Wildlife Vocalizations: Crystal Anderson

August 2, 2024 by Crystal Anderson

As a wildlife student and professional with autism, the biggest lesson life has taught me is the profound importance of embracing my unique strengths and seeking out supportive people and resources. My journey has been a blend of professional challenges, personal growth, and the continuous need to adapt and advocate for myself in an environment not always tailored to neurodivergent individuals.

From the start, navigating social interactions and sensory sensitivities was challenging. The intensity of campus life and wildlife studies required me to develop strategies to manage these aspects. Through trial and error, I learned the importance of a structured routine and finding supportive people who allowed me to be myself. This self-awareness and adaptation were crucial for maintaining focus and emotional balance.

One of the most significant lessons was recognizing the value of self-advocacy. Early on, I realized that I needed to communicate my needs clearly to professors, peers and professional colleagues. This open and honest dialogue helped foster an understanding environment where I could excel as a wildlife professional. It also helped me build a network of people who could see my true potential and pushed me to be the best version of myself. Because I advocated for myself, my professors advocated for me.

Crystal Anderson works on research proposals at her office at the James C. Kennedy Waterfowl and Wetlands Conservation Center at Clemson University in South Carolina. Courtesy of Crystal Anderson

A pivotal aspect of my journey was leveraging my unique strengths. Autism gave me a deep focus and passion for wildlife and forestry, making my intense interest and attention to detail assets in academic work. I excelled because I could fully immerse myself in things I loved. Embracing these strengths shifted my perspective from seeing autism as a limitation to recognizing it as a different way of experiencing the world.

Developing resilience was crucial. There were times when setbacks led to frustration and self-doubt. However, each challenge was an opportunity to learn and grow. I learned to be patient with myself, to celebrate small victories, and to view setbacks as temporary obstacles rather than insurmountable barriers. This resilience was fostered by a combination of self-reflection, seeking help when needed, and maintaining a positive outlook.

Crystal Anderson helped locate and count Venus flytraps on the coastal plain of South Carolina with U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services staff and other volunteers, Courtesy of Crystal Anderson

Finding a supportive community was a game-changer. Connecting with students in Clemson University’s student chapter of The Wildlife Society provided professional experiences that developed my research and networking skills. These communities offered invaluable friendships and a platform to share experiences and challenges. Being part of the state and national chapters of The Wildlife Society opened doors to unique opportunities and professional guidance, playing a crucial role in shaping my career aspirations and giving me the confidence to pursue ambitious goals.

No matter the struggles you face, embrace your unique strengths, advocate for your needs, seek out supportive communities, and develop resilience. The key to perseverance lies in understanding and embracing one’s individuality while seeking and creating environments that support and nurture your growth.

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.

CWD affects movement, behavior of deer

August 1, 2024 by Joshua Rapp Learn

Researchers are tracking the movement and behavior of deer infected with chronic wasting disease to try to predict outbreaks.

“Our results suggest that CWD-infected deer may be shedding prions near streams during clinical stages of disease, which underscores riparian zones as potential hotspots for environmental contamination and thus indirect transmission of CWD, at least in our study area,” said Gabriel Barrile, a senior research scientist in ecology at the University of Wyoming.

Barrile and his colleagues had thought that since chronic wasting disease is neurological, it could affect the way that deer use their habitat. But it’s tough to conduct research on animals with CWD since it is rarely known if they are infected prior to death from the disease.

So, for a study published recently in Ecology and Evolution, Barrile and his colleagues had to work backwards with a long-term tracking study using GPS collars on mule deer (Odocoileus hemionus) in central Wyoming.

From 2018 to 2022, scientists collared 179 adult female mule deer. The researchers conducting this study necropsied 91 deer that died over this period to determine the cause of death.

Their results revealed that 32 of the dead deer—about a third—died from CWD. The prion disease and predation were the leading causes of death, though there was overlap between these two categories—some deer with CWD had also been preyed on.

Barrile and his colleagues went back to the GPS location data to compare the movement of CWD-infected deer with all of the others they had tracked. The tracking data revealed a distinct pattern that made CWD-infected deer detectable just based on those animals’ movement about four to six months before they died.

“Certainly, there is a signature,” Barrile said. “Deer infected with CWD moved differently than deer without it, at least in the final months before death.”

Mule deer infected with CWD had different movement patterns than uninfected deer. Credit: Ashley Townsend

These infected deer begin to slow down and may naturally move downhill as a path of least resistance. That’s causing them to end up along lower elevations.

While the direct reason for these behavior shifts isn’t clear, it likely has to do with the deterioration of their brains.

“Maybe because if you’re walking aimlessly, you end up downhill,” Barrile said. “Because they are deteriorating neurologically, they are perhaps not behaving like deer anymore.”

In the wild, sometimes researchers confuse deer infected with CWD with uninfected deer that suffer from starvation. But the GPS data revealed some differences in the movement of these two categories. Starving, uninfected deer, for example, will often try to move toward areas with plentiful food resources. whereas infected deer move more randomly. Using this GPS tracking technique can give better clarity on the infection rates of deer populations versus just starvation.

Barrile said that this study is just preliminary. Moving forward, Barrile and other researchers want to see whether further data reveals that predation, which in this area mostly comes from mountain lions (Puma concolor), can act as a natural control for CWD—if infected deer get eaten at a higher rate, for example.

They can also expand this knowledge to larger data sets in other parts of the country. “Now that we know there are differences in movements, can we incorporate larger data sets across the country and look at how animals might be infected in that area?” Barrile said.

“Knowing the movement patterns of infected deer helps to identify likely hotspots for direct and/or indirect transmission of CWD, assuming susceptible animals also use such habitats. Managers could then target mitigation in these areas.”

Monarchs adapt their breeding time

August 1, 2024 by The Wildlife Society

Monarch butterflies may be adapting to climate change by breeding in the winter—a time when they traditionally haven’t. A new study published in the Journal of the Lepidopterists’ Society reveals that monarchs (Danaus Plexippus) that bred at an urban site in San Francisco during the winter of 2021-2022 had a 50% survival rate. This change is happening at a time when the butterflies are seeing massive population fluctuations in the West. “We are witnessing monarchs evolving and adapting to new environmental circumstances,” said David James, an associate professor of entomology at Washington State University, in a press release. “We can learn a lot from what they are doing, and this will inform our strategies for providing the resources they need to be successful.”

Read more at WSU Insider.

Gray whales off the Pacific Northwest are shrinking

July 31, 2024 by David Frey

Gray whales that spend their summers feeding in the shallow waters off the Pacific Northwest coast have undergone a significant decline in body length since the beginning of the millennium.

The smaller size could have major consequences for the health and reproductive success of the affected whales, and it raises alarm bells about the state of the food web in which the whales coexist, researchers said.

“This could be an early warning sign that the abundance of this population is starting to decline, or is not healthy,” said K.C. Bierlich, co-author on the study published in Global Change Biology and an assistant professor at Oregon State University’s Marine Mammal Institute. “And whales are considered ecosystem sentinels, so if the whale population isn’t doing well, that might say a lot about the environment itself.”

The researchers looked at the Pacific Coast Feeding Group, a small subset of about 200 gray whales (Eschrichtius robustus) within the larger Eastern North Pacific (ENP) population of around 14,500. This subgroup stays closer to shore along the Oregon coast, feeding in shallower, warmer waters than the Arctic seas where the bulk of the gray whale population spends most of the year.

Recent studies have shown that whales in this subgroup are smaller and in overall worse body condition than their ENP counterparts. The current study reveals this trend has been going on for decades.

The Marine Mammal Institute’s Geospatial Ecology of Marine Megafauna Lab has been studying this subgroup of gray whales since 2016, including flying drones over the whales to measure their size. Using images from 2016-2022 of 130 individual whales with known or estimated age, researchers determined that a full-grown gray whale born in 2020 is expected to reach an adult body length that is 1.65 meters shorter than a gray whale born prior to 2000. For these gray whales, which grow to be up to 12.5 meters, that accounts for a loss of more than 13% of their average total length.

“In general, size is critical for animals,” said Enrico Pirotta, lead author of the study and a researcher at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland. “It affects their behavior, their physiology, their life history, and it has cascading effects for the animals and for the community they’re a part of.”

Whale calves that are smaller at weaning age may be unable to cope with the uncertainty that comes with being newly independent, which can affect survival rates, Pirotta said.

For adult gray whales, one of the biggest concerns is reproductive success.

“With them being smaller, there are questions of how effectively these PCFG gray whales can store and allocate energy toward growing and maintaining their health. Importantly, are they able to put enough energy toward reproduction and keep the population growing?” Bierlich said.

Scarring on PCFG whales from boat strikes and fishing gear entanglement makes the team concerned that smaller body size with lower energy reserves may make the whales less resilient to injuries.

The researchers also examined the patterns of the ocean environment that likely regulate food availability for these gray whales off the Pacific coast by tracking cycles of “upwelling” and “relaxation” in the ocean. Upwelling sweeps deep nutrients to shallower regions, while relaxation periods then allow those nutrients to remain in shallower areas. In those areas, light allows for growth of plankton and other tiny organisms, including the prey of gray whales.

“Without a balance between upwelling and relaxation, the ecosystem may not be able to produce enough prey to support the large size of these gray whales,” said co-author Leigh Torres, associate professor and director of the GEMM Lab at OSU.

The data show that whale size declined concurrently with changes in the balance between upwelling and relaxation, Pirotta said.

“Climate change is affecting the oceanography of the Northeast Pacific through changes in wind patterns and water temperature,” he said. “These factors and others affect the dynamics of upwelling and relaxation in the area.”

Now that they know the PCFG gray whales’ body size is declining, researchers say they have new questions about downstream consequences of that shrinking and the factors that could be contributing to it.

“We’re heading into our ninth field season studying this PCFG subgroup,” Bierlich said. “This is a powerful dataset that allows us to detect changes in body condition each year, so now we’re examining the environmental drivers of those changes.”

TWS joins call for congressional action on a 2024 farm bill

July 31, 2024 by Kelly O’Connor

The Wildlife Society joined over 400 other national and state-based organizations and companies in signing a letter to U.S. House and Senate leadership asking for action on a 2024 Farm Bill.

Funding and programs within the Farm Bill address issues ranging from agriculture food production, to easements and working lands conservation. Mandatory spending under Title II of the Farm Bill accounts for the largest single source of federal funding for private lands conservation, including programs like the Conservation Reserve Program, Conservation Stewardship Program and Environmental Quality Incentives Program.

The Farm Bill typically follows a five-year cycle. Once the bill expires, the U.S. Congress updates and enacts a new piece of legislation. The most recent Farm Bill (Agriculture Improvement Act of 2018) would have expired at the end of 2023, but Congress passed a one-year extension of the bill in November of that year. Efforts to pass a 2024 Farm Bill have notably been slowed by partisan disagreements over spending of Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) funds on Farm Bill programs. The House’s current proposed bill would remove the existing requirement that IRA dollars be spent on practices and programs with identified climate benefits.

A diverse group of stakeholders with ties to the Farm Bill and its associated federal programs—including environmental, conservation, rural development, nutrition and agriculture-focused organizations—signed onto the recent letter. For The Wildlife Society, a current priority includes working to ensure adequate funding for conservation programs within the next iteration of the Farm Bill. Last year, TWS joined in coalition efforts to highlight conservation priorities and make recommendations for strengthening conservation programs in the 2023 Farm Bill.

The House draft of the legislation has passed out of the Agriculture Committee but is unlikely to see progress until later in the year when appropriations bills have been finalized. The Senate version is currently a framework released by Agriculture Committee Chair Stabenow.

TWS and others noted that the pressures and logistical constraints of 2024 being an election year make the passage of a 2024 Farm Bill an urgent task for the 118th Congress. “As committed stakeholders and beneficiaries of the farm bill, we cannot continue to wait for updated policies, provisions, initiatives, and critical funding that support our collective interests,” the letter states.

Wildlife Vocalizations: Kyle Evans

July 30, 2024 by Kyle Evans

The biggest challenge that the coming generation will need to address is the lack of funding in the conservation field, which unfortunately leads to low wages.

These low wages increase the level of passion required to pursue this line of work, leading to fewer people entering the field, and at lower and lower pay scales.

After receiving my first degree in wildlife conservation biology, life circumstances forced me to return to school for an environmental engineering degree. I am still loosely connected to wildlife conservation through a variety of river restoration projects, such as aquatic organism passage design and declining habitat restoration, but I have always felt the painful disconnect between conservation and a living wage.

Kyle Evans is a stream and stormwater hydraulics engineer. Credit: Kyle Evans

I was blessed with the opportunity to pursue multiple degrees, but a lot of people do not have this option.

So, I say to the young and mid-level conservation professionals: Talk to your local government! Pursue and demand more funding! Demand higher wages! Get creative with funding!

I believe in a world where all this can be true—I hope we can make it a reality soon.

Kyle Evans enjoys wildlife contact while studying conservation in Mexico. Credit: Kristin Botzet

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.

Maurice Hornocker wins Aldo Leopold Memorial Award

July 29, 2024 by Joshua Rapp Learn

Maurice Hornocker was just beginning his career when he got into what was then a rare subject in wildlife management and research—carnivores. He began working with John Craighead, the 1998 Aldo Leopard Award recipient, in the 1960s, when they started the Yellowstone Grizzly Project. It was a time when nearly all research on wildlife featured game species like birds and large ungulates.

“[Craighead] pointed out that it was not a job but a form of life,” Hornocker said.

After five years working on grizzly bears (Ursus arctos horribilis), Craighead encouraged Hornocker to start researching mountain lions (Puma concolor)—a species that was fairly understudied at the time. His pioneering work on cougars acted as a springboard for more than five decades of field work on a number of species, from wolverines (Gulo gulo) to Siberian tigers (Panthera tigris altaica).

“It’s been an adventure,” said Hornocker, the recipient of the 2024 Aldo Leopold Award, the highest honor bestowed upon wildlife biologists by The Wildlife Society. The award recognizes wildlifers’ lifetime contributions to the field.

Hornocker, 93, grew up on a farm in Iowa, developing a natural curiosity for wildlife in his early years. He received his undergraduate and master’s degrees from the University of Montana, then began his PhD research on mountain lions at the University of British Columbia under another Aldo Leopold Award-winning mentor, the 1970 recipient Ian McTaggart Cowan. For this work, which was the first of its kind, Hornocker studied the ecology of the big cats in the Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness Area in Idaho—an area relatively free of human effects on wildlife.

With the help of David Johnson, a retired journalist, Hornocker wrote about these experiences in field research on mountain lions in his new memoir, Cougars on the Cliff: One Man’s Pioneering Quest to Understand the Mythical Mountain Lion. This was a time before GPS collars and radiotelemetry technology. “The technology back then was basically a pair of snowshoes and two redbone hounds,” Johnson said.

But technology improved over the years. In the documentary Big Cats in the 1970s, Hornocker is shown tracking a cougar by plane using telemetry in Idaho, for example. His work was featured in a number of different popular articles and documentaries for National Geographic and other outlets.

Maurice Hornocker recently published a memoir together with David Johnson. Courtesy of Maurice Hornocker

Hornocker went on to lead the Idaho Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit at the University of Idaho. In 1985, he founded the Hornocker Wildlife Institute, a nonprofit that was designed to focus on research and eventually merged into the Wildlife Conservation Society, where he worked until retiring in 2005.

“Maurice’s scientific findings and recommendations formed the foundation of a paradigm shift from the view of carnivores as feared ‘vermin’ during an era of bountied killing, toward one of scientifically based management and conservation of carnivore species around the globe,” said Toni Ruth and her colleagues in their nomination letter for the award. “His recommendations for the management of cougars, moving from bounties to the implementation of hunting seasons and quota limits, remain the single most significant change in how cougars are managed in North America today.”

Johnson agrees. “I don’t think anybody has contributed more to the profession as far as mountain lions and big cats are concerned,” he said.

His legacy doesn’t just affect his feline study subjects, but a whole new generation of researchers who he mentored as students over the years. “They call themselves ‘The Disciples,’ believe it or not,” Johnson said.

Hornocker himself prefers to keep the focus off of himself despite winning the award, which he is “humbled and honored” to earn. The message he’d like people to take from his career is that carnivores play an important role in every ecosystem.

“They evolved successfully with their prey species over eons of time, and we really haven’t accepted that in many parts of society,” he said. “That should be considered in any management program.”

Researchers begin grizzly bear research in Greater Yellowstone

July 29, 2024 by The Wildlife Society

Biologists with the Interagency Grizzly Bear Study Team have begun to capture animals in southern Montana as part of ongoing research and monitoring efforts. This team, which includes the U.S. Geological Survey and the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks, began capturing grizzly bears (Ursus arctos horribilis) in Custer Gallatin National Forest on July 17 and will continue through Aug. 9. The wildlife professionals use bait, sometimes in the form of deer or elk (Cervus canadensis) roadkill. Once bears are trapped, they collect data and release them back into the wild. These captures are for a variety of monitoring and research activities for grizzlies, which are considered threatened by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in this region.

Read more at NBC Montana.

Recreation noise causes wildlife to flee

July 26, 2024 by David Frey

When people head into nature in search of peace and quiet, the wildlife around them finds anything but relaxation.

Researchers found that sounds of recreationists can trigger a fear response in wildlife as if they were escaping from predators. The research calls into question whether otherwise high-quality habitats truly provide refugia for wildlife when hikers, photographers and others are around, and it underscores the challenges land managers face in balancing outdoor recreational opportunities with wildlife conservation.

“Information like this can help managers balance recreation opportunities with wildlife management, which is critical as outdoor recreation continues to grow in popularity,” said Kathy Zeller, a research biologist with the U.S. Forest Service and the lead author of the study published recently in Current Biology.

The study is the first to quantify wildlife responses to the noises of people recreating, based on recreation type, group size, group vocalizations and wildlife species.

Working in the Bridger-Teton National Forest in Wyoming, Zeller and her colleagues placed remote cameras and speakers on wildlife trails. When animals entered study areas, they triggered speakers to broadcast different types of noise, and nearby cameras captured video of the animals’ behavioral responses to the sounds.

“Wildlife responses to recreation noise are often unobservable, and it was a fun research challenge,” Zeller said.

The noises were associated with different types of recreation such as hiking, mountain biking and off-highway vehicle use. They also represented different-sized groups and included sounds with and without human voices.

This setup allowed the researchers to observe both the immediate responses in animal behavior to recreation noise and changes in wildlife presence at the study areas. Scientists analyzed the video footage and compared how wildlife responded to various recreation noises as well as nature sounds and periods without any broadcasted noise.

They found that animals were up to 4.7 times more likely to flee, and they exhibited vigilance behavior up to three times longer when exposed to recreation noise compared to natural sounds or no noise. Animal abundance was 1.5 times lower in the week following the noise. Larger groups of people caused the highest probability of flight. Elk (Cervus canadensis) and black bears (Ursus americanus) were the most sensitive. Large carnivores were the least affected.

The study comes as outdoor recreation activities like hiking, mountain biking and motorized vehicle use are steadily increasing.

“Our findings highlight the need for thoughtful planning, with potential consideration of noise mitigation measures to minimize the impact on wildlife while still providing outdoor recreational opportunities for people,” said Mark Ditmer, a Rocky Mountain Research Station research ecologist and co-author of the study.

Invasive ants travel by car

July 26, 2024 by The Wildlife Society

Ants may be hitching rides in cars and trucks to invade new territory. Citizen science reports—mostly from social media—revealed that nine different species were observed using cars to move around Taiwan between 2017 and 2023. They often get into the interior of cars while parked, travel with the drivers then exit in new areas. Seven of these species are considered invasive in Taiwan. The study was published recently in Ecological Entomology, and researcher Scotty Yang at Virginia Tech said that invasive species in the eastern United States may be using similar techniques to get around.  

Read more at Virginia Tech News.