A federal appeals court has granted the U.S. government’s request to pause proceedings in a lawsuit challenging the controversial “Alligator Alcatraz” detention center in the Florida Everglades. An earlier court decision ruled that the facility should close by the end of September because its operation violated federal environmental laws protecting the Everglades. The decision, issued by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, freezes legal efforts by conservation groups seeking to halt operations at the facility built within the ecologically fragile Big Cypress National Preserve until funds have been restored. “Alligator Alcatraz,” officially known as the Big Cypress Detention and Processing Center, is a vast swath of wetland adjacent to critical habitat for the Florida Panther (Puma concolor coryi), as well as other endangered species. The Everglades is the largest mangrove ecosystem in the Western Hemisphere and the largest continuous stand of sawgrass prairie.
The research practice of stunning northern pike in the water with electricity is shockingly effective—and the fish seem resilient as they swim in the lake currents in the months that follow.
“Northern pike are quite resilient to electrofishing in terms of growth and survival,” said James Reynolds, a professor emeritus in fisheries science at the University of Alaska Fairbanks.
Northern pike are found widely across temperate parts of the world. In many parts of the U.S., researchers monitor factors like disease, average fish size and population using electroshock techniques. The procedure involves using a battery or generator and a control unit that allows researchers to modify the voltage. Researchers place metal electrodes into the water, then generate voltage that can kill or stun fish, depending on the voltage intensity and the pulses per second, or the hertz. The goal of electrofishing is to stun fish and capture them with dipnets. The fish are examined, allowed to recover, and then released alive. Electrofishing is used only by professional biologists—it’s illegal for anglers.
Researchers have measured the impact of different hertz and voltage levels on other species, but nobody had looked at the impact on northern pike (Esox lucius). This species is important in Alaska, where Reynolds had worked for decades, where it’s either invasive or native depending on which part of the state they are found in. North and west of the Alaska Range, for example, they are native. But in south-central Alaska around Anchorage, anglers illegally introduced northern pike in the 1950s for sport. The fish has since become invasive there.
Shocking tests
In a study published recently online in the Journal of Wildlife Management, Reynolds and his colleagues tested whether electroshocking negatively affected northern pike using facilities at Colorado State University.
An electrofishing research crew in a boat. The electrical nodes at the back introduce voltage to the water that stuns nearby fish. Credit: James Reynolds
They put 140 adult fish they caught from the wild in lakes in Colorado and South Dakota into tanks and shocked each one for five seconds. Then, they released the fish into experimental ponds alongside 70 northern pike that weren’t shocked as a control. They marked all fish using dart tags implanted through the fish’s dorsal muscle, which look like plastic spaghetti noodles with arrowheads. Dart tags are used to identify individuals in much the same way as leg bands on birds.
The researchers held the fish there for a little over a month to monitor short-term effects on survival. They then drained these ponds to examine the survivors before the next phase of the experiment.
The shocked fish had significant injuries. For this experiment, the team had administered a shock treatment of 120 hertz—double the amount usually used for northern pike. This higher amount, they found, resulted in compressed or fractured vertebrae—some 28% of shocked fish had these injuries. “The spinal column takes a beating—it gets damaged,” Reynolds said.
But these injuries didn’t seem too serious—90% of all northern pike survived. “We found no difference between the survival of the control and the shocked fish,” Reynolds said.
The test tank at Colorado State University where researchers shocked northern pike. Credit: James Reynolds
The team then placed the fish in a 25-hectare lake on campus for almost a year. They sampled the pike in this lake with gillnets and again found no difference in survival between the shocked fish and the control group.
Reynolds said the study shows that northern pike are quite resilient to shock treatment. But while it doesn’t seem to affect survival, the authors recommended only 60 Hertz shocks be used in the future to reduce spinal injuries. The recommendation is partly to avoid unnecessary injuries in native northern pike populations, but also because shock treatment often stuns any species near the electrodes placed in the water. Reynolds said that some salmon and trout species may be less resilient to the higher 120-hertz treatment, so it’s best to be safe—even when monitoring invasive populations of northern pike in parts of south-central Alaska.
This article features peer-reviewed research originally slated for publication in the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s now defunded Journal of Fish and Wildlife Management. The Wildlife Society has picked up these “orphaned” studies, publishing them in a special section of the Journal of Wildlife Management’s November Issue. Individual online access to all TWS journal articles is a benefit of membership. Join TWS now to read the latest in wildlife research.
A recent court filing reveals that the Department of Interior intends to potentially eliminate an additional 2,000 jobs across the Bureau of Land Management, National Park Service, Fish and Wildlife Service and U.S. Geological Survey. The reduction in force (RIF) would coincide with the second-longest shutdown of the federal government, currently totaling 27 days. This move comes despite a ruling by a federal judge in California, who found that the RIF could not proceed during the shutdown. The federal judge stated that using the shutdown to implement layoffs is “both illegal and in excess of authority, and is arbitrary and capricious,” according to NPR.
Highlighting the real-world consequences of the proposed cuts to wildlife professionals, Ed Arnett, CEO of TWS, told Outdoor Life, “We’re going to lose scientific capacity to inform habitat management projects and to manage harvest and the impacts of human disturbances like energy development,” and said that he has fears some conservation programs may be permanently lost.
TWS continues to monitor the situation and stand with our members and colleagues affected by recent federal workforce reductions.
TWS is committed to advocating for our members and colleagues affected by recent federal workforce reductions and providing resources to support your professional and personal well-being during this time.
Elk had been extirpated from Nebraska since the 1800s before they began to reclaim parts of their historical range in the 1960s. But the landscape had changed greatly due to human activities in their absence, and ecologists still don’t have a good grasp on how elk use the land that they have returned to.
Numbers have increased in the past seven decades—elk likely now number up to a few thousand in Nebraska. Recently, in a state dominated by farmland and fragmented habitat, researchers have set out to learn when, where, why and if Rocky Mountain elk (Cervus canadensis) move in Nebraska. The answers could help wildlife managers navigate the growing tension between public admiration for elk and frustration over the damage they can cause.
“In some cases, it appeared that completely different groups of elk occupied natural and agricultural spaces, when in reality it was often the same elk that had moved a considerable distance,” said Tabitha Hughes, a PhD student at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
Lead author Hughes and her colleagues tracked more than 150 elk with GPS collars in their research recently published in Biological Conservation.
It’s unclear how elk used to move through the landscape before their extirpation in the 1800s. But since their return to Nebraska, the study revealed that some elk tend to seasonally shift between wild and agricultural areas, drawn by natural and agricultural food. In areas with more vegetative cover and more cornfields, elk used smaller home ranges. The tracked ungulates moved greater distances to access areas with substantial cropland when calving and in the fall.
This fixation with crops has led to human-wildlife conflict, as elk can damage crops. The large animals can also tear down fences during their movements across the landscape.
PhD Student Jake Harvey, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, PhD Student Tabitha Hughes, University of Nebraska-Lincoln and Professor John Benson, University of Nebraska-Lincoln collar and process a Rocky Mountain bull elk. Credit: Tabitha Hughes
But hunters—the main elk management tool in Nebraska—highly value elk. Hughes and her collaborators’ research suggests that increasing natural forage may help keep elk local and that increasing the habitat that produces food naturally could be an alternative management strategy, reducing seasonal movements of elk into cropland.
This research fills a key gap in understanding of the spatial ecology of elk in agriculture-dominated landscapes and offers critical guidance for wildlife managers tasked with balancing public interest, hunting opportunities, and growing concerns over crop damage.
“The better we understand these animals, the better equipped wildlife biologists will be to manage elk populations for the public to enjoy,” Hughes said.
A popular technique for boosting bat conservation may create “death traps” for the flying mammals during heat waves. In a study published recently in the Journal of Experimental Biology, researchers measured carbon dioxide exhalation of 22 big brown bats (Eptesicus fuscus) nesting in southwestern British Columbia. With that information, they calculated the metabolic rates of the creatures and the amount of water they lost at different temperatures. The team then took the temperature of artificial bat roosts created to conserve bats in Lillooet, in the unceded territory of the St’át’imc Nation. Those temperatures weren’t high, so the team then modeled what the temperatures would have been during a recent heat wave. They found that temperatures would reach higher than 50 degrees Celsius on the hottest days. Part of the reason for this was that some bat boxes weren’t well-placed—they were put in direct sunlight or facing sunlight for much of the day. “Inappropriately placed artificial [bat] roosts could function as death traps for bats due to overheating,” said Ruvinda de Mel of the University of New England, Australia, in a press release. Ruvinda suggested that placing a mixture of roosts could improve the choices for bats, with some in warmer areas for spring use and others nearby in shaded areas for the hotter summer months.
Wetland habitat restoration in a U.S. Air Force base in Florida’s panhandle is boosting the population of a federally endangered salamander.
The reticulated flatwoods salamander (Ambystoma bishopi) is a small creature—just under the length of a pencil, including its tail. Once more common in the U.S. Southeast, the amphibian declined drastically due to historical fire suppression practices that reduced the number of suitable seasonal wetlands needed for egg-laying and reproduction.
“The range has really contracted,” said Amanda Martin, a postdoctoral associate in fish and wildlife conservation at Virginia Tech.
Females lay their eggs on the ground beneath vegetation in anticipation of incoming flooding just before the wet season. But changes to the canopy and shrub density caused by decades of historical fire suppression in the region have affected the number of the ephemeral ponds these creatures need to reproduce.
Researchers had been surveying the population on Eglin Air Force Base in the Florida panhandle since the 1990s. In 2009, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife listed the species as federally endangered.
Reversing historical fire suppression
Starting in 2010, wildlife managers began to restore the habitat using prescribed fire and other forest thinning practices—everything from chain sawing larger trees where the forest canopy was too dense to using herbicides to thin out the shrubbery. Martin joined the project in 2023, conducting some forest clearing work and visual surveys on the species.
“The pictures just don’t do the species justice,” she said. “Seeing it in person—it’s just a gorgeous species.”
Flatwoods salamander habitat has deteriorated in areas like this due to decades of historical fire suppression, which leads to denser canopy and undergrowth. Credit: Amanda Martin
Wildlife managers had been restoring habitat and tracking the population of reticulated flatwoods salamanders at Eglin for years, but nobody had yet done the work to see if restoration was helping salamander numbers. In a study published recently in Conservation Science and Practice, Martin and her colleagues examined how numbers of occupied ponds changed from 2002 to 2024 in response to different restoration measures.
To conduct the study, they matched occupancy estimates gathered from dipnet and spotlight surveys at the base. They combined this with habitat data, including estimates of vegetation density and canopy cover measurements. They also tracked when ponds filled and when they dried out.
Restored flatwoods salamander habitat is typically more open. Credit: Amanda Martin
They found that while there were ups and downs based on normal amphibian boom and bust cycles, the efforts worked pretty well for populations between 2016 and 2024.
“It basically doubled the amount of suitable habitat available for flatwoods salamanders across the landscape,” Martin said. In fact, the number of salamander-occupied ponds at Eglin has even surpassed that of the 1990s.
Their research also revealed that if you don’t bring back fire or otherwise clear the vegetation using another technique, the numbers of salamanders are less likely to bounce back, Martin said.
Restoration takes time
Habitat restoration wasn’t a quick fix, though. In some cases, the changes the team made took up to 10 years after initial restoration to see a significant change in vegetation. This resulted in a lag in recolonization of flatwoods salamanders. But Martin said the important thing is to stick with the program and stay consistent.
The reticulated flatwoods salamander responds well to habitat restoration. Credit: Amanda Martin
In some cases, wildlife managers at Eglin translocated salamanders from healthier populations to newly restored areas. They did this by collecting eggs and rearing young salamanders in captivity before release. After three seasons, they found salamanders were breeding naturally at two sites.
While Martin cautioned that a strong plan is needed for this technique to work with this species, the modeling they conducted showed that the translocations complemented the habitat restoration work and natural colonization.
Data for this study cut off in 2024. But Martin and others are continuing their restoration work at the base. She said that reversing decades of historical fire suppression to restore a more natural ecosystem will help additional native species in the area. “It not only benefits the flatwoods salamanders,” she said.
Amanda Martin conducts fieldwork clearing vegetation. Credit: Nancy Robles
It’s the species that drive our passion in the wildlife profession. But in many cases, success in conservation and wildlife management depends on one species more than any other: Homosapiens.
In this episode, host Katie Perkins, digital content manager at The Wildlife Society, sits down with TWS member Anna Chalfoun to unpack the soft skills that drive great science: building a healthy lab culture, mentoring with intention, and navigating conflict without burning bridges.
Chalfoun shares candid lessons you can use whether you’re a new professor, a graduate student searching for the right advisor, or a professional trying to improve your team’s work.
Conflict in the profession is often inevitable, but certain tools can help us overcome these challenges. Chalfoun’s favorite is to pause, breathe and get curious. It’s a simple reset that replaces knee-jerk fixes with better questions.
By the end of this episode, you’ll have a playbook for aligning your lab with your values, supporting students as they grow from learners to colleagues, and sustaining your own energy for the long haul.
“Our Wild Lives” is The Wildlife Society’s weekly podcast, sharing compelling stories from wildlife professionals doing critical work around the world. Your hosts, Katie Perkins and Ed Arnett, of The Wildlife Society, bring you thought-provoking conversations with leading experts and emerging voices. Episodes are released every Friday wherever you get your podcasts. Subscribe, share it with a colleague, and leave a review to help more folks find the show.
The end had been coming for years in Newfoundland, but it wasn’t until 1992 that the Canadian government did something about the collapse of the Atlantic cod fishery that had once been among the most bountiful in the world. They announced a moratorium on any cod fishing after years of overharvesting had decimated the species’ population.
“The northern cod stock, which was this huge stock that was thought to be inexhaustible, was found to have declined by 99%,” said Tyler Eddy, a research scientist at the Fisheries and Marine Institute of Memorial University.
Fisheries thought the recovery would be quick, but it took 32 years before the government partially lifted the ban in 2024, with an allowable catch limit of 18,000 metric tons. In the time since the collapse, harp seals (Pagophilus groenlandicus) also declined in the area. But still, fishermen and others have blamed the slow recovery of cod on harp seals, which prey on Atlantic cod (Gadus morhua).
This purported problem, with harp seals having a larger impact on cod due to cod’s smaller population, was used to support the argument for increased seal hunting pressure. Environmental organizations responded in kind. “In some cases, Greenpeace really had shamed the seal harvesters,” Eddy said.
But in a new study published recently in Fish and Fisheries, Eddy, first author Pablo Vajas, a postdoctoral researcher at Memorial University, and others have revealed that the ecology of the North Atlantic is a little more nuanced.
Base of the ecosystem
Capelin, small forage fish, form more or less the base of the ecosystem in the North Atlantic. They are incredibly numerous and provide food for species as varied as cod, harp seals, seabirds and even humpback whales (Megaptera novaeangliae).
“Capelin have become the main support of all the ecosystem’s biomass,” Vajas said.
But before the collapse of cod numbers in the 1990s, capelin (Mallotus villosus)—a common prey species of cod—was the first to go. It’s unclear why, since back then, fisheries didn’t really focus on capelin. Eddy said that capelin go through a natural boom and bust cycle in the ocean. It’s also possible that capelin numbers fell due to a drop in zooplankton, tiny marine creatures that feed on phytoplankton. Factors including sea temperature, sea ice melt and other things can affect the abundance of phytoplankton.
A fishing crew processes a cod trap after pulling it up in Newfoundland. Credit: Derek Keats
In any case, capelin declined right around the same time that fisheries were hammering cod populations. A mixture of top-down and bottom-up factors were hitting cod.
The team modeled the number of harp seals in various scenarios over three major periods: pre-collapse 1983-1985, invertebrate dominance 2013-2015, and partial groundfish recovery 2018-2020.
These simulations revealed that both harp seals and capelin numbers had an important impact on the number of cod around. For example, if 25% of harp seals were removed from the ecosystem, cod numbers only increased by about 3% in the Newfoundland and Labrador Shelf and by about 8% in the Grand Banks. But if capelin biomass is increased by about 50% while the harp seal population remains the same, cod numbers would fully recover in the Newfoundland and Labrador Shelf and go from critical to cautious in the Grand Banks. Critical is measured as less than 25% of historical abundance, while cautious is measured as 25-85% of historical abundance. Anything above 85% of historical abundance is considered a recovery.
Capelin numbers collapsed in the North Atlantic prior to the collapse of cod. Credit: carlfbagge
This shows that while harp seals affect cod numbers, it’s relatively minor compared to the effect that capelin have, even though their role in the ecosystem has increased, Vajas said.
Recovering capelin is unfortunately quite difficult, since there is no real mechanism to do so right now. Eddy said that the fisheries’ take on capelin is small enough that banning fishing boats would have little positive effect on capelin numbers.
Removing more harp seals would have only a small effect on cod numbers. Eddy said that harp seals—the second largest pinniped population in the world after crabeater seals (Lobodon carcinophaga) in Antarctica—have also dropped in the North Atlantic since the decline of cod and capelin. In the 1980s, harp seals numbered around 7 million, but today there are only an estimated 4.4 million. This decreased number is due to the declines of both cod and capelin, but also the loss of sea ice due to climate change, which harp seal pups depend on early in their lives.
The recovery of both cod and harp seals—and likely other oceanic creatures as well—depends on the recovery of capelin in the North Atlantic and a more resilient ecosystem. The question is if—and how—that will occur.
During a routine inspection of produce at the US-Mexico border, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agriculture specialists intercepted a species of leafhopper never detected in the United States. The species, identified as Osbornellus salsus, was found on a shipment of radicchio—a leafy vegetable entering from Mexico at Port San Luis in central California. Little is known about this species of leafhopper, but the alarm was raised because leafhoppers are known to damage agricultural and native plants by feeding on their sap and transmitting diseases. While some species of leafhoppers are native to the United States, this nonnative species could impact crops and natural vegetation. In response to the discovery, the radicchio shipment was secured and returned to Mexico to prevent spread into the U.S.
Read more in a press release from U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
The Wildlife Society has unveiled a new logo that highlights TWS’ history while creating a fresh, modern look. “I’m excited about the new look and changes at The Wildlife Society as we move our professional society into the future while honoring our past,” said TWS CEO Ed Arnett.
It was a team effort to shepherd the logo into its new iteration, which was led by Mariah Beyers, the TWS director of member engagement. Beyers has been on staff for 11 years and was a TWS student member before that. She said the rebrand has been like “watching an old friend grow into a new chapter.”
Along with the new logo, TWS has adopted a new color palette, which includes a deep forest green.
Previous editions of Wildlife Society Bulletin included inspirations for the new logo, like this very first issue from 1973. Credit: Mariah Beyers/TWS
“It’s been incredibly rewarding to help shape a brand that celebrates our history and looks ahead to what’s next,” Beyers said.
Jason Cooke of Chariot Creative presents the new TWS logo at the annual conference in Edmonton, Alberta. Credit: Katie Perkins/TWS
Honoring history
The search for a logo for The Wildlife Society started in 1937 when The Journal of Wildlife Management first began soliciting papers. The editor at the time, W. L. McAtee, wanted a “simple, well-composed design” that was representative of different kinds of animals within the field of wildlife management. The secretary of TWS at the time, Victor Cahalane, suggested that Egyptian hieroglyphics might work well for such a design. National Park Service artist Walter Weber created the memorable logo in a pen and ink drawing.
The original TWS logo, created in 1937, will now serve as a legacy logo and will continue to be used on TWS journals and books. Credit: TWS
The owl has long been an important mascot for TWS, including its use in this newsletter from 1939. Credit: Mariah Beyers/TWS
Over the years, TWS’s logo has changed very little, except for the addition of the words “The Wildlife Society” within a red frame. The owl, though, which appears within the center of the logo, has appeared on numerous TWS publications and newsletters throughout the years, including Wildlife Society Bulletin.
The new TWS logo includes an owl silhouetted by the rising sun. Credit: TWS/Chariot Creative
The new logo, which is an owl silhouetted by the rising sun, is a nod to the historic style and significance of the animal throughout the years. The legacy logo won’t be phased out entirely and will still be used on TWS journals and books. “Use of the owl from our current logo was a conscious decision that honors our past while generating a more contemporary and simplified look for the organization moving forward,” Arnett said.
