Tag Archives: conservation

Antibiotic Resistance Spreads to Wildlife

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m_crow_5Antibiotic resistance isn’t just for humans and farm animals. An article in Environmental Health News says that antibiotic resistance has been found in crows, gulls, houseflies, moths, foxes, frogs, sharks and whales. You can follow links in the article to get to the journal article with the findings for each of those groups.

The big question raised in the article is, what is the implication for human health? Nobody really knows. But certainly, if you are handling wildlife, these findings give you a reason to be even more cautious. And they certainly have implications for wildlife rehabilitation.

Read the entire article in Environmental Health News.
The article focuses on a recent crow study, and you can find the abstract for that here.

Photo: Crow. By David Herr, courtesy US Forest Service

Windstorm Aids Rare Bird

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golden-winged_warblerBill-HubickAn American Bird Conservancy press release explains how a 2011 windstorm in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area boosted efforts by the Wisconsin’s Department of Natural Resources to create young forest habitat for the imperiled

“Generally, most people saw the blow-down as massively destructive,” the release quotes Wisconsin DNR Wildlife Biologist Bob Hanson as saying. “However, with the correct management prescription, it actually has provided some great habitat for this potentially endangered species. The shotgun pattern the storm left created new areas of young forest, a requirement of the golden-winged warbler.”

You can read the American Bird Conservancy release here.

In 2012, the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources wrote about a coalition of state and federal agencies in the Upper Great Lakes Young Forest Initiative, which aims to help the golden-winged warbler and other birds, such as grouse, that rely on young forest habitat.

Read the WDNR Weekly News article here.

Photo: golden-winged warbler, by Bill Hubick, courtesy of American Bird Conservancy.

Oregon Fish Biologists in Helicopter Crash

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Three people were injured when a helicopter carrying two Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife biologists on a salmon spawning ground survey hit a power line and crashed into the river they were surveying on Monday, Oct. 28. None of the injuries were life-threatening, reports said.

News reports say that the pilot was airlifted the hospital and is now in fair condition. The assistant district fisheries biologist, Holly Huchko, suffered a broken back and is in intensive care. Eric Himmelreich, a fisheries habitat biologist, broke two vertebrae in the crash and is now in good condition.

Read the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife press release here.
The KPIC reports contains a video of the helicopter in the river.
The Mail Tribune article focuses on the helicopter.
The Douglas County News-Review has the most detailed report.

Is Halloween Good or Bad for Bats?

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102610_batty_for_batsA press release from the California Department of Fish and Wildlife was titled, “Halloween Tradition Gives Bats a Bad Rap.”

True, all my Halloween decorations depict vampire bats flitting over bare trees, which shows a shocking disregard for true nature of vampire bat habitat. (Can you hear the geeky tongue-in-cheek in that sentence? Good.)

But is Halloween actually bad for bat conservation? As a wildlife conservation writer, I can tell you that my editors are always happy to have a bat story on Halloween, even when they may not be interested the rest of the year. I haven’t had the editor yet who is cheesy enough to require spookiness in that Halloween bat story.

Many state wildlife departments take advantage of the holiday link by sending out press releases debunking myths (as the California release did, when you get down to it) or just celebrate bats. Take, for example, this press release from the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife.

Given the popularity of zombies these days, being affiliated with the creepiness of Halloween could be giving bats some street cred. What do you think?

Photo: Who says bats aren’t cute? Art from the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife’s Batty for Bats! program.

River Otters Exposed to Banned Chemicals

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otter teamRiver otters have made a remarkable comeback in the last few decades, particularly in Illinois, as we reported recently. However, those Illinois river otters have significant amounts of long-banned chemicals — such as PCBs and DDE (a chemical that results from the breakdown of DDT) — in their tissues, a recent study from the Illinois Natural History Survey has found.

A press release from the University of Illinois reveals that for one chemical, the concentrations were higher in the otters now than they were when the chemical was in legal use:

The researchers were surprised to find that average concentrations of one of the compounds they analyzed, dieldrin — an insecticide (and byproduct of the pesticide aldrin) that was used across the Midwest before it was banned in 1987 — exceeded those measured in eight river otters collected in Illinois from 1984 to 1989. Liver concentrations of PCBs and DDE (the latter a breakdown product of the banned pesticide DDT) were similar to those in the earlier study, the release says.

Scientifically, this is a mystery still to be solved. Were the chemicals used long after they were banned? Did it take decades for the chemicals to climb the food chain from algae to top predator? Are female otters passing the contaminants to their offspring in their milk?

But for wildlife managers, it has a lesson useful right now. When trying to find causes for unknown population declines, don’t dismiss the effects of toxic chemicals just because those toxic chemicals were banned from use decades ago.

The University of Illinois press release.
The paper, in the journal Ecotoxicology and Environmental Safety. It is a free access journal.

Photo: Samantha Carpenter (left), a wildlife technical assistant with the Illinois Natural History Survey (INHS); Kuldeep Singh, pathobiology professor at the U. of I. Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory; Nohra Mateus-Pinilla, an INHS wildlife veterinary epidemiologist; and U. of I. animal sciences professor Jan Novakofski found that Illinois river otters are contaminated with banned pesticides and PCBs.  Credit: L. Brian Stauffer

California Bans Lead Bullets

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On Friday (Oct. 11), Gov. Jerry Brown of California signed the nation’s first law banning the use of lead bullets in hunting into law. The bill was written to slow the decline of the California condor, which ingests the lead bullets when scavenging at hunters’ gut piles or when eating the bodies of animals shot but not killed by hunters. The law contains an escape clause that will revoke the ban if the federal government bans non-lead bullets because of the armor-piercing abilities.

California had previously banned lead bullets in the areas of the state where there are condors. It is the first state in the nation to ban lead bullets.

One odd fact, the bill was signed in a group of 11 bills. Most of the other of the bills in the group focused on gun control. Protests against banning lead bullets for hunting have often portrayed the bill as a gun control measure rather than a wildlife conservation and human health measure.

Read the Los Angeles Times article here.
Read the KCET blog post here.
Find a Google list of other news articles here.

Mapping Bears in Florida

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bear tracksThe Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission is asking citizens to report sightings of black bears or their tracks to a new mapping website. It is particularly interested in reports of females with cubs or of cubs alone, a press release states.

“Our bear range data is 11 years old, and we are excited about getting the public’s help in identifying all the places where bears now live in Florida,” said FWC bear research biologist Brian Scheick in the press release. “What we learn from the new bear sightings Web page will inform the FWC’s efforts to document bear distribution and help with future bear management decisions,” Scheick said.

The citizen science bear mapping project follows on the heels of a successful FWC effort to map fox squirrels. We covered it back in October 2011. And a more recent mink mapping effort, that we covered in July.

Read the FWC press release here.
Read an article in the Orlando Sentinel here.
Go to the FWC black bear sighting registry, here.

Plague: Human Cases in NM, Squirrel Case in Cal.

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New Mexico has had all three cases of plague in humans that have occurred in the United States this year, a New Mexico Department of Health press release reports.

Read the press release here. (Will open a PDF.)

The bacteria that causes plague is endemic in the southwestern US. Wildlife cases are so common that I don’t report them here, but those cases can be an important warning to locals to take extra care to keep their pets away from wildlife and to avoid flea bites, and for wildlife managers and researchers to take precautions as well.

Just such a warning is in place in Palomar, California, where ground squirrels at a campground have been diagnosed with plague.

Read the story in the San Diego Union-Tribune.

Plague: Human Cases in NM, Squirrel Case in Cal.

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New Mexico has had all three cases of plague in humans that have occurred in the United States this year, a New Mexico Department of Health press release reports.

Read the press release here. (Will open a PDF.)

The bacteria that causes plague is endemic in the southwestern US. Wildlife cases are so common that I don’t report them here, but those cases can be an important warning to locals to take extra care to keep their pets away from wildlife and to avoid flea bites, and for wildlife managers and researchers to take precautions as well.

Just such a warning is in place in Palomar, California, where ground squirrels at a campground have been diagnosed with plague.

Read the story in the San Diego Union-Tribune.

New Loon Study Announced

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loonThe Biodiversity Research Institute (BRI) of Gorham, Maine announced yesterday that it will begin the largest loon conservation study in North America.

The announcement was made in Wyoming, an interesting choice, since it is not exactly a hotbed of loon activity. Wyoming is, however, home to one of the many ventures of the study’s funder, Joe Ricketts. BRI was awarded a $6.5 M grant from the new Ricketts Conservation Foundation for the study.

A press release about the announcement sent to Society of Enviromental Journalist members said: “Underlying the Foundation’s mission is the reality that government no longer has sufficient resources to deal effectively with the growing environmental challenges we face. As a result, private individuals and corporations must increasingly shoulder the responsibility of conserving our wildlife and wilderness areas. www.joericketts.com” (The website says, among other things, that Ricketts is a part owner of the Chicago Cubs.)

 

The press invitation also says: “The loon is a key bioindicator of aquatic integrity for lakes and near shore marine ecosystems. These iconic birds are becoming more exposed and susceptible to serious threats from type E botulism, mercury pollution, lead poisoning, oil spills, and over development.”

Visit the BRI website’s loon program page, here.

Photo: Loon, courtesy of the State of Minnesota, where the loon is the state bird.