Decades of Indigenous observations reveal changing bird community

February 24, 2025 by Joshua Rapp Learn

Even though the island of Yáláƛi sits on the periphery of Heiltsuk territory, it has always played an important role in the history and culture of the people. Located on the British Columbia coast about halfway between the southern tip of Alaska and the border of Washington state, Yáláƛi translates roughly to a term meaning “something off in the distance.”

“It means bobbing around, shimmering on top of the waves, because that’s what people could see when they looked out there,” said William Housty, director of the Heiltsuk Integrated Resource Management Department.

According to oral histories passed down through the generations, the Heiltsuk have used the island for a long time. They fished and harvested birds in years past, and in recent decades, they hunted deer. “We always used the area for food,” Housty said, adding that they also conducted ceremonies on the island.  

So, when energy company Enbridge was planning to build a gas pipeline connecting the Athabasca oil sands in Alberta with the northwestern coast of British Columbia, the Heiltsuk were concerned about any impact that the increased tanker traffic and the potential of spills might have on the island. They decided to conduct surveys on wildlife in the area to get a baseline sense of diversity there.

“It would probably be one of the first places affected if there ever was a spill,” Housty said. The island sits on the outer coast, right along tanker routes.

In a study published recently in Ecology and Evolution, Housty worked with researchers at Simon Fraser University in the Vancouver area and others to understand the bird community on Goose Island—the English name for Yáláƛi.

“Goose Island is both a culturally important area and an important area for birds,” said the study’s first author, Debora Obrist, a climate change research specialist with the British Columbia Ministry of Forests.

Charles Guiguet surveyed the ecology on Goose Island in 1948. Credit: British Columbia Archives

Bird surveys over the years

Indigenous knowledge of wildlife on the island goes way back. But Charles Guiguet, a biologist who lived for four months on the island in 1948, conducted one of the first scientific surveys of the area. He wrote down all the birds and other wildlife that he saw when he was there.

The Heiltsuk conducted their first wildlife survey in 2010. Then, in 2011, Obrist’s supervisor, a postdoctoral researcher at Simon Fraser University at the time of this research, tried to replicate Guiguet’s surveys from six decades earlier, focusing on forest birds.

A western flycatcher (Empidonax difficilis). Credit: John Reynolds

In the recent study, Obrist, Housty and their colleagues compared relative abundances of birds between 1948 and 2011. The team also looked at bird species citizen scientists recorded on the citizen science app eBird.

“We found that bird communities have changed,” Obrist said. “But with the data we have, we can’t say specifically how or why.”

However, they could see differences in presence and absence over the years. Guiguet recorded a few swallow species that the researchers didn’t find in the recent surveys, such as bank swallows (Riparia riparia), barn swallows (Hirundo rustica) and violet green swallows (Tachycineta thalassina). Guiguet didn’t see many individuals of these species, but he recorded them, Obrist said.

A map of the Goose Island archipelago. Courtesy of Debora Obrist

Other species are now present that weren’t in Guiguet’s time—or at least Guiget didn’t see them. Guiguet didn’t observe Townsend’s warblers (Setophaga townsendi) and Wilson’s warblers (Cardellina pusilla), which recent surveys found were quite common, as well as four other warbler species. It’s possible that Guiguet just missed these species, but at least for the Townsend’s warbler, it’s unlikely. “You hear it all the time, so I don’t know how he would have missed it,” Obrist said.

It also seemed that the numbers of some species changed. More than half of Guiguet’s observations were from just three species: the orange-crowned warbler (Leiothlypis celata), dark-eyed junco (Junco hyemalis) and red crossbill (Loxia curvirostra). In the more recent surveys, no one species was dominant, Obrist said.

A pacific wren (Troglodytes pacificus) on Goose Island. Credit: John Reynolds

Why did the bird community change in Goose Island?

The team can’t say for certain why bird communities are different now, but Yáláƛi has undergone several changes since the early 1900s, both human-caused and natural.

When Guiguet was on the island, for example, Yáláƛi had no wolves (Canis lupus) or deer. “We spoke to our elders,” Housty said. “They never saw a deer there, no stories, no records.”

It’s unclear how, but black-tailed deer (Odocoileus hemionus columbianus) had reached the island by the 1970s, and Yáláƛi became an important hunting spot for Heiltsuk. “As the deer population rises, the Heiltsuk started to go there. Then, wolves came there,” Housty said. The predators controlled the deer population, which began to decrease again. “We’re in a cycle.”

The presence of deer led to a change in the plant ecology of the island. “They sure changed the landscape—there’s not a shred of vegetation six feet and under,” Housty said. “It’s a reminder of how everything is so intertwined.”

Human patterns of use on the island have also changed. Before colonial times, some Heiltsuk used to live there full time, while others made seasonal trips. But the Heiltsuk, along with other Indigenous people, were forced to move into villages like Bella Bella—the main Heiltsuk village in the area—more permanently in the early 1900s, and disease introduced by Europeans reduced the Heiltsuk population.

In 1964, another major change occurred. A massive earthquake in Alaska caused a tsunami that changed the structure of a lagoon on Yáláƛi where waterfowl used to occur. The withdrawal of the big wave carried much of the lagoon’s sand with it, leaving a rockier and muddier ecosystem. As a result, many of the waterfowl that lent the English name to the island aren’t found there much anymore.

Islands just east of the Yáláƛi archipelago. Credit: Alex Harris

Finally, Obrist mentioned that more North American river otters (Lontra canadensis) live on the island now than Guiguet recorded in 1948. If the abundance of these mammals changed, they could also affect the ecology, as the otters bring water resources like fish and crustaceans onto land to eat, adding nutrients to the soil and potentially affecting the plant community.

Luckily for the Heiltsuk, Enbridge canceled its planned gas pipeline in December 2024. But threats to the ecosystem there are ongoing. About eight years ago, a fuel barge destined for Bella Bella was stranded on the rocks in the Goose Island archipelago, nearly spilling diesel.

As a result, Housty and Obrist believe that continued surveys are important to understand any changes that may occur to the island’s biodiversity. Housty notes that each of the islands in the archipelago—there are several—has a unique ecosystem and different species groupings. Many Heiltsuk don’t go to Yáláƛi as much these days—the cost of fuel to boat out there has become prohibitive. But it remains culturally important.

“Science and different ways of traditional knowledge have let us tell a really interesting story about birds we’ve relied on for thousands of years,” Housty said.

A cabin on Goose Island. Credit: Chris Darimont

Q&A: Can pet trade help prevent amphibian disease? 

February 21, 2025 by Olivia Milloway

A deadly disease has nearly wiped out one of Europe’s native salamanders—and scientists and regulators are working hard to keep it from hopping across the Atlantic.

Known as Bsal, Batrachochytrium salamandrivorans (literally, meaning salamander eater) is a fungal pathogen that has all but eliminated wild fire salamander (Salamandra salamandra) populations in the Netherlands. Bsal is closely related to Bd (Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis), another chytrid fungus that has reached pandemic status and has been implicated in the decline of at least 500 amphibian species worldwide. While Bd is an amphibian generalist, Bsal tends to infect salamanders. The U.S. has 221 native salamander species—more than any other country—and several have shown susceptibility to Bsal in lab trials.

Scientists believe that animals imported from Asia as a part of the commercial pet trade brought the disease to Europe, and managers are concerned that amphibians imported from Europe could similarly introduce the disease to the U.S. Exotic pets can escape their owners. Other times, people who no longer want their pet intentionally release them into the wild, along with whatever parasites or diseases they may carry. In the Florida Everglades, invasive Burmese pythons (Python bivittatus)—introduced by the pet trade—have infected Florida’s native snakes with exotic parasites.

Credit: Alexandra Benitez

As a result, scientists have been calling for salamander import bans for years to stop the spread of the salamander chytrid diseases. In January of 2025, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service finalized interim rules originally proposed in 2016 and proposed new bans on imports of over 400 species. The agency has opened a public comment period on these rules through March 11, 2025.

But these measures are largely unpopular within the pet trade. In a new paper in the Wildlife Society Bulletin, Gia Haddock, a graduate student at Michigan State University, digs into current industry perspectives and knowledge on Bsal. She discusses how stakeholders feel about regulations and import bans and what they’re willing to do to keep captive and wild amphibians safe.

We spoke with Haddock to learn more about why decision-makers should bring the pet trade to the table.

Where did the idea for this study come from?

After joining Alexa Warwick’s lab as an undergrad, I learned that certain actions regulating the amphibian pet trade, like import bans, had been taken without consulting the people who they affected. I wanted to help people be involved in the decisions that will ultimately affect their livelihoods.

This led to me interviewing people involved in the pet trade specifically to identify what management interventions they are open to, which is a part of a broader collaboration across multiple universities.

At that point, we really had no idea about the structure of the trade or how people communicated.

What does the U.S. amphibian trade look like? 

Some people get amphibians from retail pet stores, like White’s tree frogs (Litoria caerulea) or Pacman frogs (Ceratophrys spp.). From what I can tell, it’s not super common, and it’s typically people who aren’t as involved or invested in the community. Pet trade shows are more of the spot for a diversity of specialty amphibians—this is where a lot of animals tend to change hands.

There are also websites, like caudata.org, where pet owners can trade and ask for advice. They range from people whose pets accidentally bred and are looking to offload their offspring to people who have breeding populations in their basements and are looking to trade to introduce genetic diversity.

Why would an introduction of Bsal cause problems to the pet trade?

It really comes down to people losing their livelihoods and their passion. These pets are something they love and care about, and have invested a lot of time and energy into.

In economic terms, these businesses can lose everything when just one diseased individual is introduced. If we were to assume that just 5% of amphibians would be lost due to infection, which is a conservative estimate, that would mean losses of around $140 million.

Stakeholder responses to proposed management actions. Credit: Haddock et al. 2025

Why is social science important in wildlife and disease management?

Almost everything we talk about in conservation ultimately comes down to changing human behavior. Human decisions and behavior have led to species declines, habitat loss and land use change. So to assume that the solutions for these things don’t also have to do with human actions and decisions and attitudes isn’t looking at the whole picture. I don’t think you can do effective wildlife management without doing some form of social science.

When we look at the pet trade as a social ecological system—meaning, a relationship that links humans and nature—we remember that the source point for everything in the trade is a wild caught individual. This helps us understand what we can do as conservationists, as wildlife managers and as social scientists to reduce the chances of a disease outbreak happening. Are there points where we can either support biosecurity behaviors or educate and share knowledge? To help with biosecurity, do we need to reduce the cost of buying latex gloves and disinfectants or make them more accessible?

What were your big takeaways for management implications for the study?

I was really surprised that no one mentioned how they disposed of animals as a part of their biosecurity practices, and the possibility for the bodies of dead animals to spread disease. I think there’s an idea that burying your pets in the backyard is part of a natural cycle, but in reality, you shouldn’t return a deceased amphibian back to the wild. It could have an asymptomatic infection and spread disease to native amphibians. Once you remove an amphibian from a wild population, it shouldn’t go back alive or dead. And I think that message can get lost sometimes.

But the pet trade is open to modifying certain behaviors, learning new information and taking steps to keep their animals and wild animals healthy. We asked stakeholders about their opinions on potential Bsal management options, from testing for Bsal at trade ports to limiting access to certain natural areas to banning the importation of animals. Of the eight management interventions I explored here, a lot of them were supported by the community.

But not the outright ban. Bans can result in a lot of animosity and reduced trust between managers, regulatory agencies and the public, which will ultimately create further divides and issues. I really hope this paper can help create a precedent for engaging more with stakeholders in the amphibian trade before making decisions that are going to alter their livelihoods.

This article features research that was published in a TWS peer-reviewed journal. Individual online access to all TWS journal articles is a benefit of membership. Join TWS now to read the latest in wildlife research.  

National conservation area helps prairie falcon

February 21, 2025 by The Wildlife Society

A national conservation area in Idaho is helping prairie falcons thrive despite widespread declines in North American grassland bird populations for about 50 years. The Morley Nelson Snake River Birds of Prey National Conservation Area in southwestern Idaho has seen increased abundance of the bird species and steady nesting success over 45 years. In a study published in the Journal of Raptor Research, researchers compared prairie falcon (Falco mexicanus) surveys in the 1970s and 1990s with their own surveys in the conservation area. Their positive findings are not only positive news for the bird but for the entire ecosystem, as the falcons are “bioindicators,” meaning their presence suggests a healthy ecosystem. Lead author of the study, Steve Alsup, said he “hopes that outdoor enthusiasts who recreate in the NCA will be excited to hear that at least one of the iconic raptor species the area was established to protect is doing well.”

Read the study in the Journal of Raptor Research.

Deer hunting can slow spread of chronic wasting disease

February 20, 2025 by The Wildlife Society

Consistent, high levels of buck hunting over two decades can limit the spread of the deadly chronic wasting disease. In a study conducted by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and the Wyoming Game and Fish Department, researchers analyzed chronic wasting disease (CWD) trends across 10 mule deer (Odocoileus hemionus) herds in eastern Wyoming that experienced different levels of hunting. “We found that harvesting a high proportion of the adult males in the herd—around 40% every year for 20 years—is expected to keep chronic wasting disease infections at low numbers,” said Wynne Moss, lead author and USGS scientist, in a press release. Lower hunting rates were associated with higher levels of disease. Researchers noted that hunting is more likely to slow the spread of chronic wasting disease than eradicate it, though. Scientists have found CWD in at least six countries, four Canadian provinces and 36 U.S. states. There are currently no vaccines or treatments for the prion pathogen.

Read more at the U.S. Geological Survey.

USFS instructed to cut workforce by 10%

February 19, 2025 by The Wildlife Society

The U.S. Forest Service must cut about 3,400 federal employees as the Trump administration works to decrease government spending and shrink the federal workforce. The move comes following the administration’s “Fork in the Road” program that encouraged employees to resign but remain on the government payroll through September. The cuts will affect employees within their probationary period but the USFS does not plan to let go firefighters. However, the changes that would remove 10% of the USFS workforce could make it harder for the agency to manage federal forests, grasslands and, in particular, enforce wildfire prevention. Employees in probationary periods are often the individuals moving timber sales and mitigating wildfires. Other federal agencies, such as the U.S. Department of Energy and Small Business Administration, are also planning cuts.

Read more in Politico.

Climate Connections features Steeve Côté

February 19, 2025 by The Wildlife Society

Winter ticks can cause moose to lose their fur, stop eating and become weak. For calves, they could be deadly. A recent Yale Climate Connections radio program shared TWS member Steeve Côté’s work testing whether anti-tick pesticides help deter ticks from moose (Alces alces) calves. Only 7% of the moose treated with the pesticide died compared to 40% of those left untreated. But capturing and treating individual moose poses a challenge, as does limiting tick habitat. Yale Climate Connections interviewed Côté, an ecology professor at Université Laval in Quebec, at The Wildlife Society’s 2024 Annual Conference in Baltimore, Maryland.

Listen to the radio segment here and read an accompanying article on the Yale Climate Connections website.

TWS joins pledge in the face of declining public trust in science

February 18, 2025 by Kelly O’Connor

The Wildlife Society recently joined dozens of other scientific societies and professional associations in writing a letter addressed to the researchers, educators and academics of the United States of America. The letter emphasizes the critical importance of unbiased scientific research, freedom from censorship and policies based in research and data.

In alignment with our Society’s positions on the Use of Science in Policy and Management Decisions and Workforce Diversity in the Wildlife Profession, TWS makes the following commitments to our members and the scientific community at large:

We will champion scientific integrity, including academic freedom, the inclusion of diverse perspectives, and policies grounded in scientific evidence.

We will fight to ensure that research funding is stable and predictable, allowing scientists to pursue ambitious research and make meaningful discoveries.

We will work to ensure experts like you have the resources they need to pursue research with autonomy and integrity, including critical datasets.

We will continue to impress on others the importance of science as an objective, unbiased approach to understanding our world.

Readers can access the complete letter and list of co-signing organizations here.

Protected areas help Mexican spotted owls

February 18, 2025 by The Wildlife Society

Designated protected areas are likely helping a spotted owl subspecies persist in the southwestern U.S. The Mexican spotted owl (Strix occidentalis lucida), which lives in Mexico and the southwestern U.S., is listed as threatened in both countries. The spotted owl subspecies faces threats of logging, habitat loss and increasing wildfires. Biologists use Protected Activity Centers—or PACs—to protect habitat in owls’ territories. In a study published in the Journal of Raptor Research, researchers tagged the birds with GPS units to determine how they were using PACs in Arizona and New Mexico. The team found that Mexican spotted owls extensively use the protected areas for roosting, foraging and nesting. But the researchers stress that while PACs seem to benefit the owls, forest management needs to continue to be adaptable. “Our research is just a tiny fraction of a collaborative process between governmental, Tribal, NGO and other institutions all working towards the conservation and preservation of this species,” said lead author Dana Reid. “Owls use all sorts of areas, on both public and private lands. Our forest ecosystems are all connected, and we need to work together to manage these landscapes in ways that are beneficial to both wildlife and local communities.”

Read the study in the Journal of Raptor Research.

JWM: Humans main factor in Spanish Bonelli’s eagle decline

February 14, 2025 by Joshua Rapp Learn

Electrocution, poisoning, shooting and even drowning have led to an alarming death rate of Bonelli’s eagles in eastern Spain.

Recent findings on the state of these raptors have led researchers to call for further conservation action to protect the birds and their ecosystems.

“The whole population has been declining for several years,” said Andrés López-Peinado, a PhD student studying biodiversity at the University of Valencia.

Bonelli’s eagles (Aquila fasciata) live in coastal areas of the Mediterranean as well as in patchy areas in Asia, from the Arabian Peninsula to Indonesia. In some areas, populations are stable, but in Spain, researchers suspected an unsustainable death rate may be causing declines.

In a study published recently in the Journal of Wildlife Management, López-Peinado and his colleagues analyzed data from 60 Bonelli’s eagles fitted with GPS devices attached by backpack harnesses from 2015 to 2023 in northern Valencia and in neighboring Castilla-La Mancha.

Why are Bonelli’s eagles declining?

Some 33 of these birds died during the research period. The researchers detected deaths through a lack of movement on the GPS devices and brought the carcasses to veterinarians for necropsies. The results of these tests revealed that two-thirds of the dead birds died from anthropogenic causes, while about 27% died from natural causes—all but one, which succumbed to disease, died from predation. The final 6%—two birds—died of unknown causes.

Of the birds that died from human causes, the main reason was electrocution on power lines—a problem that has been found to affect raptors in many parts of the world, from Mongolia to the United States. Among the birds these researchers studied, about 18% died from electrocution, while about 9% died from collisions with power lines.

Poisoning was a close second at 15% of the eagles that died. López-Peinado and his colleagues said that these instances were likely intentional, as was the case for the 9% of eagles that were shot. Pigeon fanciers—people who breed and care for pigeons—will sometimes use bait pigeons with carbofurans—a pesticide banned in the U.S. and many parts of Europe—smeared on their plumage to remove eagles they perceive as a threat from the area. When eagles prey on the pigeons, they become poisoned. All three shootings occurred outside of the hunting season for other birds, during a time when firearms weren’t allowed in the area.

“Intentional persecution of Bonelli’s eagles and raptors, in general, is far from being eradicated in eastern Spain,” the authors wrote in the study.

Bonelli’s eagle have a large distribution, including in India, as this bird pictured. Credit: Birds of Gilgit-Baltistan

Will Bonelli’s eagles go extinct in parts of Spain?

The researchers calculated what this level of deaths means for the population in this area. They found that if mortality continues at this rate, there is a 99.2% chance that the birds will be extirpated from the area in the next 100 years.

“The risk of losing that small population—if we are not depending on immigrants—is almost 100%,” López-Peinado said. As a result of this research, the province of Valencia has listed the eagle as endangered. In the rest of Spain, it’s listed as vulnerable. In fact, he said that the population in the southeast of Spain is the only one that is still doing OK.

Luckily for the Valencia area, immigrants from other populations come in, but the problem remains for Bonelli’s eagles in the larger region.

López-Peinado said that part of the problem is that a lot of the deaths are occurring during the breeding season, which can stop the growth of future generations.

While most people think that this species does better in coastal areas, this wasn’t necessarily the case in terms of deaths. Along the Mediterranean, more eagles died from human causes, while in the interior, more birds died from natural causes.

Another problem is a lack of protected areas, López-Peinado said. Most of the deaths—particularly the human-caused ones—occurred outside of protected areas. The trouble is the protected areas aren’t big enough for these wide-ranging raptors, López-Peinado said, and some of those that exist aren’t well managed ecologically.

How can we save Bonelli’s eagles?

To address this problem, he and his colleagues are currently speaking with the administration of protected areas to implement management. Some improvements that might help the eagles include opening up the forest canopy to give them more areas to hunt, for example.

Other potential measures that might benefit the species include retrofitting power lines to make electrocution less likely. Since three birds in the study died due to drowning in water tanks—they go in for water and have no way to get out—López-Peinado said that building ramps or fencing these water sources off better might also help reduce the deaths from human causes.

“We are losing habitat and increasing the anthropogenic causes of death,” he said. “If we want to reduce this problem, we have to focus on getting a better area for them and reducing the deaths.”

This article features research that was published in a TWS peer-reviewed journal. Individual online access to all TWS journal articles is a benefit of membership. Join TWS now to read the latest in wildlife research.  

Judge grants USFWS 3 more years to decide on hippo status

February 14, 2025 by The Wildlife Society

Federal authorities have three more years to decide whether to list the common hippopotamus as endangered or threatened after a recent court decision. While not native to the U.S., several conservation groups petitioned the USFWS to add the common hippopotamus (Hippopotamus amphibius) to the U.S. Endangered Species Act in 2022 due to the trade of its parts in the U.S. for meat, leather and other products. As a result of poaching in Africa and other issues, the hippos are declining in many parts of their historical range. A federal judge has now ordered the USFWS to decide about listing hippos by July 27, 2028.

Read more at USA Today.