Yellowstone Wolf Study Threatened

Posted on February 22, 2013 by MadelineBodin

The loss of several collared wolves to hunters has put a decades-long study in Yellowstone National Park in jeopardy, the Great Falls Tribune reports. “So far this year, hunters have killed 12 percent of the park’s wolf population…” the article states.

Because humans have been no threat to wolves for decades inside the national park, the wolves are naive when they encounter hunters just outside its borders. Some are dead within hours of leaving the park, the article says. Montana has allowed wolf hunting since 2009, Wyoming introduced wolf hunting this year.

The research conducted on collared wolves in the park has resulted in 68 papers in peer-reviewed journals, the article says. It also notes that the death of a few key wolves has threatened the existence of entire packs within the park.

AAAS Report: Partnering with Zoos

Posted on February 21, 2013 by MadelineBodin

You may think of zoos as a place where people go to gawk at captive animals. Or you may think of zoos as vital partners in your role managing wildlife for the people of your state. The US Fish and Wildlife has a significant track record in working with zoos to conserve federally endangered species. Could you do the same on a state level?

At the AAAS annual meeting in Boston earlier this week, John Fraser of New Knowledge Organization made the case for zoos’ role in conservation as more than mere arks that protect endangered species when the wild isn’t safe.

Fraser said that when it comes to handling animals, no one does it better than zoos, because no one has more practice. He said that zoos are the place to turn for expert advice and even hired help when you need to handle certain wild animals in your research.

He also pointed out that zoos can provide research subjects when for whatever reason studying the species in the wild won’t do. He said that because zoos have experience with the entire life-cycle of a species, they can provide information that can inform conservation in the wild and even the needs of other, similar species.

Finally, he noted that the gawking public often only learns to appreciate a species when they’ve seen it up close in a zoo, and in that way zoos can provide a public relations platform for conservation efforts.

AAAS Report: Ecosystem Services

Posted on February 20, 2013 by MadelineBodin

Are you a bean counter or a scientist? According to two different sessions focused on ecosystems services at the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) annual meeting in Boston last weekend, you should probably be both.

A Saturday morning session, featuring Jane Lubchenco, still of NOAA, as a discussant, illustrated just how sophisticated ecosystem services accounting has become. And while there was even a representative from the World Bank who discussed both the general and specific accounting principles at work in analyzing ecosystem services, it wasn’t all about money. The key term is values, especially cultural values.

The key concept is asking stakeholders what they want, whether it is from a fishery or a forest, then balancing conflicting wants in a way with broad benefits. Lisa Mandle of the Natural Capital Project introduced the concept of “serviceshed,” which is a concept that tries to prevent there being winners and losers of ecosystem services.

An example is when a wetland is destroyed in an urban area, and then, thanks to the Clean Water Act, a new one is created or preserved in a rural area — outside of the original serviceshed. In theory, the ecosystem benefits from the preserved wetland. In practice, the people in the city lose the ecosystem services provided by the wetland (flood control, pollution abatement, fish, etc.), while the people in the rural area gain even more of them.

Extensive examples of ecosystem services driving conservation efforts were given from South Africa and Quebec, Canada.

The star of this show was the Natural Capital Project, so check out their website and their InVEST ecosystem services modeling tool.

AAAS Report: Future of Conservation

Posted on February 19, 2013 by MadelineBodin

In a session at the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) annual meeting this weekend in Boston about the future of conservation, Peter Kareiva, chief scientist for The Nature Conservancy, said that in the global ecosystem, multinational corporations like Cargill, Rio Tinto, and Dow are “keystone species” that conservation can only ignore to its peril.

John Robinson of the Wildlife Conservation Society was skeptical about the value of ideas like naturalness and wilderness. He said there has been a shift from valuing nature for its own sake toward creating conservation goals through an analysis of the cultural values associated with the aspect of nature under threat.

Both speakers promoted an ecosystems services approach to conservation.

The third panelist, Alan Thornhill, spoke about his recent experience as a science adviser at the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, the agency that oversees continental shelf oil-drilling leases. Thornhill said that the agency actually had hundreds of scientists on staff, but their information was buried under layers of bureaucracy. The Deepwater Horizon catastrophe allowed those scientists’ voices to be heard, he said, by forcing the agency the agency to reorganize, which brought the science function closer to the executive level.

Earlier in the day there had been an entire panel devoted to ecosystem services, and we’ll cover that session tomorrow.

Minnesota Cancels Moose Hunt

Posted on February 15, 2013 by MadelineBodin

“The state’s moose population has been in decline for years but never at the precipitous rate documented this winter,” said Tom Landwehr, Minnesota Department of Natural Resources commissioner in a press release announcing the cancellation of Minnesota’s moose hunting season.

The commissioner noted that the state’s limited moose hunt was not the cause for the population’s decline.

The 2013 moose hunt was cancelled after aerial survey revealed the sharp drop in the moose population, the press release says. The survey was part of an on-going study of the state’s moose decline. (Previously covered here.)

The hunt’s cancellation was covered on NBC News’ national news. Read the article here.
Read the Minnesota DNR press release here.
Read more about the department’s moose mortality research project, on its webiste, here.

Photo: courtesy of Minnesota Dept. of Natural Resources

Citizen Science Round-up

Posted on February 14, 2013 by MadelineBodin

On Friday, the Great Backyard Bird Count, a massive citizen science project run by Audubon and the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, begins.

Read about the count in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, here.
Or visit the count’s website, here.

Perhaps in the spirit of the Great Backyard Bird Count, there is a lot of citizen science news this week. In Wisconsin, citizen volunteers are doing acoustical bat surveys with the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources. Read about it in the Kenosha News.

No cases of raccoon rabies have been identified in the Canadian province of Quebec for the third straight year, and citizen surveillance helped, the Canadian Cooperative Wildlife Health Centre reports. Citizen reports of potential raccoon rabies cases increased by 18 percent, while visits to the provincial rabies control website increased by 25 percent, the blog says. The blog includes a link to the province’s press release, but the press release is in French.

The California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW), U.S. Forest Service (USFS) and the Society for Conservation of Bighorn Sheep (SCBS) are looking for volunteers to help biologists with a bighorn sheep survey in March. The survey has been conducted since 1979. They are asking volunteers to attend an orientation session the evening before the survey. Read the CDFW press release here.

The Michigan Department of Natural Resources has both been asking for and getting valuable help from citizen volunteers. One recent request is for volunteers on Michigan’s lower peninsula to report any sightings or tracks of wolves from February 11 through March 8. Read the press release here.

The department is also asking for more volunteers to join its annual frog and toad survey, conducted in spring. This year will be the 18th annual survey. Read the frog and toad survey press release here.

Michigan DNR may be confident asking for all this help, because it has already gotten help from citizens. Earlier this month it gave a Partners in Conservation award to a 32-year-old dairy farmer who gathered and distributed information about an outbreak of epizootic hemorrhagic disease in deer in two counties. Read the press release here.

Photo: Wolf track, courtesy of the Michigan Department of Natural Resources.

Citizen Science Round-up

Posted on February 14, 2013 by MadelineBodin

On Friday, the Great Backyard Bird Count, a massive citizen science project run by Audubon and the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, begins.

Read about the count in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, here.
Or visit the count’s website, here.

Photo: Wolf track, courtesy of the Michigan Department of Natural Resources.

White Nose in New Locations

Posted on February 13, 2013 by MadelineBodin

A scientist says that he’s “99 percent sure” that a bat found on Prince Edward Island, in Canada, was killed by white nose syndrome, reports CBC News. The article notes that bats typically don’t over-winter on Prince Edward Island and that this one may have blown in from New Brunswick.

Read the CBC News article here.

Bats in yet another national park, Cumblerland Gap National Historical Park, have been stricken by white nose syndrome, the National Park Service reports. For those of you keeping score, that brings the number to 10 parks where white nose syndrome has struck.

Three bats tested positive for the disease, the press release says, and two had visible signs. At least one of the bats was an eastern pipistrelle. The park contains more than 30 caves.

The park press release has the most information. Read it here. (PDF)
General information about WNS in national parks is in this press release.
An article in the Marietta Daily Journal summarizes the press release. Read it here.

Photo: An eastern pipistrelle bat found at Cumberland Gap National Historical Park shows visible signs of white-nose syndrome. Courtesy of the National Park Service.

Why Deer Die

Posted on February 8, 2013 by MadelineBodin

“Hunter harvest continues to be the greatest cause of death of both adult and yearling bucks, while predation was the leading cause of fawn mortality, with most predations occurring within the first four to six weeks following birth,” said Jared Duquette, research scientist with the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources and lead researcher for a five-year study of causes of adult deer mortality and a three-year study of fawn mortality in an item in department’s weekly news bulletin.

According to the weekly news summary:

Capture of adults will continue through the 2012-13 and 2013-14 winters. Fawns were live-captured in May and June in 2011 and 2012 and will be captured again in 2013. A number of captured adults and fawns are fitted with radio collars. All are fitted with ear tags. Additional metrics are collected including body weight and size, blood samples, sex, presence of external parasites and age. Does are also examined for pregnancy. Deer are followed by radio signal until death, at which time researchers study the mortality to determine cause.

More details on the two studies are available in the department’s news report. Wisconsin is also conducting some other interesting deer studies. You can see the list here. I’d be interested to know the results of “An evaluation of the usefulness of deer-vehicle collision data as indices to deer population abundance.”

Read the weekly news item detailing the two deer studies here.

Photo: Closed box trap with deer feeding around it, courtesy of the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources.

Interior Secretary Nominee

Posted on February 7, 2013 by MadelineBodin

The economic value of outdoor recreation and the ability to extract oil and gas while remaining a good steward of the land are two themes that keep coming up in discussions of the nominee for Secretary of the Interior, Sally Jewell, who is now CEO of outdoor outfitter REI.

Lots of media coverage:
Here’s a story in the Washington Post.
The New York Times’ story is here.
The Los Angeles Times’ is here.And the Associated Press report is here.

State Wildlife Research News

Tools for wildlife management in the public interest

Tag Archives: wildlife

Yellowstone Wolf Study Threatened

AAAS Report: Partnering with Zoos

AAAS Report: Ecosystem Services

AAAS Report: Future of Conservation

Minnesota Cancels Moose Hunt

Citizen Science Round-up

Citizen Science Round-up

White Nose in New Locations

Why Deer Die

Interior Secretary Nominee