U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service holds course on wolf protections

February 9, 2024 by Joshua Rapp Learn

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has announced it is holding the course on gray wolves, deciding against two petitions—one seeking to list wolves in the Northern Rockies under the Endangered Species Act and another seeking ESA protections for wolves across the western United States. The Service also announced it would develop a national recovery plan for gray wolves (Canis lupus) throughout the Lower 48 that would include site-specific conservation actions.

“The Service conducted a comprehensive analysis using robust modeling that incorporated the best available data from federal, state and Tribal sources, academic institutions and the public,” the USFWS said in a press release. “The analysis indicates that wolves are not at risk of extinction in the Western United States now or in the foreseeable future.”

The Feb. 2 decision follows petitions by 70 environmental organizations seeking to increase federal protections for wolves due to concerns about state hunting and trapping policies in Montana, Idaho and Wyoming that they feared would roll back the species’ population gains in the Northern Rockies.

“How much worse must so-called wolf ‘management’ policies be in the Northern Rocky Mountain states in order for the federal government to take action?” said Lizzy Pennock, carnivore coexistence attorney at WildEarth Guardians, in a press release decrying the Service’s latest decision. WildEarth Guardians was among the petitioners.

Long persecuted in North America due to concerns about conflicts with humans and livestock, wolves have made a comeback in parts of the U.S. In 2011, the USFWS delisted wolves in the Northern Rockies—including Idaho, Montana, Wyoming and parts of eastern Oregon and Washington. Gray wolves remain listed under the ESA as endangered in 44 states and threatened in Minnesota.

“I think that’s a very sound decision,” said TWS member Julia Smith, Endangered Species Recovery Section Manager for the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, of the Service’s latest action. Wolves in much of Washington remain listed under the ESA as endangered, but wolves in areas of eastern Washington are considered part of the Northern Rockies population and lack federal protections. All wolves in Washington are state-listed as endangered.

“I understand this is hard for a lot of people to hear because they don’t like the hunting policies that are allowed in places like Idaho and Montana,” Smith said. But listing decisions should be based on population health and viability, she said, and concerns about state policies should be addressed at the state level.

The Service also announced a national recovery plan for wolves, which it plans to develop by the end of 2025. This plan was initiated in part due to several site-specific wolf rules the USFWS developed that were invalidated by courts for not considering the impact that delisting one population might have on the status of wolves across the nation.

“It’s exciting that this is the first time the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is contemplating wolf recovery nationwide,” Smith said. “I think the Service is starting to pay attention to what people are asking for.”

These announcements follow an initiative the USFWS announced in December, 2023 to start a national dialogue to reduce conflict between humans and wolves.

Washington embarked on a similar dialogue—using the same mediator—and sought to address “deeply held values that can lead to conflict,” Smith said.

17 elk added to WV herd

February 9, 2024 by The Wildlife Society

West Virginia’s elk population has just grown by 17. The new elk were translocated from the Land Between the Lakes National Recreation Area in western Kentucky, bringing West Virginia’s herd to 127. They are the first of 40 new elk the state plans to introduce this year. 

The 17 elk were released in the Tomblin Wildlife Management Area in Logan County. 

West Virginia began restoring elk to the state in 2016 when biologists released 24 elk from Land Between the Lakes. It was the first time elk have roamed the state in over 140 years. Officials say the herd remains too small to allow hunting.

Read more from WVNews.

Mexico monarch numbers plunge

February 8, 2024 by The Wildlife Society

The number of monarch butterflies wintering in Mexico fell 59% this year, reaching its second lowest level since record keeping began, according to the latest annual count. 

The count calculates the amount of land the wintering butterflies cover rather than the actual number of butterflies. This year’s survey found monarchs (Danus plexippus) residing on 0.9 hectares in the central Mexican forest, down from 2.21 hectares last year. The lowest number of butterflies wintering in Mexico was 0.67 hectares in 2013.

Biologists said heat, drought and habitat loss are to blame for this year’s reduction. 

Researchers found almost no butterflies at some traditional wintering grounds as the monarchs seemed to seek out higher, cooler areas. About two-thirds were found outside traditional reserves.

The butterflies make up an eastern population that migrates to the U.S. and Canada. Biologists say a western population that winters in California is also struggling. 

The monarch is being considered for Endangered Species Act protections in the U.S. A decision is expected by October.

Read more from the Associated Press.

TWS 2023: Lions carry a large parasite load

February 8, 2024 by Joshua Rapp Learn

An examination of lion feces is revealing that in West Africa, the big cats carry a large and diverse load of parasites.

“We could detect a whole suite of [parasite] species from random scat samples,” said Jane Hallam, a postdoctoral researcher in molecular ecology at Yale University.

Hallam’s supervisor at Yale, Nyeema Harris, had been conducting trail camera studies during trips from 2016 to 2018 to the W-Arly-Pendjari protected area complex that spans Burinka Faso, Niger and Benin, then again to Senegal in 2020. Harris, a professor of environmental science, was trying to learn more about how lions (Panthera leo) were coping with expanding agriculture and poaching. She also collected scat samples opportunistically during her research.

Back at the lab, Hallam analyzed DNA from the scat to determine if they belonged to lions—sometimes hyena or dog scat can appear similar.

After the samples were narrowed down, Hallam had scat from 21 individual lions. She then used DNA primers that would capture a wide array of different groups of diseases and parasites. She looked at nematodes and haemoparasites. She also delved into the microbiome by looking at archaea and bacteria.

Parasite presence

In her results detailed in a presentation at The Wildlife Society’s 2023 Annual Conference in Louisville, Kentucky, Hallam found that lions are ridden with parasites—just like most animals on the planet.

One parasite group called apicomplexans, which includes blood parasites that can cause anemia or wasting diseases, showed up in the lions. Ticks sometimes transmit these parasites. Each infected lion didn’t have the same parasites in this family, though. Hallam found an average of 38 different strains of apicomplexans with distinct DNA. The number of these apicomplexans in each lion varied, Hallam said—some lions didn’t have any, though 90% of those surveyed had at least one.

Hallam also found a diverse array of nematodes. “Hook worms, lung worms and horrible other species of worms that live in their veins,” showed up, she said. “It seems like the lions are prone to the same kinds of disease as domestic cats.”

Future potential

Hallam said that metabarcoding provides a great noninvasive way to analyze the lion population’s health. “As a way to monitor diseases, it’s super useful,” she said.

While her study was more of a pilot, Hallam said that researchers could use techniques like this to analyze whether factors like habitat loss or increasing contact with domestic animals might affect the disease and parasite load of wild carnivores.

“That’s something that we’d like to try and push for next,” Hallam said.

However, the technique can’t reveal everything. While the metabarcoding can identify some species of parasites and bacteria, many others are unknown because nobody has sequenced and recorded their genomes. In many of these cases in this study, Hallam only got the rough category of the nematode or haemoparasite, for example.

“That’s one of the issues with parasitology,” Hallam said. “[It’s] kind of understudied compared to other fields of ecology,” Hallam said.

But learning more about these diseases and parasites, and what species they transfer between, may help with conservation and wildlife management. It also has implications for human health, as some of the parasites Hallam found in these lions can affect humans.

Digging into the science of snags

February 7, 2024 by The Wildlife Society

Ecologists have long known that standing dead trees—or snags—are important for forest dwellers. Snag-reliant woodpeckers, for instance, act as ecosystem engineers, regulating insect pests and create nesting cavities used by other species.

“Snags support multiple functions within forest ecosystems,” said Jim Rivers, of the Oregon State University College of Forestry.

They are so important that in some managed forests, snag creation is part of the conservation tool kit. Crews convert live trees into snags through techniques ranging from sawing off their tops to wounding their trunks to injecting them with disease-causing fungi.

But how well do those techniques work over the long term? And which are the most cost-effective.

In a study published in Forest Ecology and Management, Rivers looked at nearly 800 large Douglas firs that had been converted into snags in southwestern Oregon. He found chainsaw topping was the best way to create snags quickly and keep them in place longer.

Read more from Oregon State.

Rodenticides widespread in Italian wolf carcasses

February 7, 2024 by The Wildlife Society

Anticoagulant rodenticides are pervasive in the carcasses of dead wolves analyzed by researchers in central and northern Italy.

The ubiquitous presence of these chemicals widely used for rodent control is unique among large carnivores in Europe, say the researchers of a recent study published in Science of the Total Environment.

“This is an emerging threat to large carnivores in anthropogenic landscapes,” said Jacopo Cerri, a postdoctoral researcher in veterinary medicine at the University of Sassari and a coauthor of the study.

Gray wolves (Canis lupus) have been recolonizing many parts of Europe in recent decades, since human persecution has gradually decreased. But as these canids move closer to cities in Europe, some populations are facing novel threats that biologists don’t quite understand. 

Cerri’s colleague Carmela Musto, a veterinarian at the University of Bologna and first author of the study and colleagues from the Istituto Zooprofilattico Sperimentale della Lombardia e Dell’Emilia Romagna (IZSLER)—a governmental zoological institution—had been conducting necropsies on wolves found dead in different regions of Italy, including northern Tuscany, Lombardi and Emilia-Romagna, from 2018 to 2022. They found a high number of anticoagulant rodenticides in these carcasses, and they decided to run a more in-depth analysis on trends associated with these chemicals.

Out of the 186 dead wolves the team tested for these chemicals, they found 115, or 61.8%, tested positive for at least one anticoagulant rodenticide.

Rodent diet for city wolves?

The amount of exposure to these chemicals, they found, was higher in wolves found dead closer to cities or other areas of higher human use compared to those with less human use.

“Probably, this indicates that there are systematic differences between wolf diets in different areas,” Cerri said.

This discovery is important as it goes against the common assumption that wolves typically prey on ungulates like wild boar (Sus scrofa) or deer.

The quantity of rodenticides in these wolves isn’t as high as in species like common buzzards (Buteo buteo), which tested positive in 78.3% of cases, or red foxes (Vulpes vulpes), which tested positive in 89.6% of cases. These species rely predominantly on a rodent diet. But the fact that so many wolves near cities have higher levels of rodenticides may mean they are preying on or scavenging species like rats or invasive nutria (Myocastor coypus).

Researchers necropsied wolves in search of rodenticides. Credit: Carmela Musto

These results suggest that the use of rodenticides to home in on the target vermin species isn’t as selective as some may believe, since non-target species are consuming these chemicals.

Some 79 of these wolves tested positive for two or more rodenticides—some had as many as four or five kinds of the chemicals. Cerri said this is likely a reflection of the fact that some people mix different compounds thinking that doing so will better kill rats and other vermin.

Cause for concern

It’s difficult to tell if rodenticides killed any of these wolves directly. But even if the chemicals probably aren’t leading to acute poisoning, it’s likely that they affect the wolves in other ways that may lower their survival in the wild, Cerri said.

Cerri pointed to the example of bobcats (Lynx rufus) in North America—some research has shown that rodenticides likely compromise their immune systems, for example. “I think contamination from toxic chemicals might be more widespread than we think,” Cerri said.

While this study was conducted in Italy, Cerri said that wolves that live near large cities in other countries like France and Germany may also be ingesting anticoagulant rodenticides.

The discovery is important as it highlights a potential limiting factor on wolf populations. Cerri said that wildlife managers will need to consider the effects of potential poisoning when deciding in the future whether to take conservation measures like an endangered listing, for example.

“[Wolves] might have some silent threats that we need to account for,” Cerri said.

Chronic wasting disease reaches British Columbia

February 6, 2024 by The Wildlife Society

Chronic wasting disease has been detected in two deer in British Columbia, marking the first time the deadly disease has been observed in the province. 

The two cases were in the Kootenay region, south of Cranbrook, according to the BC Wildlife Federation. In the first case, a sample taken from a hunter-harvested male mule deer (Odocoileus hemionus) tested positive after being sent to the B.C. CWD Program. That deer appeared to be in good condition. The second case involved a road-killed white-tailed deer (O. virginianus). 

CWD is a highly contagious fatal disease that affects the central nervous system of cervids, including deer and elk. It has spread through the United States and Canada. Officials have confirmed the disease in both free-ranging and captive cervid populations in 32 states and five provinces. 

Read more from the BC Wildlife Federation.

Wildlife Vocalizations: Amy Carrozzino-Lyon

February 6, 2024 by The Wildlife Society

Mentorship has provided such an important influence in my education and early career, especially now, as I get the chance to serve as a mentor for students and colleagues.

I am lucky that I have supportive mentors in the wildlife management field who both championed and challenged me. I think a good mentor not only offers valuable advice, but also models the qualities and values they believe are important through their own actions.

Amy Carrozzino-Lyon prepares to release a banded female wood duck (Aix sponsa) at Collins Marsh Wildlife Area in Manitowoc County, Wisconsin in August 2017. Credit: Erin Giese

One of my favorite takeaways through observing my mentors is to never stop learning. Learn about a new species, a new habitat or new ecological community, new technology or methods, new ways of thinking, and new geographies and cultures. Continue to challenge what you know and build on it.

Research provides an endless source of questions, many of which are critical to understanding our environment, economy and communities. Yet the fundamental aspect of engaging in research is that we don’t know all the answers, which can be incredibly inspiring and frustrating at the same time. One of the most important lessons I continue to learn in my professional and personal life is to embrace the uncertainty along with taking advantage of the opportunities.

Headshot of Amy Carrozzino-Lyon while visiting Grand Canyon National Park, Arizona. Credit: Scott Lyon

Wildlife Vocalizations is a collection of short personal perspectives from people in the field of wildlife sciences. Learn more about Wildlife Vocalizations, and read other contributions.

Submit your story for Wildlife Vocalizations or nominate your peers and colleagues to encourage them to share their story.

For questions, please contact tws@wildlife.org.

The February issue of the Journal of Wildlife Management

February 5, 2024 by The Wildlife Society

The Journal of Wildlife Management is a benefit of membership in The Wildlife Society. Published eight times annually, it is one of the world’s leading scientific journals covering wildlife science, management and conservation, focusing on aspects of wildlife that can assist management and conservation. 

Join today for access to the Journal of Wildlife Management and all the other great benefits of TWS membership. 

Yellowstone National Park restricts human access to some areas to protect critical grizzly habitat. In a study in the February issue of the Journal of Wildlife Management, researchers examined how much bears were using these areas and if the restrictions reduced the potential for human-bear conflicts. 

Other articles look at pronghorn management in the desert Southwest, duck harvest distributions in the Central and Mississippi flyways, weather and wild turkeys, and more. 

Log in to read the February issue today.

TWS 2023: Can bird-repellent lasers be more eye friendly?

February 5, 2024 by Joshua Rapp Learn

Automated laser beams designed to be a nonlethal way to stop birds from damaging crops might be improved to reduce the chance of retinal damage. 

“Lasers are being promoted as one of the safer deterrents,” said TWS member Morgan Chaney, a PhD candidate at Purdue University, at a presentation at The Wildlife Society’s 2023 Annual Conference in Louisville. But it’s unclear how much birds’ eyes are expose to the lasers. Chaney is currently developing a model to better predict this, in order to determine ways to improve the safety of the devices. 

Bird damage on crops exceeds $4.7 billion annually, Chaney said. Much of this damage comes from nonnative species like European starlings (Sturnus vulgaris) that can reduce corn cobs to empty husks and damage the plants they grow from. 

To prevent crop damage, farmers have resorted to all kinds of methods in the past—from shiny reflecting tape, to sound canons and dangerous metal spikes. These lasers were developed as a relatively less harmful approach to unwanted bird foraging.

The principle of the method is that shining lasers—similar to handheld laser pointers—at the birds will scare them into flight. Some of these devices are automated, shooting out shining lasers from a fixed device. 

But these lasers may not be harmless—all lasers can cause damage to human eyes, burning retinas and causing permanent vision damage. The effect on bird eyes is less certain, but only highly powered lasers have been shown to cause damage on the eyes of wild birds. “We know that it causes damage in both humans and birds,” Chaney said. Birds may be even more sensitive to laser damage than humans—their eyes have four photoreceptors rather than the three that people have, but there hasn’t been much testing on wild birds to determine any possible effects. 

Laser devices have been used as nonlethal deterrent to prevent crop damage from birds like European starlings. Credit: Morgan Chaney

Chaney and her colleagues are studying how bird retinas respond to lasers by exposing European starlings to them under heavily controlled conditions. Controlling the time of exposure and the power of the laser, they examine the birds’ eyes under microscopes to search for signs of damage, such as corneal edema, cataracts and retinal atrophy. 

In a second project, the team developed a model that could predict how much exposure birds’ eyes might get from lasers when the devices are at different distances or in different positions. 

To do this, the team created an artificial bird using a drone fitted with cameras. They glued a platform with two GoPro cameras pointed either way like a set of bird eyes on top of a quadcopter drone. They flew the device at a station between two laser pointers to see how long the laser might strike the lens in a series of tests. They then developed a model to predict laser exposure times in three different scenarios: when birds flew in the same direction the laser was traveling; when birds flew against the laser; and when the bird was stationary when the laser hit them. 

Researchers placed two GoPro cameras on top of a drone to mimic a bird’s eyes. Credit: Morgan Chaney

The researchers need information from the first project to be able to quantify the likelihood of eye damage depending on different positions and distances from the laser. Once they have those data, they can plug them into the model to predict the exposure time of wild birds in the field. All of this work will help them predict the likelihood of lasers hitting birds’ eyes and for how long, as well as the extent of damage that might occur.  

“Ultimately, we intend to determine what exposure times would be for a bird in the wild, so that we could use that information to make predictions about the potential dangers for avian eye safety more realistic,” Chaney said. 

Their findings are still preliminary, but so far Chaney said the model predicts that birds in the wild may experience eye damage at close distances and low laser speeds. “The probabilities of experiencing damage would go down beyond 30 meters away from the laser,” she said. 

The researchers hope to be able to inform safer ways of using these products.