15 million acres in Wyoming.

A BLM spokeswoman said that it is more accurate to say that the BLM plan is “informed” by the Wyoming plan. Different strategies will be put in place in different locations, depending on on-the-ground factors. She says that the strategy is a framework, not a document. The specifics are still evolving.

Read the articles, including this one in the Sacramento Bee, for more info on the greater sage grouse’s bid for listing under the Endangered Species Act (it was deemed warranted but precluded, which is now known, confusingly, as being a “candidate” species) and how the continued threat of its listing is driving this conservation activity.

Check out these articles from WyoFile, which give a lot more detail than was available when we first posted this news:
An article about Wyoming’s management plan.
An article about whether or not sage grouse will be listed as endangered species.

Photo: Greater sage grouse by Stephen Ting. Courtesy US Fish and Wildlife Service.

Artery worm prevalent in Wyoming moose

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Forty-two percent of the moose in Wyoming are infected with carotid artery worm, known as “sore head” in sheep, and as Elaeophora schneideri scientifically. When the worm, actually a nematode, was found in the Wyoming moose that also had the state’s first case of chronic wasting disease (CWD) in a moose, state biologists investigated further.

They tested 287 moose that were either killed by hunters or found dead, and found 42 percent of them were infected with carotid artery worm. In some parts of the state, the rate is as high as 50 percent.

Carotid artery worm was first found in mule deer and in domestic sheep in New Mexico. It does not seem to create any symptoms in the mule deer. The worm is transmitted from animal to animal by horseflies (tabanid flies). The symptoms in moose and elk include the animal’s nose and ears rotting away, and deformed antlers. The nematode can kill the moose before these symptoms occur. Carotid artery worm infections have been mistaken for CWD.

Carotid artery worm has been found in wild animals in 18 states in the South, Midwest, and West. A similar nematodes infect animals in Europe, Asia, and Africa.

Wyoming has been experiencing a decline in moose numbers, but it’s not known what role the carotid artery worm infection rate is playing.

Piece together the story through this news article in the Jackson Hole News & Guide,  this species account for moose from the Wyoming Game & Fish Department (PDF), and this sample abstract from an upcoming moose conference in Wyoming.

For background on the nematode, focusing on the infection of mule deer in Nebraska, try this open access article from The Journal of Wildlife Diseases.