Strategic grazing could boost declining sage-grouse

February 27, 2024 by The Wildlife Society

A recent multi-agency study points to the role that strategic cattle grazing can play in restoring the declining greater sage-grouse population.  

The study found that the intensity and timing of grazing has a significant impact on the availability of certain insects and plants that serve as vital food sources for the species. Sagebrush is the predominant plant species in much of the Great Basin. However, a U.S. Geological Survey report indicates that nearly half of the region’s rangelands have been lost due to widespread habitat destruction, primarily from wildland fire. Greater sage-grouse (Centrocercus urophasianus) rely on these ecosystems for food and nesting.

The study, published most recently in the Journal of Environmental Management, used time-lapse imagery to assess the impact of grazing on seven meadows in central Nevada. Researchers found increased grazing in the spring and summer, when sage-grouse depend on flowering plants to feed their young, had a significant impact on vegetation. However, grazing did not reduce insect abundance and could benefit some insects.

“Our results show that strategic grazing has the potential to have a positive impact on the biodiversity of meadow habitat, which not only benefits other species, but more so the sage-grouse, which is high up in the sagebrush food chain,” said William Richardson, the study’s lead researcher and a postdoctoral scholar at the University of Nevada.

Read more from Nevada Today.

The April issue of the Journal of Wildlife Management

February 26, 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. 

California is home to three subspecies of elk. In a study in the April issue of the Journal of Wildlife Management, researchers conducted genetic testing on 1,271 elk to better understand their ranges and genetic diversity and establish a baseline to inform future management efforts.

Other articles look at bear deterrence with scare devices, harbor porpoise distribution in Washington state’s Hood Canal, human disturbances on giant pandas and more. Log in to read the April issue today.

Scientists on film shoot find new anaconda species

February 26, 2024 by The Wildlife Society

A team of scientists traveling with a film crew in the Amazon made a striking discovery for the documentary. The researchers were searching for what was rumored to be the largest anacondas in the world. After examining several individuals, they determined the newly named northern green anaconda (Eunectes akayima), had never been described before.

“This discovery is the highlight of my career,” said Bryan Fry, a professor at the University of Queensland, in Australia and an author on the study describing the anaconda as a distinct species in MDPI Diversity.

Researchers say one female anaconda measured 6.3 meters.

The species was found while filming with National Geographic for an upcoming Disney+ series, Pole to Pole with Will Smith. The team’s Waorani collaborators in the Amazon were co-authors on the paper.

Read more from National Geographic.

Legislation to fortify USFWS Coastal Program introduced in US House and Senate

February 23, 2024 by Hannah Henry

Representative Jared Huffman (D-CA) and Senator Benjamin Cardin (D-MD) recently introduced the Coastal Habitat Conservation Act of 2023 to the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate, respectively, to address the need to protect coastal habitats and safeguard vulnerable species. 

The legislation (H.R.2950) would enforce these protections by fortifying the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Coastal Program.

Established in 1985, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Coastal Program is an initiative dedicated to conserving and restoring fish and wildlife habitat in coastal watersheds through technical and financial assistance for coastal land acquisitions. The program targets key habitats along the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, Gulf of Mexico, Great Lakes and Caribbean, encompassing wetlands, estuaries, beaches and mangrove forests. Guided by a federal strategic plan, the program  integrates USFWS priorities with the shared goals of conservation partners and stakeholders in these regions.

“The Coastal Program is one of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s most effective and proven initiatives, bringing together public and private partners to voluntarily protect and improve coastal habitats,” said Jenniffer González-Colón, Resident Commissioner of Puerto Rico and original cosponsor of the bill in the House, in a recent statement. “That’s why I’m proud to support the bipartisan and bicameral Coastal Habitat Conservation Act, which would provide statutory authority to the program and ensure it has the tools to continue supporting locally driven conservation projects across our nation’s coastal states and territories.”

If enacted, the bill would authorize increasing appropriations for the program from $20 million to $25 million annually over the next five fiscal years, potentially providing the program with vital resources for habitat restoration and protection projects nationwide.

Coastal ecosystems face a myriad of threats, from habitat degradation to sea level rise, imperiling the welfare of species and communities. “Climate change, development and other pressures are challenging our coastal communities, increasing the need to strengthen successful efforts like the coastal program that serve to protect and engage them,” said Senator Cardin, a senior member of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, in a press release.

The legislation, endorsed by a diverse coalition including the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, National Wildlife Federation and The Nature Conservancy, emphasizes the need to preserve coastal habitats for future generations. “This collaborative bill is a bipartisan solution to preserve the health and resilience of coastal habitats, benefiting the wildlife, communities and economies that depend on them,” Huffman said in a press release.

Having been introduced in the House of Representatives on April 27, 2023, the Coastal Habitat Conservation Act of 2023 has undergone a series of key legislative steps. The bill underwent a hearing by the Subcommittee on Water, Wildlife and Fisheries in July 2023, following its introduction in May of that year. On Jan. 17, 2024, the Committee on Natural Resources conducted a mark-up session for the legislation, resulting in unanimous consent to report the bill with amendments. The next phase for this bill involves full House of Representatives consideration.

If approved, the bill would then proceed to the Senate for further review, marking a critical step in the legislative process for the Coastal Habitat Conservation Act.

B.C. imposes restrictions to reduce chronic wasting disease spread

February 23, 2024 by The Wildlife Society

Officials in British Columbia have implemented mandatory testing as well as transportation restrictions after chronic wasting disease appeared in the province.

The new rules focus on the Kootenay region where the disease was found in two deer samples in January. In addition to testing, the province is restricting the transportation and disposal of any road-killed deer, elk, moose or caribou.

The deer were the first known cases CWD in British Columbia. The highly contagious affects the central nervous system of cervids and is always fatal. It has spread to 32 states and five provinces throughout the United States and Canada with no known cure.

Wildlife Vocalizations: Tempe Regan

February 22, 2024 by The Wildlife Society

While pursuing a career in wildlife biology can bring great satisfaction, it can also sometimes be discouraging and require great personal sacrifice. I always tell early-career wildlifers that if they want to be successful, they should be sure they want this career badly, because they will be tested by adversity throughout their journey.

When I am frustrated or discouraged, I find my strength and joy in knowing deep down that I am called to this profession to the core of my being. I find my inspiration in the beauty of nature and wildlife around me, and the connection I make with God when I am working in nature.

Tempe Regan rides a horse 13 miles one direction into an alpine survey for species of greatest conservation need in Idaho’s Frank Church River of No Return Wilderness. Credit: Dave Silcock

When I am lucky enough to observe animals in their natural environment by chance or through a targeted survey, I am often brought to tears at the wonder and amazing intricacy in nature and the life history traits of species I am observing. It is not uncommon for me to squeal in delight when I observe a target wildlife species on a survey, which my coworkers can attest to. I freely share my joy and my experiences in nature with my coworkers and friends, because I am also passionate about drawing others into the deep joys found in wildlife and nature observations. When I get to share wildlife observations and my knowledge of their unique traits with coworkers, volunteers and friends, it brings me a deep sense of satisfaction and joy.

Tempe Regan conducts an alpine survey in the Sawtooth mountains looking for a suite of Idaho’s alpine species of greatest conservation need including black rosy-finches and American pika (Ochotona princeps). Credit: Tempe Regan

I think, in my job as a nongame biologist, that one of my biggest responsibilities is connecting people to the diverse array of nongame wildlife that is so often overlooked due to interest in more charismatic megafauna. When I see coworkers thrilled that they found western toads (Anaxyrus boreas) on a survey, that brings me joy. When I get to teach someone about the biology of a black rosy-finch (Leucosticte atrata) and watch them observe and identify their first one on a survey training day, it affirms to me that I’m in the right career and makes all the trials and travails I have overcome worth it.

If I, through my honest and passionate pursuit of nongame wildlife conservation, am able to draw a few other folks in to become champions for the intrinsic value found in nongame wildlife, then I will have been successful in my career. It is thoughts and experiences like these that sustain me and energize me, through all the ups and downs.

Tempe Regan, Jessie Roughgarden and Melanie Finch (from left to right) sit in a fixed wing airplane where they conducted aerial surveys to identify and quantify winter recreation footprints in the Idaho backcountry. Credit: Tempe Regan

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.

‘Time travel’ study delivers dire prediction for Louisiana marshes

February 22, 2024 by The Wildlife Society

In what they call a “real-world time-travel experiment,” researchers found climate change could submerge much of Louisiana’s coastal wetlands within 50 years.

Scientists usually have to rely on computer models to predict the effects of rising seas. But

in the wake of hurricanes Katrina and Rita, researchers set up a network of nearly 400 monitoring sites along the Louisiana coast. Then, the rate of sea-level rise in the region surged to more than half an inch per year—at least three times the global average.

That exposed the region to the kind of levels not expected until around 2070, giving researchers a glimpse of what the coastal flooding on the marshes may look like in the future.

“It is the dream of every field researcher who does experiments—we can basically travel 50 years into the future to get a peek at what’s in store,” said Tulane University professor Torbjörn Törnqvist, an author on the study published in Nature Communications.

The researchers found that 87% of the sites they examined were “unable to keep up with rising water levels.” Under the current climate trajectory, they concluded, “drowning of [about 75%] of Louisiana’s coastal wetlands is a plausible outcome by 2070.”

Read more from Tulane University.

Southern birds are replacing northern species in Canada’s protected areas

February 21, 2024 by Dana Kobilinsky

Protected areas often provide a buffer for wildlife affected by the environmental changes taking place around them. But researchers found climate change may be altering these areas in Canada faster than nonprotected areas, raising questions about how much of a buffer these preserves can offer.

In southern Canada, the researchers found that bird communities were shifting to warm-loving birds faster inside protected areas, suggesting that these areas weren’t providing much of a haven to the cold-seeking birds that once inhabited them.

Leena Hintsanen, a doctoral researcher at the University of Helsinki, led a study published in Conservation Biology that sifted through two decades of data collected by citizen scientists to see how bird communities had changed.

“A similar kind of study had been done in Finland,” Hintsanen said. “This was a great opportunity to broaden the scale and move into North America.”

Using a Canadian North American Breeding Bird Survey dataset spanning from 1997 to 2019, she and her team looked at the birds identified by citizen scientists and categorized whether the species were found inside or outside of protected areas.

The findings surprised them. Sightings in earlier surveys showed protected areas were dominated by species like the Lapland longspur (Calcarius lapponicus), which breed in colder, northerly areas. That’s probably because protected areas are more likely to contain old-growth forests and microclimates that benefit cold-dwelling species, the researchers concluded.

But over time, those bird communities changed, becoming dominated by warm-dwelling species usually found farther south. That was happening outside protected areas, too, but not as quickly. Hintsanen believes that may be because the conditions that cold-loving species sought out inside protected areas were disappearing.

“It wasn’t the result we were expecting,” she said. “The rate of change was faster in protected areas. We were expecting that the protected areas would maintain the cold-dwelling species more efficiently. But it seems like actually protected areas and the communities within them are changing much faster than the communities outside of protected areas.”

This change can be challenging, Hintsanen said, as southern species like grass wrens (Cistothorus platensis) and northern cardinals (Cardinalis cardinalis) move north looking for suitable climates, taking over niches that cold-dwelling species occupy. While protected areas may not be serving northern species as much as they used to, Hintsanen said, they might help southern species adapt to rising temperatures.

“The results might suggest that protected areas actually can act as a steppingstone for the warm-dwelling species to move forward to northern areas,” she said. 

Bobcat populations struggle in portions of New York

February 21, 2024 by The Wildlife Society

While bobcats are rebounding in many places, researchers using trail cameras found their populations in central and western New York state remain extremely low.

For a study published in Biological Conservation, biologists tracked occupancies for several species. White-tailed deer (Odocoileus hemionus) in the region are flourishing. Red fox (Vulpes vulpes) and coyote (Canis latrans) populations are abundant. Eastern wild turkey (Meleagris gallopavo) and gray fox (Urocyon cinereoargenteus) numbers remain low.

Bobcats (Lynx rufus), however, “displayed one of the more concerning trends that we saw,” said lead author Joshua Twining, a postdoctoral researcher in the New York Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit.

Read more from the Cornell Chronicle.

Feb. 22, 2024 – post updated, including new title, to express more clarity of the study’s finding.

Arctic gulls choose fast food over organic meals

February 20, 2024 by Dana Kobilinsky

When Falk Huettmann was conducting a study on urban ravens in Fairbanks, Alaska, he and his colleagues uncovered some findings about a totally different species—short-billed gulls.

When most ravens (Corvus corax) disappeared from the supermarket parking lots and other urban niches they occupied at the end of winter, the gulls simply took their place and stayed through summer. “The gulls are suddenly found where we find ravens for three months,” said Huettmann, a professor at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. The gulls were spending time on gravel pits and strip malls close to rivers until August.

Huettmann led a study published in Ecological Informatics using machine learning to find out more about short-billed gulls’ (Larus canus) urban habitat preferences in Fairbanks.

Gulls in general have become increasingly urbanized over at least the past 30 years as the landscapes they once used have been lost. Short-billed gulls historically lived in boreal forests, but they have been moving to urban areas.

To conduct the study, Huettmann and his colleagues surveyed 80 plots in Fairbanks for short-billed gulls, and citizen scientists shared data where they were finding gulls.

For the following two years, Huettmann and his team revisited 50 of the plots. Then, they modeled where the gulls showed up and added environmental data to the model to help make sense of the patterns. Using public GIS data, they were able to look at different layers of habitat availability and add a layer of human resources, like restaurants, that the gulls might take advantage of. Further, they included U.S. census data to see if socioeconomic metrics influenced gull presence.

“These big data get data mined with machine learning for patterns,” Huettmann said.

The model suggested that gulls tended to occupy areas that were close to rivers, as well as supermarkets and waste dumps.

Huettmann and his colleagues then did ground-truthing to see if the model was accurate. They went to specific hot spots where gulls were predicted to be abundant, like the parking lots of supermarkets and fast food restaurants, and found lots of gulls.

Their abundance at these sites can cause problems for both the birds and people. Consuming waste at restaurants isn’t natural or healthy for the gulls, and their proximity to humans raises the risk of spreading zoonotic diseases.