A bill to increase the price of duck stamps from $15 to $25 passed the House on Tuesday with very little resistance. H.R. 5069 was passed out of the House Natural Resources Committee in July, but has had to wait for action on the floor due to the long fall recess. The legislation enjoys both bipartisan support and public backing from the administration. An identical bill (S. 2621) has been introduced in the Senate where it awaits committee action. The Wildlife Society signed a coalition letter supporting an increase in the price of duck stamps earlier this year.

Migratory Bird Hunting and Conservation Stamps — better known as Duck Stamps — are permits required to hunt waterfowl in the United States. The money raised by the stamps goes to wetland conservation efforts that in turn lead to more waterfowl. Proponents of the bill argue that the price increase is necessary because the price of the stamp has not changed since 1991 while land values — and therefore the price of easements and land purchases — have tripled. Steve Guertin, Deputy Director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, agreed with this assessment in his testimony before the Subcommittee on Fisheries, Wildlife, Oceans and Insular Affairs hearing in July while pointing out that easements are one of the most cost effective and efficient tools for conservation. Guertin also assured the subcommittee that a more expensive stamp would not decrease sales.

Resistance to the bill stems from language that requires the extra $10 only be used for conservation easement purchases as oppose to land acquisition. At the full committee hearing in July, some Democrats expressed concern that this provision will handcuff the administration by stunting land acquisition, which is an important conservation tool.

For more information on Duck Stamps and their importance to wildlife management, refer to the Migratory Bird Hunting Stamp Act Policy Brief developed by the TWS Government Affairs Team.

Sources: Environment and Energy Daily (November 17, 2014), House Natural Resources Committee (Accessed November, 2014), Greenwire (July 30, 2014).

Determining the health status of marine mammals is tricky business. Biologists usually rely on blood, tissue, and fecal samples for guidance, but obtaining them can be arduous and invasive. Now, a new tool that collects cetacean breath—or blow—may provide deeper insights while make testing easier for both researchers and animals, according to a study published last month in Analytical Chemistry.

“This is the next frontier for researching marine mammal populations, to look at physiology in a non-invasive way,” said Elizabeth Burgess, a post-doctoral researcher at the New England Aquarium who studies whale blow but is not associated with the study. “It’s a complicated puzzle, and the more people we have working on it the better.”

Cristina Davis, a chemical sensing expert at the University of California, Davis, and her colleagues collaborated with researchers at the National Marine Mammal Foundation to develop a breathalyzer device for bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus). Tested on 21 managed dolphins in San Diego, Calif., and 21 wild dolphins temporarily captured in Sarasota, Fla., the Exhaled Breath Condensate (EBC) device—which resembles an oxygen mask—sits atop dolphin’s blowhole, collecting and condensing blow in a chilled chamber.

Using gas and liquid chromatography as well as mass spectrometry, the researchers identified approximately 500 metabolite compounds from the samples, including amino acids, lipids, chemicals responsible for dolphin breath’s fishy odor, pharmaceuticals, and water contaminants found in the dolphins’ habitats.

Previous cetacean breath studies have isolated DNA, microbes, and hormones. However, this is the first study to catalog all compounds in order to create baseline profiles of healthy animals, making metabolite variations indicative of stress, environmental exposure, or illness easier to detect. “The method of breath analysis may provide a very valuable tool in future wildlife conservation efforts as well as deepen our understanding of marine mammals’ biology and physiology,” writes Davis. She is currently analyzing dolphin blow samples collected over time to identify which compounds are associated with specific health conditions, such as pneumonia or morbillivirus, an infectious pathogen that has killed hundreds of dolphins along the U.S. Atlantic coast this year.

Meanwhile, other researchers are looking into adapting this method for other wildlife such as Weddell seals and humpback whales. “[Davis] is looking at everything, which is fantastic,” said Burgess. “We’re looking at [hormones] that can be found in whale blow, so this gives us an opportunity to see what other compounds there are and relate it to what we’re interested in.” Burgess and her team can detect the presence of hormones in blow, but quantifying them requires a measurable substance, which a growing library of compounds may provide.

Just outside of San Antonio, Texas, resides the world’s largest bat colony. Approximately 20 million migrating Mexican free-tailed bats (Tadarida brasiliensis) roost in Bracken Cave every summer, but urban sprawl and accompanying light pollution threatened their habitat, until now.

Last month, the Nature Conservancy of Texas and Bat Conservation International—with help from other groups including the city of San Antonio and the Department of Defense—purchased a swath of undeveloped and unprotected land adjacent to the cave for $20.5 million, ending a developer’s plans to construct 3,500 homes on the property and ensuring the skies around the cave remain dark.

Bracken Cave’s Mexican free-tailed bats comprise nearly one-fifth of the species and play an important ecological role. At summer’s peak, the colony consumes 140 tons of insects each night, saving farmers $23 billion in reduced crop damage and pesticide use, according to the Nature Conservancy. “The emergence of these millions of bats, as they spiral out of the cave at dusk for their nightly insect hunt, is an unforgettable sight,” said Andrew Walker, executive director of Bat Conservation International in a press release. “The protection of [this land] helps ensure this centuries-old wildlife habitat will continue to provide a safe home for one of the region’s most unique and important inhabitants.”

The 1,521 acre plot—called Crescent Hills—will serve as a buffer between the cave, which sits on the edge of a nature preserve, and surrounding suburbs. Protecting the land also has added conservation benefits: Crescent Hills serves as a habitat for federally endangered golden-cheeked warblers (Dendroica chrysoparia) that only nest in the Texas Hills Country, and lies within the Edwards Aquifer Recharge Zone, which provides drinking water for nearly two million Texans, including the entire city of San Antonio. “Our collective efforts have resulted in a trifecta of conservation success for the entire region by safeguarding Bracken Bat Cave, preserving important habitat for warblers, and safeguarding Texas’ most valuable resource—clean, fresh water,” said Laura Huffman, Texas state director of The Nature Conservancy.

The Nature Conservancy will manage the newly-acquired land and plans to create hiking trails and public bat-watching events.

A newly developed tool from the United States Geological Survey (USGS) shows how the habitat ranges for select species of North American birds might look in 2075 and could eventually help wildlife biologists make their own local predictions. USGS scientist Terry Sohl looked 50 species of birds in a study published in PLOS ONE and found the results varied by species — some birds could have expanding ranges, while others might see theirs shrink.

The study is not the first to cast light on how bird ranges will shift in the future. The Audubon Society released a comprehensive report detailing how 588 bird species in North America will react to the changing climate. A forecast map illustrates how species’ ranges may shrink, expand, or shift over the next 65 years. Climate change is only one of many challenges that birds will face according to Sohl.

How humans use the land within a bird’s given range can be just as important as climate shifts. The spread of urban areas, land development, and deforestation are a few things that can cut into vital bird habitat and impact bird ranges locally. “Climate gives you the big brush picture of what will happen over all, but if you have the land use data you can see the fine detail,” said Sohl. “It can really change the picture.”

For some birds the picture looks good. By 2075, climate change will increase temperatures by three to seven degrees Fahrenheit, making larger swaths of area in the southwest suitable for species such as the Gambel’s quail and the cactus wren that breed there. The study predicts the ranges of both species will increase by more than 50 percent.

Other birds may not be so lucky. The model projected that the Baird’s sparrow could lose up to 90.8 percent of its range in the U.S. as warming temperatures drive it out of its summer breeding grounds in the Dakotas, Minnesota, and Montana northward further into Canada. Similarly, the forest-dwelling hooded warblers may move north into upstate New York, northern New England, and Michigan as the climate warms, but its northern range may become fragmented as agricultural lands in the east expand and replace forested areas.

While Sohl looked at large range changes over North America, he believes the approach — taking into account both climate change and future land use — can be useful on a smaller scale. He and other USGS researchers are working on a tool that would allow land and wildlife managers to make their own projections about how the landscape will change locally. Researchers could then plug their projections into climate change prediction models and achieve similar results but on a local scale.

“What we are trying to say is ‘hey, all you guys using climate modeling, land use data is interesting too,’” said Sohl. “You are only telling part of the story if you are just looking at climate going out into the future.”