TWS’ statement on delisting of gray wolves

October 30, 2020 by The Wildlife Society

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced their decision to remove gray wolves (Canis lupus) from the federal Endangered Species Act on Oct. 29, 2020. The Service based its decision on its assessment that gray wolf populations in the lower 48 states are no longer threatened with extinction and have met the recovery goals for the listed populations. This listing decision does not affect the status of the red wolf (Canis rufus) in the southeast or Mexican gray wolf (Canis lupus baileyi) in the southwest.

The tireless efforts of wildlife professionals to restore gray wolves and facilitate their advancement across the lower 48 states have been successful over the past several decades. Gray wolves were deliberately extirpated from nearly all of the contiguous U.S. by the mid-1900s. Through the collaborative efforts of wildlife professionals and their application of scientific information, there are now more than 6,000 gray wolves across at least 10 states in the contiguous U.S. according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service — and wolf populations and range continue to expand through natural dispersal and science-based management of the species.

The Wildlife Society recognizes that this decision will ignite the passions of many stakeholders interested in the management and conservation of wolves and other wildlife. Acknowledging this passion for wildlife management challenges is key to moving conservation forward in a way that recognizes the various ethical, political and personal values of all stakeholders. We support the use of science in policy decision-making and continue to encourage decision-makers and stakeholders to rely on robust scientific information to guide the management and conservation of gray wolves in a way that minimizes and mitigates wolf-human conflicts, increases public tolerance of wolves, and retains wolves as a component of the natural landscape.

With wolves continuing to expand their range, we encourage states adjacent to wolf populations to develop conservation and management plans through robust stakeholder engagement and collaboration. We encourage plans that recognize the values of stakeholders, address likely wolf-human conflicts, and provide for the conservation of this native species in areas that provide suitable conditions — both social and ecological — to sustain packs.

As gray wolves transition from their status as a federally endangered species, wildlife professionals will continue their key role advancing the conservation of this native species, providing scientific expertise and dedication to ensuring gray wolves continue to occupy their important ecological niche.

Read The Wildlife Society’s Issue Statement on Wolf Restoration and Management in the Contiguous United States

Wildlife Vocalizations: Lauren Polansky

October 30, 2020 by The Wildlife Society

Wildlife Vocalizations is a collection of short personal perspectives from people in the field of wildlife sciences.

Bold wildlife biologists know that rigor is made better by community inclusiveness. They inspire me because they are not afraid of complexity. In 2017, while protesting the Dakota Access Pipeline’s violent dismissal of the Fort Laramie Treaty and the Standing Rock Sioux’s right to protect their cultural and sacred sites, I felt a resounding call back to wildlife restoration. In my 10th year as a public health scientist with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, with a decades-old zoology degree and rusty wildlife monitoring fieldwork from Equatorial Guinea, I sought to work with tribal, indigenous, and community leadership to monitor and restore wildlife only to find my combination of experiences didn’t fit neatly in anyone’s box.

Me on one of my final retrievals of ARUs and camera traps. Set up to record six weeks of data, this is a non-invasive method to assess the demography and ecology of northern spotted owls (Strix occidentalis caurina) and other key species. This study is being conducted in the Pacific Northwest coastal range by the U.S. Forest Service in conjunction with Dr. Damon Lesmeister’s Bioacoustic Laboratory at Oregon State University. Credit: Lauren Polansky

As an enrolled member of the Lenape Nation (Delaware Tribe of Indians), represented by the wolf, turkey, and turtle clans, it is my dream to help protect these species and their many relatives. In 2018, I joined The Wildlife Society and earned my Master Naturalist certification from University of Georgia Extension Services. In 2019, I enrolled in the online Masters of Legal Studies in Indigenous Rights at the University of Oklahoma School of Law and was awarded The Wildlife Society’s Native American Research Assistantship (NARA). NARA assigned me to the Siuslaw National Forest in Oregon, where non-invasive, bioacoustics efforts to assess the northern spotted owl population were ongoing.

Shortly after committing, I received the exciting news I was pregnant. No one warned me of the field conditions. It was jarring to be tangled up in gnarly tree decay, constantly freeing myself from the dense, piercing vines. As my feet sunk into the loose soil, I scrambled across steep slopes to randomly generated GIS points. My pack held extra food and water. My body held back morning sickness on the winding logging roads. My mind focused on my footing as strongly as if there was molten lava beneath it. My spirit simply held on.

Bioacoustic monitoring of northern spotted owls (Strix occidentalis caurina) often required crawling in order to properly install Audio Recording Units (ARUs) and camera traps in the randomly selected areas. This study is being conducted in the Pacific Northwest coastal range by the U.S. Forest Service in conjunction with Dr. Damon Lesmeister’s Bioacoustic Laboratory at Oregon State University. Credit: Stephen Wood

Alone on a ridge line one morning, I had a rare encounter with a female black bear. Holding her ground she stood on her hind legs vigorously huffing. She was not interested in my shouts or flailing hiking poles. Jarring her head she took a step forward. Facing her, I reached for my non-existent bear spray, and decided to retreat backward. She gracefully allowed. The camera trap later revealed that she was also a mother, guarding her young cub.

At 36, in career transition and my second trimester, I proved that I could complete a challenging summer field season. I came out injury free, without any loss or damage to equipment, and joked that pregnant women make the best field assistants. As I continue to build my career, our daughter Ntëmeyëm (Lenape for “my wolf”), who I nicknamed that summer in the forest, will forever remind me how important it is to embrace complexity and unpredictability before making any assumptions about what is possible.

Learn more about Wildlife Vocalizations, and read other contributions.

Submit your story for Wildlife Vocalizations or share the submission form with your peers and colleagues to encourage them to share their story.

For questions, please contact Jamila Blake.

Mexican photographer documents wildlife along the border

October 30, 2020 by The Wildlife Society

The barriers along the U.S.-Mexican border affect different wildlife species in different ways. Mexican photographer Alejandro Prieto has captured the diverse wildlife here in his Border Wall project, which has one multiple awards around the world. His cameras have captured a mountain lion (Puma concolor) crossing the border, a bobcat (Lynx rufus) making the crossing with prey in its mouth and a javelina (Tayassu tajacu) squeezing through. “My goal in this life is to protect nature and wild animals through my photography,” Prieto says.

See more in the Guardian.

The November issue of the Journal of Wildlife Management

October 30, 2020 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.

Boreal caribou face a host of disturbances, both natural and industrial, and they can affect the species very differently. In the featured article of the November issue of the Journal of Wildlife Management, researchers found significant declines across five populations of woodland caribou are likely due to disturbance from the oil and gas sector and not from fire. Other articles look at the effectiveness of partial sedation to reduce stress in captured mule deer, variation in survival and harvest rates in Florida mottled ducks and the spatial ecology and resource selection of eastern box turtles.

Log in to read the November issue today.

The November/December issue of The Wildlife Professional

October 29, 2020 by The Wildlife Society

The Wildlife Professional is an exclusive benefit of membership in The Wildlife Society. Published six times annually, the magazine presents timely research news and analysis of trends in the wildlife profession.

Don’t miss another issue! Join today to start receiving The Wildlife Professional in your mailbox and all the other great benefits of TWS membership.

Managing national parks and other public lands can be a delicate balance between the needs of wildlife on the one hand and the interests of visitors who come to enjoy the outdoors on the other. In the November/December issue of The Wildlife Professional, we explore the challenges managers face as recreation increases on public land — particularly during this coronavirus pandemic. Can we protect these wild places and still offer visitors a chance to be awed by the natural world?

In this issue, we highlight the challenge of balancing the potentially conflicting goals that face public land managers across North America. As recreation and other uses of public lands continue to increase – particularly during this coronavirus pandemic – what does that mean for wildlife? How can we ensure that wildlife populations and their habitats continue to thrive on public lands that are being increasingly trammeled by humans? To ensure the future of wildlife conservation, we need a public that is interested, engaged and finds the awe that our wildlife bring – and we also have to ensure that the public’s attention doesn’t result in the degradation of our wildlife and wild places.

Other articles highlight Wildlife Vocalizations, a new initiative by The Wildlife Society to highlight and amplify the diversity within our membership and the wildlife profession. Featured articles consider the use of drones in monitoring wildlife damage, how professors can handle online classes through the pandemic and the journey to ban lead ammunition from hunting at Paul Smith’s College. And science writer Joshua Rapp Learn considers new threats facing the northern spotted owl 30 years after its listing under the Endangered Species Act.

Watch for the issue in your mailbox soon, or log in and check it out online.

Challenge to meadow jumping mouse habitat designation denied

October 29, 2020 by Laura Bies

A U.S. federal district court judge dismissed a 2018 lawsuit challenging the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s 2016 designation of critical habitat for the New Mexico meadow jumping mouse (Zapus hudsonius luteus).

The Northern New Mexico Stockman’s Association and the Otero County Cattleman’s Association filed the lawsuit, arguing, among other claims, that the USFWS should have further considered the economic impact of the designation

The USFWS listed the New Mexico jumping mouse as endangered under the Endangered Species Act in 2014, based on substantial habitat loss and fragmentation from grazing, water management, drought and wildfire. Researchers have identified 29 populations of jumping mice in the last 15 years — two in Colorado, 15 in New Mexico and 12 in Arizona.

The USFWS designated 14,000 acres along 170 miles of streams and waterways in New Mexico, Arizona and Colorado as critical habitat for the mouse in 2016. Both plaintiffs in the case graze cattle in the Santa Fe and Lincoln National Forests, parts of which were included in the designation. The U.S. Forest Service put up fencing around some streams and watering holes in these forests to prevent degradation of the mouse’s habitat.

In dismissing the cattlemen’s claim, the judge found that the USFWS was justified in not excluding areas from the critical habitat designation due to economic impacts. He also found that the USFWS was not required to compensate plaintiffs for the reduction in value of their water rights. Further, he deemed that the USFWS was not required to consider all the economic impacts associated with the mouse’s listing when designating critical habitat, only the incremental costs of the designation itself.

In an unrelated lawsuit involving the jumping mouse filed in February of this year, the Center for Biological Diversity sued the USFWS and the U.S. Forest Service, arguing that the agencies are violating the ESA by permitting livestock and failing to manage feral horses (Equus ferus) that continue to access some streams and wetlands along national forests in Arizona. A judgment has not yet been issued in that case.

California wildfires may have killed hundreds of cougars

October 29, 2020 by The Wildlife Society

Wildfires that tore through California have killed up to 600 mountain lions, according to a recent estimate. Fires in the western state have burned more than 4 million acres of land, including land where mountain lions (Puma concolor) roam, according to Panthera, a global wild cat conservation organization. Panthera scientists used mountain lion density information from previous research in the same areas that were burned by fires in California in 2020. They estimate between 300 and 600 may have been killed — some 15% of the state’s population. “California’s native wildlife and plants evolved in habitats with regular fires, but these mega-fires present a whole new challenge,” said Veronica Yovovich, a conservation scientist with the Panthera Puma Program, in a press release. “Climate change has made fires bigger, longer, and more frequent. Compounding fire with pressures from illegal killing, vehicle collisions, rodenticides and other toxicants, and conflict with humans, mountain lions face more threats now than ever.”

Read more at Panthera.

Bark beetle outbreaks benefit wild bees

October 28, 2020 by Dana Kobilinsky

While bark beetle outbreaks can be problematic for western forests, they may actually be a boon to wild bee populations.

“These large natural disturbances should not be perceived as completely negative,” said Seth Davis, an assistant professor of forest entomology stewardship in the Warner College of Natural Resources at Colorado State University.

Davis led a study published in Scientific Reports looking at how outbreaks of spruce beetles, a native species (Dendroctonus rufipennis) that kills Engelmann spruce in the Rocky Mountains, impact wild bee populations.

From a previous study, Davis knew that when there’s more canopy cover, there are fewer bees. He wondered how bark beetles may change the forest and canopy structure, and what that might mean for wild bees.

To conduct the study, the team studied wild bees in 28 alpine sites in north-central Colorado. Half were affected by spruce beetles and half were undisturbed. For two years, they used a passive trapping method that reflects light in the ultraviolet spectrum to detect foragers. After collecting actively foraging bees, they euthanized them and pinned them to create an insect collection. The team also recorded measurements of the trees and understory.

The outbreak sites, they found, had more than twice as many bees and 37% greater richness in bee species. Floral abundance was 62% greater.

A high elevation spruce forest has been affected by bark beetles.
Credit: Seth Davis/Colorado State University

Davis said the research provides evidence that by killing the trees, the bark beetle infestations open the canopy cover and allow more light to reach plants and flowers on the ground.  Dead trees also provide more cavities for wild bees that nest in dead wood.

“Their abundances are low, and there aren’t a lot of things that create new habitat for them,” he said.  “In a way, it’s doing us a favor creating habitat for these rare bee species endemic to high elevations and creating habitat for pollinators in general.”

While these outbreaks are widely considered to be detrimental, Davis said, “the message I really want to convey is that these large, natural disturbances should not be perceived as completely negative. It’s pretty evident they have positive impacts on species of global concern.”

For some carnivores, half their diet comes from human food

October 28, 2020 by Dana Kobilinsky

Human food comprises up to half the diet of carnivores living close to people, researchers found, which can have consequences for the individuals and the ecosystem.

“A lot of us have pursued this line of inquiry about how much human food percolates into these systems,” said Jonathan Pauli, an associate professor at the University of Wisconsin and the senior author of the recent study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

He and his colleagues had looked previously at the impacts on individual species — the importance of human subsidies for black bears (Ursus americanus), for instance, or how consuming human food can put pumas (Puma concolor) at risk.

“But what hasn’t really been pieced together is how does a carnivore community — multiple species — how has that altered with these subsidies?” Pauli said.

In the Great Lakes region, Pauli and Philip Manlick, now a postdoctoral researcher at the University of New Mexico, looked at carnivores’ fur and bones to determine more broadly how human subsidies might impact communities of carnivores. The signature of the plants in the region makes it easier for researchers to decipher native plants from human food, Pauli said. Corn and sugar, for instance, is naturally absent from the Great Lakes ecosystem, so when they appear in carnivores’ diets, they had to have come from people. “We can trace pretty cleanly that pathway of human subsidies into the ecosystem,” Pauli said. “That’s why we targeted the Great Lakes.”

What carnivores eat is important, he said, because niche overlaps may influence the dynamics of the ecosystem and cause competition between carnivore species.

Working with state and federal agencies, trappers, museums and other partners, the team collected fur and bone samples from gray wolves (Canis lupus), coyotes (Canis latrans), bobcats (Lynx rufus), fishers (Pekania pennant), martens (Martes americana) and other carnivores from Minnesota, Wisconsin, New York and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.

They chemically analyzed the samples, looking at carbon and nitrogen isotopes to determine what the carnivores were consuming. “You are what you eat,” Pauli said. “Isotopes in your body are more or less reflective of what you’re consuming.” Pauli said these isotopic signatures can also help them determine if there are any niche overlaps regarding what they’re eating.

The team found that carnivores that live closer to humans, like coyotes, foxes, and fishers, are getting around 50% of their diet from human subsidies. Other carnivores, like bobcats, had diets with less human food.

This could mean broader ecosystem impacts. As human items increase in the environment, carnivores likely expand their niches, causing greater overlap with other carnivores. While this study didn’t look at carnivore diets historically, past research Pauli and his colleagues conducted found that cougars on Colorado’s Front Range had a smaller historical food niche, before human subsidies were as widely available.

Past research has also shown that carnivores alter their timing of activity, with some becoming more nocturnal, in areas where humans are present to avoid conflict.

Managing human subsidies isn’t easy, Pauli said. “It’s not a simple fix. There are a diversity of pathways they come in through that does create a challenge.”

Wisconsin wolf population on the rise

October 28, 2020 by The Wildlife Society

Wisconsin’s gray wolf population continues to climb. A Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources survey found the state’s wolf population grew 15% over the previous year. The overwinter wolf count rose from an estimated 914 to 978 wolves in the 2018-2019 count to an estimated 1,034 to 1,057 wolves in the 2019-2020 count. The number of packs rose from 243 to 256.

The population has steadily climbed from a low of 14 wolves (Canis lupus) in 1985. Along with their growing numbers have come growing complaints. During the latest survey period, the agency tallied 90 wolf complaints, up from fewer than 70 the previous year.

Read more from the Baraboo News Republic.