The Wildlife Professional | Fall 2014 | Vol. 8 N

o. 3 The W

ildlife Society

Fall 2014Vol. 8 No.3

Searching for Answersin Pennsylvania

Shale Gas and Wildlife

Conserving Golden-Winged Warblers

Eagles and Wind Energy

www.reconyx.com

http://www.sirtrack.com/

© The Wildlife Society2 The Wildlife Professional, Fall 2014

Fall 2014 Vol. 8 No. 3

The Wildlife Professional (ISSN 1933-2866) is a quarterly magazine published by The Wildlife Society (5410 Grosvenor Lane, Bethesda, MD 20814-2144) as a benefit of membership. The magazine’s goal is to present timely research, news, and analysis of issues and trends in the wildlife profession. You can learn more about The Wildlife Society and the benefits of membership, including publications and web resources, by contacting headquarters or visiting www.wildlife.org. The views expressed in this publication are not necessarily those of The Wildlife Society (TWS).

COVER: Wildlife researchers Lillie Langlois, Margaret Brittingham, Ethan Barton, and Jackson Martini (left to right) inspect a well-pad site in Pennsylvania’s Tiadaghton State Forest as part of their study of how shale-gas development affects wildlife and habitat. Credit: Allie Coleman

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Vol. 8 No. 3

Fall 2014

DEPARTMENTS

6 Editor’s Note

8 Letters to the Editor

10 Leadership Letter

11 Guest Editorial

12 Science in Short

16 State of Wildlife

ARTICLES

38 Combating the RageAttracting Rabid Bats with Artificial Sound By David A. Jessup

44 Discovering Life in theSmoky Mountains Major Effort to Tally Species Helps Guide Conservation By Michael M. Schofield

48 Glass Ceilings andInstitutional Biases A Closer Look at Barriers Facing Women in Science and Technical Fields By Jessica A. Homyack, Sara H. Schweitzer, and Tabitha Graves

53 A Turkey Tale fromMassachusetts Wild Turkeys in Boston No Cause for Thanksgiving By Julie Duke

58 Meeting of the MindsTWS Working Groups Share Ideas at Annual Conference By Andrew R. Little, Kristina Boyd, and Heath M. Hagy

60 Choosing Lands forConservation Tips on Evaluating Conservation Banks By David A. Bunn

64 Sad Demise of thePassenger Pigeon Learning from—or Repeating— the Past? By John H. Schulz, David L. Otis, and Gary E. Potts

68 A “Bird Lost” and a“Doubt Gained” Aldo Leopold on the Passenger Pigeon’s Extinction By Stanley A. Temple

70 Leaders in the MakingHow the Welder Wildlife Foundation Shapes Future Wildlifers By Sarah N. Kahlich

COVER PACKAGE: PENNSYLVANIA WILDLIFE WORK

22 Shale Gas DevelopmentBringing Change to Pennsylvania Forests and Wildlife By Margaret C. Brittingham, Lillie A. Langlois, and Patrick J. Drohan

28 Quest for Safer SkiesModeling Golden Eagles and Wind Energy to Reduce Turbine Risk By Todd Katzner, Tricia Miller, and Scott Stoleson

32 Golden OpportunityConservation of Golden-Winged Warblers in Pennsylvania By Mike Pruss, Jeff Larkin, Tammy Colt, and Barry Isaacs

Credit: From the collection of the Chicago Academy of Sciences and its Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum

64

More Online!This publication is available online to TWS members through the membership center on wildlife.org. Mouse icons and text printed in blue indicate links online.

Credit: Lillie A. Langlois

22

20 Today’s Wildlife Professionals:Stacy Wolbert and Calvin Butchkoski

75 Field NotesPractical tips for field biologists

78 In Memory

80 Gotcha!Photos from readers

Courtesy of The Boston Globe

53

6 The Wildlife Professional, Fall 2014 © The Wildlife Society

Walking the Fine Line

In his editorial about the 50th anniversary of The Wil-derness Act (page 11), Jim Kurth—chief of the National Wildlife Refuge System—discusses a dilemma facing wilderness lovers today: If wilderness is to remain “untrammeled” by man, should man intervene to protect it? This question has a particular pinch if one considers that many of the threats to the health of wilderness arise from human-induced climate change. Kurth argues for a minimalist touch, leav-ing wilderness areas essentially free to adapt—and teaching all of us, in the process, how we’re impacting the planet.

Environmental historian William Cronon, also cited in Kurth’s editorial, might disagree with this approach. Cronon argues that “wilderness” is the idealized myth of modern man, and that a hands-off approach under the guise of leaving landscapes pure “poses a serious threat to responsible envi-ronmentalism at the end of the twentieth century” (Cronon 1995).

Such weighty conservation debates—and myriad smaller ones—are never black and white. Instead, wildlife conservation requires hard data and soft diplomacy, and I’m always struck by the lengths to which wildlife profes-sionals will go to achieve both. One example, described in this issue of the magazine, involves the question of how to minimize the risk of wind turbines on migrating golden eagles while also supporting responsible wind-energy development (see page 28). To find the answer, researchers in Pennsylvania and West Virginia used high-tech telemetry, no-tech deer carcasses, and long hours of observation to gather eagle population and flight data. They then developed detailed risk maps that they hope will help wind-energy firms plan turbine sites that minimize risk to raptors.

Often such efforts lead to incremental improvements. In other cases, the intervention of wildlife professionals can be dramatically success-ful—sometimes with unintended consequences. Consider the case of wild turkeys in Boston (see page 53). Efforts to reintroduce wild turkeys to Massachusetts became so successful that today, robust gobblers are both delighting and terrorizing residents, raising debates over lethal control.

These and many other issues raised in the pages of this magazine never boil down to simple choices. It’s not a matter of choosing eagles over wind tur-bines, wilderness over intervention. Instead it’s a question of walking the fine line between tough choices, using science as a guide, and hoping that reason prevails over politics when it comes to resource protection.

Lisa Moore Editor-in-ChiefLMoore@wildlife.org

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Vol. 8 No. 2Summer 2014

Wolf Recovery: A Response to BergstromProfessor Bergstrom’s “Wolf Recovery: A Response to Mech” (summer 2014) offers an excellent opportu-nity to empirically test which approach to Northern Rocky Mountain (NRM) wolf-recovery planning is more “science-based”—his population viability analysis (PVA) or the Delphi method of collective, experienced, professional judgment.

The Bergstrom et al. (2009) PVA predicted extinc-tion for the NRM wolf “in less than 10 years,” i.e. by 2018. This is not to criticize PVAs, although they are not without their critics (Caughley 1994). Brook et al. (2000) answered PVA critics with an analysis of PVA use with endangered species, demonstrating high reliability with most of 21 species they exam-ined. Notably the fit between PVA prediction and reality was “noticeably poor” with the single wolf population they used, that of Isle Royale. Still, the fits of most of the populations were good. PVAs do have their place. However, PVAs are highly sensitive to assumptions and values of inputs (Ludwig 1999), so they are not infallible. Bergstrom (2014) relied on Creel and Rotella (2010) without considering the findings that challenged that paper (Gude et al. 2012). In addition, believing that the relatively few wolves in eastern Wyoming are important for maintaining connectivity to the rest of the NRM population, Bergstrom (2014) also criticized Wyoming’s wolf management plan that allows unlimited taking in that part of the state. However, most of the NRM wolf population lies west of Wyoming, not east. Any Wyoming wolves dispers-ing eastward would enter the Dakotas, a proven sink for wolves (Licht and Fritts 1994).

Bergstrom (2014) also stated that “wolf popula-tions of fewer than 200 are especially vulnerable to mortality of greater than 25 percent and reduced dis-persal (Carroll et al. 2014).” However, that reference does not support the statement, and the statement is irrelevant to the NRM population, which has ex-ceeded 200 since 1996.

It is true that Idaho, Wyoming, and Montana would like to reduce their wolf populations. They are try-ing, but have not been very successful, as expected (Mech 2010). Meanwhile the NRM population has expanded its range into Washington and Oregon, where they are mostly protected. The population of

1,650 wolves that Bergstrom et al. (2009) assumed for the NRM in 2009 and predicted extinction for by 2018 numbered at least 1,690 at last count in 2013 (U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service 2014). Nei-ther the Bergstrom et al. (2009) PVA nor the legal requirements for delisting recognize the important biological fact that the NRM wolf population is con-tiguous with the entire Canadian wolf population of 60,000 wolves.

Perhaps in four years the PVA will prove more “science-based.” Time will tell, of course, but my bet is on the collective judgment of professional wolf biologists that since 1987 has proven correct.

L. David Mech, USGSJamestown, North Dakota

The Relevance of Evolutionary BiologyMichael Hutchins et al. (2014) recently provided examples of applications of evolutionary biology in the field of wildlife management (summer 2014). In their concluding paragraph, the authors sug-gest that The Wildlife Society modify certification requirements to include some formal coursework in evolutionary biology. Yet the relevance of evolution-ary biology to the field of wildlife conservation was pointed out more than a decade ago in a special issue of the Wildlife Society Bulletin (WSB) edited by Paul Krausman, which addressed education in the field of wildlife management and conservation (Krausman 2000).

The Hutchin et al. authors appear to have missed previous calls for expanded training in evolution-ary biology. For example, Bleich and Oehler (2000) emphasized that, “The concept of evolution is common to all aspects of science related to living resources. As such, evolutionary theory provides a common link between those interested in, among other things, habitat management, population ecology, or conservation biology.” Further, Bleich and Oehler (2000) noted that certification by The Wildlife Society did not require “... completion of courses in the specific fields of evolutionary biol-ogy, evolutionary ecology, or population genetics...” and they concluded that “... strong backgrounds in natural history and in evolutionary biology form the most important educational foundation for aspiring wildlife biologists.” Indeed, Peek (1989) emphasized

Vol. 8 No. 1Spring 2014

9www.wildlife.org© The Wildlife Society

that, “Courses in basic biology and ecology should not be eschewed for courses in applications, which logically build from basics.” Moreover, Gavin (1989) had noted 25 years ago that most wildlife biologists lack training in evolutionary biology, and empha-sized that understanding why populations perform the way they do is requisite to making management decisions that affect more than proximate situa-tions, a concept that has its very foundations in evolutionary biology.

Although they mentioned Olaus Murie’s (1954) famous statement, “Evolution is our employer,” the authors failed to acknowledge other advocates of the importance of training in evolutionary biology to wildlife conservation, which is unfortunate, especial-ly since those calls had appeared in WSB. It is even more unfortunate that The Wildlife Society has not identified formal training in evolutionary biology as a requirement for certification. I am hopeful, albeit not optimistic, that such will occur in the future.

Vernon C. Bleich, CWBBismarck, North Dakota

Dubious Citation for Peer ReviewThanks for the great articles in the spring 2014 is-sue of The Wildlife Professional. However, I really did have to laugh that the sidebar about peer review by Gary C. White (subtitled “How Does the Process Work”) cited Wikipedia!!!!

Mark Davis, CWBHerndon, Virginia

CorrectionIn a Science in Short item titled “Monasteries Pro-tect Snow Leopards” (summer 2014), we incorrectly identified the lead researcher at Peking University in Beijing. The researcher is Lu Zhi, a woman. We regret the error.

Please send letters to: editor@wildlife.orgLetters may be edited for publication.

10 The Wildlife Professional, Fall 2014 © The Wildlife Society

Science is an Essential Foundation By Jonathan Haufler

According to our mission statement, The Wildlife Society (TWS) works “to ensure that wildlife and habitats are conserved

through management actions that take into careful consideration relevant scientific information.” We also have a position statement that encourages TWS members to demonstrate and promote the highest standards in the use of science, to acknowledge the uncertainty inherent in science while noting that such uncertainty is not a reason to ignore or censure scientific findings, and to actively promote educational efforts on the appropriate use of science in all aspects of policy and decision making.

I have often seen that more and better science, wide-ly distributed, can help define available options for policy or management and narrow debate around solutions, even for complex and controversial issues. For example, I’m involved in a collaborative effort to prioritize restoration needs for forest ecosys-tems in western Montana and identify appropriate treatments. In this case, distributing scientific information on the landscape’s historical conditions has helped narrow the range of priorities and gain agreement on treatments that should be used.

Yet science doesn’t always win, and may be inef-fective in closing gaps between disagreeing parties, especially on controversial issues. For example, a growing body of science shows how human activities are leading to a warming planet (IPCC 2014), and 97 percent of climate scientists agree that human actions are likely the cause of rising temperatures (NASA). Yet a poll by the Pew Research Center found that while 67 percent of respondents agree there’s “solid evidence” that Earth is warming, only 44 percent attribute this to human activity and 13 percent say warming is “just not happening.”

A recent New York Times article by Brendan Nyhan about a new study by Yale Law School Professor Dan Kahan (Kahan 2014) found that knowledge of sci-ence about an issue didn’t necessarily close the gap of differences in views on the topic. “Mr. Kahan’s study suggests that more people know what scien-

tists think about high-profile scientific controversies than polls suggest; they just aren’t willing to endorse the consensus when it contradicts their political or religious views,” Nyhan writes.

Science also suffers when the public is besieged with information that may not have any basis in fact. Opposing sides may cherry pick science, massag-ing data to bolster their own positions. Blatant false information may also be presented to cast doubt on an issue, with few negative consequences to those spouting the misinformation.

Exacerbating the problem is the tendency of jour-nalists to publicize opposing views, even those that represent a small minority opinion. Ostensibly done in the name of “balance” or “impartiality,” this ap-proach is more often misleading. A recent report by the BBC Trust notes that “reflecting a wide range of views ... may result in a ‘false balance,'” and that journalists should weigh the “varying degree of promi-nence” opposing sides should be given (Rieder 2014).

In the end, science is still the prevailing basis for generating factual information about an issue, and many laws—including the Endangered Species Act—call for using the best available science and data in making decisions. But how should we, as scientists, make the best use of science? Obviously we should strive to understand all available science on an issue and use this information to guide our recommen-dations, but how can we effectively communicate science to enhance its influence on decisions?

This question is the focus of the plenary at TWS’s annual conference this October in Pittsburgh. Sever-al experts in science communication—including Dan Kahan from Yale, Pallavi Phartiyal with the Union of Concerned Scientists, and Dietram Scheufele from the University of Wisconsin—will share ideas on how and why science is misused, and how to best use science to assist in policy and decision making. I encourage all TWS members to attend this session if possible, and to increase their skill is using science—the essential foundation of our profession.

… BUT NOT A PANACEA

Jonathan Haufler is President of The Wildlife Society and Executive Director of the Ecosystem Management Research Institute.

Credit: Carolyn Mehl

11www.wildlife.org© The Wildlife Society

The Wilderness Act Turns 50 By James W. Kurth

James W. Kurth is Chief of the National Wildlife Refuge System.

Credit: USFWS

CHALLENGES TO A LANDMARK ACT THAT HELPS SUSTAIN WILDLIFE

GUEST EDITORIAL

On September 3, 1964, President Lyndon Johnson signed The Wilderness Act, legislation designed to “secure for the

American people of present and future generations the benefits of an enduring resource of wilderness.” That stroke of the pen instantly protected more than nine million acres of federal land from road building and commercial development, and elegantly defined wilderness as “an area where the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man ….” Today, the Act protects nearly 110 million acres of the wildest corners of our land, from the Everglades to the Arctic. These wilderness acres are essential to sustaining healthy wildlife populations. Human-ity, too, benefits from wilderness, which provides some of the best hunting, fishing, and backcountry recreation on Earth. Protecting these wild lands was a good idea 50 years ago and may be even more important today as we face several key challenges.

Wilderness: A False Construct?Some people believe that the idea of wilderness is a human construct that is no longer relevant and that sets people apart from nature. In his essay “The Trouble with Wilderness; or, Getting Back to the Wrong Nature,” William Cronon concludes that a hands-off approach to wilderness “poses a serious threat to responsible environmentalism at the end of the twentieth century” (Cronon 1995).

Others note that there has never really been pure wilderness, as humans have been altering land-scapes for millennia. Yet pioneers in wilderness protection—like Bob Marshall, Aldo Leopold, and Olaus Murie—saw the growing impacts of indus-trial society on wild places and advocated for their preservation. As Leopold wrote, wilderness gives us “a base datum of normality, a picture of how healthy land maintains itself ....” (Leopold 1941). Newer voices argue that wilderness is vital to sus-tain, yet doing so requires human intervention on an unprecedented scale, particularly as human-induced climate change creates a ‘new normal’ across even

our most-remote landscapes. A recent editorial in the New York Times calls this paradox a “midlife crises” for The Wilderness Act.

How much management is acceptable? The Act provides an answer. It gives us the flexibility man-age, so long as we use the minimum tools required to manage the area as wilderness. We must exercise restraint—and humility—in our stewardship as we balance our desire to maintain natural conditions with our charge to keep places wild. When we man-age in wilderness by using tools like prescribed fire, we are correcting mistakes (such as excluding wildfire) to allow natural ecosystem functions to maintain the wilderness landscape.

Unfortunately, as our species emits greenhouse gasses, we are changing those natural ecolosys-tem functions. But prolonged drought, longer fire seasons, more intensive storm events, changed hydrology, and sea level rise have no management prescription that will correct them, and I believe it is arrogant for us to think we can manage our way around the effects of a changing climate system and somehow keep wilderness the way it is.

There’s another reason for a light touch in wilder-ness. These big, wild areas with a full suite of species and fewer environmental stressors, such as habitat fragmentation from development, will be more resil-ient to the effects of climate change than will smaller areas with myriad stressors. They will provide better places for wildlife to adapt to a changing landscape. They can also serve as areas for us to study and attempt to discern the effects of a changing climate system on the broader community of life. Wilder-ness can help us understand the new normal and provide a new base datum of how a climate-changed landscapes function.

Wildlife professionals have a vested interest in wil-derness and its stewardship. Wilderness, where the Earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man, is a gift we must pass on—with minimal intervention.

12 The Wildlife Professional, Fall 2014 © The Wildlife Society

Ecotourism Affects Wild Gorillas’ Stress HormonesWild gorillas undergoing habituation have higher stress hormone levels than their habituated and unhabituated counterparts, according to a study published in Biological Conservation (v172). As wildlife tourism increases in popularity worldwide, it has the potential to raise revenue and awareness for conservation issues, but it could also

have potentially negative effects on the wildlife involved. From November 2010 to December 2011, Kathryn Shutt of Durham University in the United Kingdom and her colleagues collected observational data of human-gorilla contact and fresh fecal sam-ples from 366 western lowland gorillas (Gorilla gorilla gorilla) that were long-term habituated, recently habituated or undergo-ing habituation, and from gorillas that had no human contact in the Dzanga-Sangha Protected Area in the Central African Republic. They compared the gorillas’ levels of fecal glucocorti-coid metabolites (FGCM)—a proxy for stress—and correlated that data with the observational data of general human-gorilla contact and human proximity. The group undergoing habituation had the highest FGCM levels, followed by the recently habituated, the long-term habituated, and the unhabituated groups. FCGMs in habituated groups were also associated with increasing frequency

of human violation of the park’s seven meter distance rule, but were not influenced by other human pressures. The researchers recommend taking all management precautions to reduce causes of FGCM alteration in animals whose conservation depends on ecotourism to avoid potential negative physical impacts associ-ated with chronic stressors such as forced human interaction.

Clapper Rails Depend on Invasive SpeciesThe most effective invasive species eradica-tion plans take into account other species that may have become dependent on the invader, even though eradication might take longer to achieve, according to a study published in Science (v344/6187). Typically, management goals such as eradicating invasive species and restoring

natural habitat go hand in hand. However, on the rare occasion when these goals conflict, finding an appropriate resolution can be challenging. Clapper rails (Rallus longirostris), an endan-gered bird species native to San Francisco Bay, have become dependent on the invasive hybrid grass species Spartina for nesting habitat. Using biological and economic data collected on Spartina and the clapper rail from 2005 to 2011, Adam Lampert of the University of California-Davis and his colleagues devel-oped a model to assess the outcomes of various eradication plans that would maximize effectiveness while minimizing ecological disruption and financial cost. They found the best plan involves culling invasive Spartina until just enough is left to support the birds, replanting native Spartina, and then resuming eradication efforts, which could take several years. The researchers recom-mend considering multiple objectives simultaneously when management goals conflict.

Treated Cotton Helps Protect Finch NestsDarwin’s finches use fumigated cotton to keep parasitic flies away from their nests, according to a new study published in Current Biology (v24/9). Philornis downsi, an invasive species of nest fly, has recently colonized the Galápagos Islands and is threatening native bird popula-tions including a species of Darwin’s finches, the endangered mangrove finch (Camarhynchus heliobates). From January to April 2013, Sarah Knutie of the University of Utah and her col-leagues distributed 30 cotton dispensers throughout a 600-by-80-meter study site on Santa Cruz Island. Fifteen dispensers held cotton treated with the insecticide permethrin, and 15 contained water-soaked cotton. Four species of Darwin’s finches used the cotton as nest material. Out of the 26 active nests researchers found, 22 contained cotton—13 had experimental cotton and nine had control cotton. The nests with experimental cotton averaged half as many flies as the control nests, and insecticide effectiveness depended on the dose. Out of the eight nests with at least one gram of insecticide-treated cotton, seven had no parasites whatsoever. With less than 100 individuals concentrated in an area less than one square kilometer, Knutie estimates that 60 cot-ton dispensers are enough to treat the entire population of Galápagos mangrove finches. She also suggests that self-fumigation could be an effective method against parasites for other endangered bird species such as Hawaii’s akepa honeycreeper (Loxops coccineus).

Credit: Cell Press

To submit suggestions of journal papers for review in Science in Short, contact editor@wildlife.org.

Credit: Elsevier

Credit: AAAS

13www.wildlife.org© The Wildlife Society

Nesting Prairie-Chickens Unaffected by Wind TurbinesThe growing wind energy industry in the Great Plains may not have as strong an impact on greater prairie-chickens (Tym-panuchus cupido) as previously thought, according to a study published online in Conservation Biology. Fragmentation and agricultural development of prairie lands is contributing to the rapid decline of

grassland birds including the greater prairie-chicken, which now inhabits 10 to 25 percent of its former range. As demand for wind power grows—slated to meet 20 percent of U.S. energy needs by 2030—conservationists worry that development may further im-pact grassland bird populations through impacts to survival and reproduction, or habitat loss through avoidance of wind facility areas. Lance McNew of the U.S. Geological Survey and colleagues monitored the reproductive ecology of prairie-chicken popula-tions before and after the development of a new wind energy facility in Kansas. The researchers tracked nest site selection and nest survival rates from 2007 to 2011, locating 59 nest sites within two years before construction and 185 nest sites within three years after construction. They developed models to evaluate the response of prairie-chickens to habitat conditions and proximity to wind turbines and found that development of the 201 MW wind energy facility had no effect on nest site selection or nest survival. Instead, selection and survival were associated with vegetation and conditions related to cattle production. The scientists suggest further research on chicken-turbine interactions in different land-scapes and maintaining grassland vegetation with sufficient cover for nesting sites, regardless of the presence of wind energy facility.

GM Crops Threaten Monarch ButterfliesThe loss of milkweed plants in the United States, largely due to the rise of genetically modified (GM) crops, is more harmful to monarch butterfly populations than defor-estation and climate change, according to a new study published online in the Journal of Animal Ecology. Scientists hypothesize that a few factors threaten migrating mon-

arch butterflies (Danaus plexippus), which declined 90 percent over two decades, including the loss of wintering grounds in Mexico, a decline in milkweed plants on breeding grounds in the U.S. and Canada, and extreme weather events. Using migratory patterns and population data collected between 1995 to 2013, Tyler Flockhart of the University of Guelph and colleagues devel-oped a model to determine the monarch’s sensitivity to changes in various life stages, seasons, and geographical regions. The researchers found that populations are four times more sensi-tive to disruptions in breeding grounds than wintering grounds. Milkweed declines on breeding grounds—nearly 1.5 billion plants over 19 years, mainly caused by the increasing adoption

of GM crops and changing landscape—proved more harmful to population numbers than either climate change or forest loss. The model predicted an additional 14 percent population decline and an extinction risk of 5 percent in the next century. The researchers suggest mitigating these impacts by planting more milkweed in the south and central U.S. is key for future conser-vation of the species.

Spider Venom Pesticide May Benefit BeesA new pesticide inspired by spider venom may be safe for honeybees, according to research in Proceedings of The Royal Soci-ety B (v281/1787). Common pesticides are associated with the rapid decline of bees and other important pollinator popula-tions. Erich Nakasu from the Newcastle Institute for Research and Sustainability and colleagues developed a pesticide

based on a toxic peptide found in Australian funnel web spiders (Hadronyche versuta). The researchers fused the toxin to a plant protein—a common component in oral biopesticides that helps carry the toxin into an insect’s gut—and tested the fused duo on western honeybees (Apis mellifera), a non-target spe-cies. The team treated sets of 70 adult bees at different pesticide dosages along with 30 larvae and monitored survival for at least 24 hours. The adult bees had high survival rates—80 percent and above—after being fed or injected with the pesticide while bee larvae remained unaffected by the pesticide as they were able to degrade it. The researchers suggest the new pesticide could represent a safe alternative that kills common pests such as aphids or potato beetles while remaining relatively safe for honeybees and other pollinators.

Absence of Predators Kills Salt MarshesLoss of predators may cause salt marsh die-offs along the New England coast, ac-cording to a new study in Ecology Letters (v17/7). Human disturbances, climate change, rising sea levels, and overexploita-tion of oceans threaten coastal ecosystems like salt marshes. Previous studies suggest that predators are important to marsh

health by helping control populations of herbivorous crabs (Sesarma reticulatum). Mark Bertness from Brown University and colleagues monitored eight salt marsh plots along North Bay, Massachusetts, during the 2013 growing season. Using cages that excluded predators including raccoons, fish, predatory crabs, and birds, while permitting the movement of burrowing herbivorous crabs, the researchers found that crabs over consumed marsh grass. The plots increased herbivore behavior and bare space, and decreased grass biomass. The researchers suggest that over-harvesting key predators could be detrimental to coastline health.

Credit: Society for Conservation Biology

Credit: British Ecological Society

Credit: The Royal Society

Credit: John Wiley & Sons

14 The Wildlife Professional, Fall 2014 © The Wildlife Society

Articles from The Wildlife Society’s Peer-Reviewed Journals

New Anesthetic Benefits Gopher TortoisesA new anesthetic protocol could help biologists examine gopher tortoises (Gopherus polyphemus) in the field, according to a new study in the Wildlife Society Bulletin (v38/1). Gopher tortoises have a tremendous impact on their envi-ronment because their burrows provide vital shelter for over 300 other animal

species. But a number of factors threaten populations in the eastern United States, including bacterial upper respiratory infections. Jessica McGuire of the University of Georgia and colleagues developed a new anesthetic combination that im-proves how researchers collect biological samples in the field for disease surveillance. The anesthetic combination includes a cocktail of three drugs—dexmedetomidine, ketamine, and morphine—followed by atipamezole and nalaxone to reverse the effects. The researchers monitored 128 captured tortoises treated with this new combination in Southwest Georgia between May and October 2009 and found the anesthetic rapidly took effect and the tortoises quickly recovered. They noted that tortoise response depended on the month the drugs were administered, as tortoises metabolized the drugs faster at higher temperatures. Researchers recommend this protocol as it is effective, has minimal side effects, and allows tortoises to recover faster compared to other commonly used anesthetics.

Lactating Eastern Red Bats Prefer Diverse Habitat Female eastern red bats (Lasiurus borea-lis) prefer a large, diverse range of foraging habitat during their maternity period, according to a study published in The Journal of Wildlife Management (v78/3). Habitat loss, disease, and environmental contaminants threaten bat populations throughout the country. In order to con-

tinue managing populations, scientists need to understand how bats use their resources. Sybill Amelon, a U.S. Forest Service Northern Research Station wildlife biologist, and her colleagues radio tracked 65 lactating red bats in the Salem Plateau region of Missouri, and examined how they used foraging habitat over three maternity seasons. Overall, the bats seemed to prefer foraging in areas with deciduous forest patches along ridges, upland drainages near forest edges, higher road density, and away from urban areas. The researchers noted that the bats had an average home range of 1,357 hectares—over three times the range reported in previous studies. Red bats also seemed to pre-fer foraging in areas with high canopy cover during early stages of lactation. The research team suggests future management efforts provide a range of landscape components to encourage foraging use by red bats.

Prairie Dogs Predict Plover SuccessPrairie dog prevalence and regular grassland fires increase the survival rates of mountain plovers in the Great Plains, according to a study published in The Journal of Wildlife Management (v78/4). A grassland bird species, moun-tain plovers (Charadrius montanus) have been declining since the 1960s,

likely due to human influence on their breeding habitats—areas dependent on black-tailed prairie dogs and frequent wildfires to expose bare soil and reduce vegetation height. David Augustine of the USDA Agricultural Research Service and Susan Skagen of the U.S. Geological Survey counted plover numbers and monitored nest survival rates at 35 burn sites and 53 active prairie dog colonies on a 235-square-mile area in Colorado from 2008 to 2012. Plover populations were highest on active prairie dog colonies and recently burned sites, but nest survival rates were higher on prairie dog colonies than burn sites, the study found. Plover populations dwindled by 70 percent in areas where prairie dogs were ex-tirpated, and by a similar percent after a year without burns. The researchers suggest that prairie dog colonies provide especially significant nesting habitat for mountain plovers, and that a regimen of prescribed burning can be useful when prairie dog colonies are limited.

3D Tool Predicts Murrelet HabitatAn emerging technology that employs laser beams to measure distant ob-jects is useful for studying the nesting habitat of endangered marbled mur-relets, according to a study published in the Wildlife Society Bulletin (v38/2). The marbled murrelet (Brachyram-phus marmoratus), a small Pacific

seabird that nests high in the trees of coastal forests, is seriously threatened by logging. The birds’ Recovery Plan calls for a more precise estimate of available nesting areas, but quantifying suitable habitat within the complex canopy structure has been difficult. Using LiDAR (Light Detection And Ranging) data on canopy vegetation along the Oregon coast and murrelet distribution data, Joan Hagar of the U.S. Geological Survey and colleagues modeled murrelet nesting habitat in the area’s forest heights. The LiDAR model, utiliz-ing three-dimensional measurements, was more accurate at predicting murrelet fine-scale habitat than other two-dimensional models such as the Gradient Nearest Neighbor. The researchers suggest LiDAR models can provide a more effective, precise conservation tool for estimating key mur-relet habitat at local spatial scales.

Credit: TWSCredit: TWS

Credit: TWSCredit: TWS

16 The Wildlife Professional, Fall 2014 © The Wildlife Society

NortheastNEW HAMPSHIRE—New Hampshire’s Great Bay National Wildlife Refuge has extra funding to restore habitat for the rare and endangered Karner blue butterfly (Lycaeides melissa samuelis), as part of a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) initiative that provides $5.8 million to 17 wildlife and habitat conservation projects across the United States. In the last 15 years, the butterfly’s numbers have decreased by 99 percent and populations of the species—once thought extirpated from New Hampshire—survive in scattered fragments of its former range. The state Department of Fish and Game in collabora-tion with FWS began a captive breeding program in 2001 with eggs collected from neighboring New York. Today, 1,500 but-terflies make up the population, but officials hope that habitat restoration will double that number and sustain it for five years. Karner blue butterflies rely on the wild blue lupine—a flower-ing perennial—to reproduce. However, large swaths of habitat have been lost due to expanding land development and a lack of natural disturbances such as wildfires and grazing, which en-courage lupine plant growth. The restoration project will include removing trees and brush, prescribed burning, and seeding of lupine and other nectar plants, and could also benefit other high-priority species such as the New England cottontail (Syl-vilagus transitionalis). Source: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

SoutheasternOKLAHOMA—An endangered beetle that has thwarted energy development in Oklahoma for years is now less of an obstacle to oil and gas companies, thanks to a new plan approved by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Under the Industry Conserva-tion Plan (ICP), businesses can now apply for permits to cover incidental harm to American burying beetles (Nicrophorus ameri-canus) from oil and gas construction-related activities, provided they offset their impact by replacing affected land or supporting current FWS conservation banks. Found in only eight states across the U.S., the beetles occupy a relatively wide range in Oklahoma and have hindered drilling and pipeline development in the state. Companies previously had to hire biologists to capture and move the insects before beginning work; but in 2012, FWS halted this practice. Companies could no longer operate without violating the Endangered Species Act. The new plan allows in-dustry to move forward with construction projects in the beetle’s habitat for the next two years and covers maintenance for the next 20 years. The ICP was approved in May and covers 45 counties in Oklahoma. Source: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, The Oklahoman

North Central MICHIGAN—In May, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) extended permission for wildlife managers in the Great Lakes region to continue efforts to control populations of double-crested cormorants until 2019. A migratory bird native to Michigan, cormorants were once in decline, but thanks to the ban of the pesticide DDT and their addition to the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, the species has since rebounded. However, the increasing population is wreaking havoc on fisheries and habitat. The birds’ droppings are highly acidic and can dam-age or kill surrounding trees. Cormorants also eat one to

North AmericaNews and events affecting wildlife and wildlife professionals from across North America

Northeast

SoutheasternSouthwest

Mexico

Northwest

Western

Canada

North CentralCentral Mountains and Plains

Two double crested cormorants (Phalacrocorax auritus) fight over a catfish. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service recently extended a depredation order for the species in the Great Lakes region.

Credit: Dennis Zaebst/Flickr Creative Commons

17www.wildlife.org© The Wildlife Society

two pounds of fish per day, mostly invasive species such as alewives and gobies, but are also known to eat the occasional sport fish. As of 2011, there were 19,205 nests in the state. Current depredation actions in places like Thunder Bay and Crow Island focus on keeping populations from establishing nesting sites, destroying habitat, and threatening other colonial water birds such as the black-crowned night heron (Nycticorax nycticorax). Control strategies include harassment, culling adult birds, and covering eggs in vegetable oil to prevent hatching. The rule went into effect June 27. Source: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Ser-

vice, Michigan Department of Natural Resources, Traverse City Record-Eagle

Central Mountains and PlainsGENERAL—The Colorado River Basin, which stretches across seven states between California and Wyoming, was selected as one of eight priority areas across the U.S. that will benefit from a new, billion-dollar conservation program. In May, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced the launch of the Regional Conservation Partnership Program (RCPP), a $2.4 bil-lion program that enables public and private institutions including businesses, nonprofit organizations, and universities to work to-gether in support of the nation’s water quality, soil health, wildlife, habitat, and natural resources. In Utah, for example, the funding could help enhance habitat along rivers, address damaged wa-tersheds, or improve sage-grouse habitat. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack declared the program’s focus on public-private collaboration “an entirely new approach to conservation,” in a news release. Thirty-five percent of the funding will go toward critical conservation areas chosen by the agriculture secretary, including the Prairie Grasslands region and the Chesapeake Bay Watershed; 40 percent will go to regional projects decided via a national competition for which proposals are due September 26, 2014; and 25 percent will go directly to state-level projects cho-sen by the USDA. Source: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Deseret News

WesternNEVADA—Female bighorn sheep (Ovis canadensis) may be hunted for the first time ever in Nevada in an effort to control the state’s expanding populations. While Nevada had only 3,000 bighorn sheep in 1968, the population stands at 11,000 today thanks to successful conservation efforts. However, such a large population is unsustainable on the Nevada landscape. The restricted habitat limits the dispersal of growing herds, which in turn increases the risk of disease and depletion of resources. Previously, state biologists controlled populations through capture and relocation, but there aren’t enough release sites to accommodate the growing population. In addition, researchers recently discovered a bacteria in a population that’s associated with bighorn sheep pneumonia complex—a disease that results in high lamb mortality—further restricting relocation efforts. With about 500 bighorn above sustainable

management levels, the Nevada Department of Wildlife has recommended ewe hunts in four of the 60 bighorn hunt areas for the 2014 season. Source: Nevada Department of Wildlife

NorthwestWASHINGTON—In May, Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) officials unveiled a new plan to combat the spread of elk hoof disease—a mysterious and debilitating condi-tion that causes the animals to develop misshapen hooves, for which there is no cure or field treatment option. Hoof disease has affected livestock for years, but has not been documented in elk or other wildlife until recently. The plan involves convening volunteer “citizen scientists” to survey elk populations in Mount St. Helens and Willapa Hills; culling afflicted animals in the area; radio collaring afflicted elk to track their survival, reproduction, and movements relative to healthy individuals; and identifying a “core area,” “buffer control zone,” and “perimeter surveillance area.” The WDFW hoof rot technical advisory committee agrees that the disease is consistent with a bacterial pathogen. They also say that treponema—a bacterium associated with dermatitis in sheep—is a suspect, and that environmental factors including wet conditions contribute to its spread. The disease is unlikely to spread east of the mountains where the climate is dry, the panel says, but there is a very real chance it could spread to western Oregon. Source: WDFW, The Columbian, Longview Daily News

SouthwestNEW MEXICO—In late May, the Mexican Wolf Interagency Field Team (IFT) completed the first successful cross-fostering of Mex-ican wolf pups (Canis lupus baileyi) in the wild. Cross-fostering is a technique that places young pups from one litter into a differ-

A herd of bighorn sheep graze in a Nevada field. For the first time ever, Nevada wildlife managers are implementing a ewe hunt to control the ever-growing population.

Credit: James Marvin Phelps/Flickr Creative Commons

18 The Wildlife Professional, Fall 2014 © The Wildlife Society

ent litter of similar age in hopes that the new pack will raise the fosters as their own. In April, IFT released female Mexican wolf F1126 and her mate M1249. The pair mated but were sepa-rated, and F1126 delivered six pups in early May. Since F1126 had no previous experience in the wild and no mate to assist with hunting and pup-rearing, the team determined cross-fostering was needed to ensure the pups’ survival. Two pups were transplanted into a three-pup litter in the Gila National Forest. According to FWS officials, IFT will monitor the cross-fostered pack through radio telemetry and remote camera observations. The rest of the pups remained with F1126, who was captured by IFT and reintroduced to her former mate, M1051, so they could form a cohesive pack. Source: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

CanadaSASKATCHEWAN—Wild boars could soon outnumber people in Saskatchewan, according to a recent study published in the Wildlife Society Bulletin. Imported as exotic livestock in the 1990s, some boars escaped and quickly established popula-tions throughout the province, harassing livestock, eating crops, and spreading disease. Approximately 1.1 million people reside in Saskatchewan. Due to the rate at which wild boars repro-duce—two litters of six or more offspring annually—and to poor control measures, the province could see a population explosion in the next few years. Seventy percent of the nearly 300 observed municipalities had a high probability of boar presence, according to the study. Moreover, respondents’ attitude toward manage-ment actions correlated with boar observation frequency: half of

the people surveyed over a three-year period occassionally saw a boar and the other half never saw a boar. The Saskatchewan government currently provides financial assistance and allows controlled hunting in rural municipalities through the Feral Wild Boar Program. However, more aggressive control measures such as night hunting, hunting from aircraft, and ground trapping are needed to keep the population under control, researchers say. Source: The Wildlife Society Bulletin, CBC News

AFRICA—In a 300-mile trek across southwestern Africa, a popula-tion of zebras has achieved the longest large mammal migration ever observed in Africa. A few thousand Burchell’s zebras (Equus quagga) made a seasonal hike from Namibia to Botswana and back in a north-south beeline, as described in an article published in the journal Oryx. The record length and straight line of the migra-tion—observed in December of 2012 and again in 2013—shocked biologists, who had never before witnessed the behavior. The zebra’s path tops even the famed migrations of the Serengeti, where millions of wildebeests and gazelles traverse Tanzania and Kenya. The migra-tion is even more intriguing as similar potential wet-season spots have been found closer to the zebra’s starting point than their cho-sen destination. Regardless of changing climates and lands, some migratory mammals are known to choose the same path—down to the meter—over generations. Recording and understanding migra-tion routes is significant for conservation, the researchers say, as migration routes are increasingly thwarted by areas of hunting, hu-man development, fencing, or habitat destruction. Knowing animals’ preferred paths helps conservationists create valuable protected corridors, linking ecosystems and species. The researchers encour-age the development of travel corridors for the future survival of big African mammals. Source: Oryx, National Geographic

Visit news.wildlife.org for weekly news updates.

International

A wild boar (Sus scrofa) stands in a field of tall grass in Joseph Grant Park, California. Boars could soon outnumber people in Saskatchewan, Canada unless drastic control measures are taken, according to researchers.

Credit: Don McCullough/Flickr Creative Commons

A herd of Burchell’s zebras drinks from a watering hole in Tanzania. Biologists recently discovered a population of zebras that migrate more than 300 miles across Namibia and Botswana—the longest large mammal migration ever documented in Africa.

Credit: Mike LaBarbera/Flickr Creative Commons

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Protecting the Creatures of the NightSTACY WOLBERT specializes in studying Pennsylvania’s bats

Stacy Wolbert began her career in the dark. She spent her nights alone in forests, surrounded by strange sounds and shining animal eyes.

Armed with a radio and headlamp, Wolbert studied bats. “We put little transmitters on the bats and released them and then we followed them all night long,” she says. Tracking the bats helped gather information on their habitat, feeding behavior, and home range.

But this was not how Wolbert anticipated starting her career. “I actually never dreamt I would ever work with bats,” Wolbert says. In fact, she was originally hop-ing to work with bears when she began her Associates Degree in Wildlife Technology at Penn State-DuBois. Wolbert was therefore hesitant when a professor told her about the open summer position tracking bats with the Pennsylvania Game Commission.

The job was located on the other side of the state, involved long night shifts, and bats didn’t interest Wolbert. However, the summer position meant a pay-check and first-hand field experience.

Wolbert took the job in 2000, and it changed her career trajectory. It was here that Wolbert met her

mentor, Calvin Butchkoski, a wildlife biologist for the Game Commission. His guidance helped her cultivate an appreciation for the flying mammals and their ability to control insect populations. “I fell in love with bats and never once thought about working with bears again,” she says. “[Bats] are such beneficial creatures that are so underestimated by our society.”

In addition to using radio transmitters to understand bat habitat and feeding behavior, Wolbert helped her mentor gather rough counts of bats by watching them emerge from their roosts at dusk. She also used ultra thin nets to capture and understand bats in different areas. Monitoring bat populations like this is increas-ingly important due to habitat destruction and white nose syndrome—a poorly understood disease threaten-ing the state’s bats.

Wolbert worked summers with the Game Commission while she completed a B.Sc. in Wildlife and Fisheries Science at Pennsylvania State University-University Park. Each summer, Wolbert had to readjust to work-ing long nights in the woods. For the first few days, she jumped at every sound. But by the end of her first week, she would be back in her element.

After graduation, Wolbert worked part time with the Game Commission for three years before com-pleting a M.S. in Biology from Pennsylvania’s East Stroudsburg University. Her recently published thesis examined changes in bat activity and insect abun-dance along an elevational gradient.

Carving Her Own Path Wolbert has since held several full-time positions for the Game Commission. Although none of these involved working for Butchkoski, bats have remained her specialty. As she’s established herself in the field, Butchkoski has continued to serve as a mentor and valuable informational resource on bats.

Wolbert began working for the Game Commission as a wildlife habitat biologist for the Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program that helps farms es-tablish conservation practices in exchange for annual compensation. Five months later, the Commission

Credit: Calvin Butchkoski

By Michael M. Schofield

Stacy Wolbert admires an Eastern screech owl (Megascops asio) that was accidentally caught in a trap meant for bats. Live traps are just one way that Wolbert and other biologists are monitoring bat populations in Pennsylvania.

21www.wildlife.org© The Wildlife Society

launched a cooperative wind energy program to address the state’s increase in commercial wind activity. Wolbert became a wildlife biologist for the program and helped monitor the potential impact of commercial wind energy on birds and bats.

Wolbert switched positions again when a job opened up near her hometown in Clarion county. She is currently Northwest Regional Wildlife Diversity Biologist and enjoys the position as it allows her to focus on nongame species of greatest conservation concern. She currently helps develop comprehensive management plans for state game lands.

The position also enables Wolbert to continue study-ing bats. The state has nine bat species, including the federally endangered Indiana bat (Myotis sodalis) and the proposed endangered northern long-eared

bat (Myotis septentrionalis). Wolbert is helping initiate a survey that will allow biologists to monitor these and other bat species from moving vehicles. Already used in neighboring states, these surveys record ultrasonic “echolocation” bat calls from cars. Biologists use these recordings to determine what bat species are in an area. The surveys will allow Wolbert and biologists to understand bat popula-tions in larger regions and monitor response to disease and habitat threats.

The only drawback of Wolbert’s current work is that it means fewer nights in the forests. She sometimes finds herself missing the early days of her career. “I try to go out [to do night work] every chance I get,” she says. Those initial long nights in the woods fostered her desire to help bats and helped shape her into the wildlife professional she is today.

He may be retired, but Calvin Butchkoski will always be known as “the bat and rat guy.” The wildlife biolo-gist dedicated his career to studying Pennsylvania’s bats and Allegheny woodrats. However, the unusual nickname doesn’t bother him a bit—especially if it helps bring public awareness to these misunderstood animals. “I’ve been called worse,” he laughs.

Butchkoski’s road to this unusual nickname began on a farm in Pennsylvania. His experience working with animals and his love of hunting made it natural for him to pursue an Associates Degree in Wildlife Technology from Penn State-DuBois. He went on to spend three years in the United States Marine Corps. After being honorably discharged, Butchkoski knew he wanted to continue working with wildlife. One of his college professors contacted him while he was working for the Boy Scouts of America and told him about a job opening for a wildlife technician. Butchkoski applied and began working for the Pennsylvania Game Commission in 1982.

As Butchkoski moved his way up through the Game Commission’s ranks, he began working with nongame species. He was shocked at how little was known about bats and woodrats in particular and began specializing in these animals. He spent over 30 years working with the Game Commission and made significant strides to help these species and increase public awareness about their management.

Butchkoski helped develop artificial roosts for bats along with a bat condo design that has since been used internationally. The bat condo imitates the inside of a church steeple and is capable of housing up to 6,000 female bats and their young. These artificial homes provide a safe shelter for bats and help the state’s battle against white nose

syndrome—a disease that has wiped out about 95 percent of Pennsylvania’s bat population. “I’m proud of the fact that there are survivors of white nose [syndrome] and the federally endangered Indiana bat using artificial structures,” he says.

He also feels that his career helped foster a greater awareness of Allegheny woodrats in the state. Forest fragmentation threatens woodrat habitats, and many of the trees the animals depend on for food are being wiped out by disease and insect infestations. Butchkoski helped develop an extensive management plan for woodrats during his time with the Game Commission. The plan provided a model for understanding the health

of the state’s woodrat population and habitat. It also provided woodrat management workshops and helped initiate a captive breeding pro-gram in conjunction with Purdue University. The program was recently brought to Delaware Valley College in eastern Pennsylvania.

Butchkoski spent many long nights studying these nocturnal animals. “Night work gets to you after a while, especially the older you get,” he says. When he needed an extra pair of ears to help track bats through Pennsylvania’s woods, he went to his alma mater. This is how he began mentoring Stacy Wolbert. “Having people like Stacy with young ears is a huge help,” he says. Wolbert’s positive attitude and perseverance despite the difficulty of long night shifts made her stand out in the field.

Butchkoski retired from the Game Commission this past April, but that doesn’t stop him from keeping up with wildlife work. “I’m still keeping tabs on things and just helping people when they need it,” he says.

Butchkoski earned his unique nickname from a long career of significant contributions to the conservation of two unique animals, and his legacy as Pennsylvania’s “bat and rat guy” lives on. “These animals are some of the nuts and bolts of good old Mother Earth that we need to keep an eye on,” he says.

MENTOR CALVIN BUTCHKOSKI Retired Wildlife BiologistPennsylvania Game Commission

Credit: Cynthia Hauser

An inquisitive Allegheny woodrat (Neotoma magister) explores Calvin Butchkoski’s jacket.

© The Wildlife Society 21www.wildlife.org

Michael M. Schofield is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Michigan Medical School and science-writing intern at The Wildlife Society.

22 The Wildlife Professional, Fall 2014 © The Wildlife Society

By Margaret C. Brittingham, Lillie A. Langlois, and Patrick J. Drohan

BRINGING CHANGE TO PENNSYLVANIA FORESTS AND WILDLIFE

Shale Gas Development

If you have spent any time in the forests of Pennsylvania over the past six years, you’ve noticed

many changes—mainly in the form of well pads, drilling rigs, traffic jams, and compressor

stations all related to shale gas development in the Marcellus Shale. What you may not

have noticed is the impact of this development on plant and animal species. We are only

just beginning to study and understand those impacts—but even in these early stages of

development, we are seeing changes in our forests and the associated wildlife community.

Co-author Affiliations

Lillie A. Langlois is a Ph.D. candidate in wildlife and fisheries science in the Department of Ecosystem Science and Management at Penn State University.

Patrick J. Drohan, Ph.D., is Associate Professor of Pedology in the Department of Ecosystem Science and Management at Penn State University.

23www.wildlife.org

According to a new report by the state’s Department of Conservation and Natural Resources (DCNR), about 1.5 million acres of

the 2.2-million-acre state forest system lie atop the Marcellus Shale, one of several shale plays in the Ap-palachian Basin and the largest in the United States. Of those 1.5 million acres, 44 percent are available for gas development (DCNR 2014). In “core gas districts”—defined as state forests subject to shale gas development—161 miles of road, 191 infrastructure pads, and 104 miles of pipeline corridor have been built or improved for the industry. And these are just the numbers for state forest land. Ninety percent of pads are going in on private land (Drohan et al. 2012), and since early 2010 alone, more than 6,700 wells have been drilled in the state and over 10,800 within the Appalachian Basin (see map on page 24).

This string of numbers becomes relevant when you consider where they occur. Pennsylvania’s public forest lands are comparable in size to Yellowstone. They are home to the largest elk herd in the north-eastern U.S.; rich with economic resources (timber, minerals, and recreation); a source of ecological services such as insect control, climate regula-tion, and water purification; and prime habitat for

forest-dwelling wildlife. This wildlife includes a diversity of neotropical migrant songbirds, many of which reach their highest abundance within these forests. Understanding how these valuable resources may be impacted by shale gas devel-opment is necessary to guide development in a manner that protects these resources for the long term and avoids an adverse environmental legacy.

Bigfoot of Energy Pennsylvania is no stranger to resource extraction, but the new high-volume hydraulic fracturing (fracking) technol-

ogy used to fracture the shale and release natural gas differs substantially from conventional oil and gas development, and the well pads and associ-ated infrastructure leave a much larger footprint. In Pennsylvania, conventional oil and gas wells are drilled vertically with a single well per pad, and well pads are typically less than 0.3 acres (0.13 hectare) in

Margaret C. Brittingham, Ph.D., is Professor of Wildlife Resources in the Department of Ecosystem Science and Management at Penn State University.

Credit: Kevin S. Brant

© The Wildlife Society

Fall color tints the trees along the shores of the Allegheny Reservoir in northwestern Pennsylvania. Underlying this placid spot—and much of the rest of the state—the Marcellus Shale and its trove of natural gas have spawned a boom in the construction of well pads (above) and roads, impacting area wildlife and habitat.

Credit: Lillie A. Langlois

Cre

dit:

US

DA

24 The Wildlife Professional, Fall 2014 © The Wildlife Society

size (Thomas et al. 2014). They are cleared of vegeta-tion for drilling, but natural succession is allowed to occur after the well has been drilled.

In contrast, shale gas is extracted through a com-bination of vertical and horizontal drilling that can reach as far as 9,000 feet deep and extend hori-zontally up to 10,000 feet. Each well uses between two and four million gallons of water for fracking (USDOE 2009). Where development occurs, every aspect of the infrastructure is larger and more indus-trial in nature than for conventional drilling. The shale pad footprint averages 6.6 acres (2.7 hectares) and is covered with a layer of crushed limestone or other rock to provide a stable surface needed to support the weight of the drill rig, heavy equip-ment, water storage, trucks, and other infrastructure (Drohan and Brittingham 2012, DCNR 2014). These larger pads may also include water impoundments for fresh or waste water, and when associated disturbance is included, can be up to 49 acres (20 hectares) in size (Drohan and Brittingham 2012).

The entire drilling and fracking process requires a great amount of infrastructure including larger, wider, and more permanent roads than those for conventional drilling. It also brings increased truck traffic, wider and lengthier pipelines and right-of ways, and larger compressor stations to move the gas along the pipelines (Johnson 2010, DCNR 2014). Consequently, the effects of Marcellus devel-opment on birds and other forest wildlife will likely

differ substantially from the effects of con-ventional drilling and, in many areas, both types of energy extraction are co-occurring, each having an influence on forest habitat and wildlife.

Research in ProgressIn recent years, as the pace of develop-ment has increased, we along with other colleagues have initiated studies to quan-tify effects of energy extraction on forest habitat and the wildlife that depends on it. Our focus has been on the large area of interior or core forest found in north-central Pennsylvania. Interior forest is distinguished from edge forest as be-ing at least 300 feet (about 100 meters) away from an anthropogenic disturbance such as a road or housing development, and provides important habitat for a variety of wildlife species including area-sensitive or forest-interior songbirds and

amphibians. These forests also provide protection to headwater streams and a wilderness experience for hikers and hunters.

Energy extraction is having numerous impacts on wildlife and habitat, with fragmentation being one of the most significant. Both conventional and unconventional gas development fragment forests. For example, in the Allegheny National Forest, high-density well sites had 10-12 wells per 61-acre (25-hectare) study site (Thomas et al. 2014). Road densities were four times higher on high-density well sites than on reference sites where no wells were present and, although the area remained primarily forest habitat, at high well densities the amount of core or interior forest decreased from over 65 percent to under 2 percent (Thomas et al. 2014).

The density of well pads tends to be much lower for shale gas development because multiple wells can be located on a pad and the well bore for an individual well extends horizontally and can drain an area up to a mile away. In Pennsylvania, by 2012 there were 1,465 pads with 75 percent having one or two wells per pad and 3 percent having seven or more wells (Drohan et al. 2012). To compare with the study on conventional gas, in a 61-acre (25-hectare) site you would rarely have more than one pad although clus-ters of pads do occur in some areas. Pads fragment the forest when they are established within interior or core forest, and about 23 percent of pads are going into core forest (Drohan et al. 2012).

Credit: Lillie A. Langlois

The number of wells drilled per year in Pennsylvania increased rapidly from 2004 to 2011, slowing slightly in more recent years, with hot spots of activity primarily in the northeastern and southwestern quadrants of the state.

25www.wildlife.org© The Wildlife Society

Although pads can fragment forest habitat, it is the extensive network of pipelines and roads that service these pads that is the primary cause of forest fragmentation. A recent study by researchers with The Nature Conservancy (Johnson et al. 2011) esti-mated 1.65 miles of gathering pipeline for each pad with an expected number of new miles of pipeline at final build-out ranging from 10,000 to 25,000 miles. Many miles of these new pipelines are cutting through large blocks of extensive forest.

A number of recently completed studies have found that interior forest tends to be lost at two to three times the overall rate of forest loss because of the creation of new edge associated with pads, pipe-lines, and roads (Johnson 2010, Drohan et al. 2012, Sloenecker et al. 2012, 2013). For example, a report by The Nature Conservancy found that on average 30 acres of forest were impacted directly or indirectly by each pad with 21 acres associated with the loss of core forest adjacent to the gas infrastructure.

Wildlife Winners and LosersSo what does the boom in shale-gas development mean for Pennsylvania wildlife, especially for the forest specialists that breed within the state’s ex-tensive forest network? No studies on effects of this development on wildlife in eastern forests have been completed at this time, but research is underway across the Appalachian Basin to test whether and how birds and other wildlife are responding to shale gas development. We have initiated a number of studies on forest birds designed to collect baseline data and to measure whether and how abundance, distribution, and species composition are changing with proximity to pads and pipelines and with the density of gas infrastructure.

In one study, we are surveying birds near pads and comparing species abundance and composition with reference sites located within interior forest habitat. Preliminary results suggest that species that tend to be associated with people and anthropogenic edges, such as American robins (Turdus migratorius) and brown-headed cowbirds (Molothrus ater), are benefitting from development while forest special-ists like black-throated green warblers (Setophaga virens) are losing habitat.

These preliminary results are similar to results from a study on the effects of conventional gas develop-ment on forest birds in the Allegheny National Forest (Thomas et al. 2014). The researchers found that forest specialists (such as Blackburnian warbler

[Setophaga fusca] and black-throated green warbler) declined in abundance near conventional wells while generalists and early successional species (includ-ing American robin and brown-headed cowbird) increased in abundance. At moderate to high well densities, the cumulative effect of the many small-scale disturbances fragmented the forest, resulting in a loss of core forest specialists while generalists and species that readily coexist with people, and in devel-oped habitats, increased in abundance.

This process of specialists being replaced by gen-eralists is known as biotic homogenization and is associated with many types of disturbance ranging from urban development to climate change (e.g. McKinney and Lockwood 1999, Davey et al. 2012). Predictions are that shale gas development will have a similar effect on forest bird communities with for-est specialists and species sensitive to disturbance tending to decline while generalists and those that tolerate people increasing in abundance.

In a second study, we are looking at bird abundance prior to shale gas development and comparing it to abundance in the first three years after development began. We do this using roadside point counts, where a surveyor drives down a road and stops at regular in-tervals to survey birds. Preliminary results do not show major changes in bird abundance associated with shale development, suggesting that large-scale shifts in bird communities have not occurred at this time.

We have also initiated a camera monitoring study along pipelines and within the adjacent forest habitat to determine wildlife response to these new linear features, which species are using the pipelines, and how this

The Canada warbler (above) is a habitat specialist that breeds in the cool high-elevation forests of north-central Pennsylvania. As forests fall to pipelines and well pads, such specialists may decline while generalists like the brown-headed cowbird (left)—a nest parasite—move in to exploit new territory. Credit: Robert A. Dickerson

Credit: Robert A. Dickerson

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compares with reference sites within the forest interior. In surveys completed on eight sites, white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginiana) were the species most commonly reported with the majority of observations occurring within the pipeline right-of-way. Wild turkey (Meleagris gallopavo) and black bear (Ursus americanus) were tied for second place. Bears used the pipeline but were not more abun-dant in the pipeline corridor than in the adjacent forest. Other species photographed traveling along

the pipeline included coyote (Canis latrans), gray fox (Urocyon cinereoargenteus), raccoon (Procyon lotor), and domestic cat (Felis catus). Because this last group of species can also act as nest predators, there are concerns that predation rates may be high for any prey species nesting near these corridors. Studies on reproductive success adjacent to corri-dors will need to be done before we fully understand the effects of these corridors.

Other studies have reported the potential for altered predator-prey relationships as both predators and prey change the way they use space and are distributed across the landscape when linear corridors are present (Latham et al. 2011, Boutin et al. 2012, Tigner et al. 2014). In Alberta, Canada, for example, wolf (Canis lupus) use of seismic lines and corridors has resulted in an increased predation risk to woodland caribou (Rangifer tarandus caribou), a species of conservation concern (Latham et al. 2011, Boutin et al. 2012).

Pad RestorationOnly about 16 percent of pads have undergone some type of restoration (Drohan and Brittingham 2012). Companies are not required to complete full resto-ration until drilling is completed. Many pads remain open on the chance that additional wells may be drilled or an existing well re-fracked to improve gas production. Final restoration may be 40 or 50 years away or as long as there is an active well on the pad. What this means for wildlife is a direct loss of habi-tat from those pads.

Where pads have been restored, the area of dis-turbance has been reduced by more than half. Yet most of the pads have only been restored to a mix of non-native cold-season grass and clover or, in the case of agricultural land, back to agricultural use. This may provide a place for wildlife to hide, but does not provide the young forest growth associ-ated with a regenerating forest important to many early successional forest habitat specialists, including game species like ruffed grouse (Bonasa umbellus) and American woodcock (Scolopax minor), and for songbirds such as the golden-winged warbler (Vermi-vora chrysoptera). Similarly, pipelines are primarily seeded with grass and clover, which provide travel corridors for bear and deer but do not replicate true early successional habitat, which has been declining in eastern forests as they have matured. Develop-ing strategies and techniques to restore pads and pipelines to functional early successional habitat is necessary, as is a plan to restore pads at least tempo-rarily once the first set of wells has been completed.

A black bear pops up to inspect its surroundings along a gas-pipeline corridor in Pennsylvania. A camera-monitoring study being conducted to learn how wildlife species use these pipeline corridors and adjacent forest areas shows that deer, wild turkey, and black bears are the top three species photographed along the newly opened routes.

Credit: Jackson Martini

Credit: Lillie A. Langlois

Traffic associated with the shale-gas industry transforms quiet forest roads into corridors of congestion, noise, fumes, and dust. Researchers are at the early stages of studying how such elements may affect wildlife habitat use, abundance, road mortality, and other factors.

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Impacts of NoiseBeyond habitat fragmentation, exploration and devel-opment of the shale resource is associated with both short- and long-term increases in noise from sources such as compressor stations and road traffic. Noise can have numerous costs to wildlife and long-term effects on habitat quality (Francis and Barber 2013). For example, studies on the effects of noise from compressors on songbirds in the western U.S. and Canada found a range of impacts. In a study of oven-birds (Seiurus aurocapilla), pairing success of males near compressors was 77 percent as compared with 92 percent pairing success of males near pads without compressors (Habib et al. 2007). The researchers hypothesize that the noise makes it hard for females to hear the males and conse-quently harder for a male to attract a female to his ter-ritory. Other studies have reported lower abundance, changes in reproductive be-havior and success, altered predator-prey interactions, and altered avian communities (e.g., Habib et al. 2007, Bayne et al. 2008, Francis et al. 2011).

Monitoring and MitigationIn Pennsylvania, the DCNR has established an ex-tensive program to monitor plants, wildlife habitat, water, soil, air, and recreation, with the objective of using results to direct future development. Despite such efforts, the pace of gas development has not allowed for adaptive management, where the results from monitoring can inform gas development deci-sions. Instead, managers are scrambling to make decisions about where gas development infrastruc-ture should be distributed across the landscape, while having much less input on how much develop-ment occurs. They know there are local impacts from shale gas development but don’t know the level of development or threshold that may result in major or even irreversible changes. Should the infrastructure be spread over the landscape at potentially lower densities, or clustered to potentially keep some areas off limits from drilling? How do we balance shale gas development with the other important values of our public lands? These are some of the many questions land managers are dealing with.

On private land where most of the drilling is occur-ring, there is little if any organized monitoring, but

many landowners are inter-ested in restoring wildlife habitat. On private land, we need to work with landown-ers to provide them with different management op-tions for restoring pads and

pipelines beyond grass and clover. The Appalachian Regional Reforestation Initiative (ARRI) designed to provide research and outreach for restoring forests on coal mined lands in the eastern U.S. is an example of the type of initiative that is needed. To address edu-cational needs, we have developed an electronic field guide to provide landowners and land managers with information on everything from site development to restoring and creating wildlife habitat.

As more and more private forest lands are developed, our public lands will become increasingly important for wildlife and for ecological, aesthetic, and recreational values they provide. Our eastern forests provide a host of ecological services including clean water, climate control, and habitat for wildlife in addition to aesthetic, recreational, and timber resources. As natural resource professionals, we need to raise awareness about the vi-tal ecosystem services of our forests, engage public and private partners in new research and outreach, and foster a more informed discussion of the actual costs and benefits of shale gas development as new propos-als to expand this development on public land occur. Development must be done in a way that protects the integrity of this priceless ecosystem.

This article has been reviewed by a subject-matter expert.

Credit: Margaret C. Brittingham

The stone pad of a completed drill site (above) is surrounded by restored habitat. About 16 percent of pads in Pennsylvania have been restored, usually with a mix of grass and clover. Such growth can provide cover for wildlife such as young fawns (left), but does not serve species dependent on regenerating forests.

Credit: Margaret C. Brittingham

This article is open access online.

28 The Wildlife Professional, Fall 2014 © The Wildlife Society

Quest for Safer SkiesBy Todd Katzner, Tricia Miller, and Scott Stoleson

MODELING GOLDEN EAGLES AND WIND ENERGY TO REDUCE TURBINE RISK

In a patch of sky above Pennsylvania, a golden eagle moves languidly, never flapping but pass-ing quickly as it cruises southward on a cushion

of air. It is migrating to its wintering grounds after a season of breeding in Quebec. As part of a team studying eagles on a daily basis—a project support-ed by the U.S. Forest Service (USFS), West Virginia University, and other partners—we never tire of watching these iconic birds soar. The fall migration is especially notable here in the central Appala-chians, where golden eagles often migrate at low altitudes, close to those of us who watch them from atop the region’s long linear ridges.

The central Appalachians of Pennsylvania and West Virginia hold many U.S. Forest Service lands in the East and are also a focus area for wind energy de-velopment, as they provide wind suitable for power generation and locations close enough to urban cen-ters to allow efficient transmission of electricity. The region’s long north-south ridges are well suited to the placement of wind turbines, yet these same ridges also channel thousands of migratory raptors every spring and autumn—a po-tentially dangerous combination.

Large soaring birds, especially eagles and vultures, are known to be at risk from the rotating blades of wind turbines. In some parts of the world, scores of eagles and vultures are killed every year by turbines (Smallwood and Thelander 2008, DeLucas et al. 2012). To assess risk in the central Appalachians, in 2005 our team began a large project to track golden eagles in the region, hoping to understand how their flight behavior might expose them to risk from turbines. We used telemetry to track eagle flight behavior, and modeled the birds’ movements with respect to topography and updraft potential. We then compared modeled output to potential siting of wind energy turbines. Our work has led to the creation of detailed risk maps that can help plan-ners optimize turbine placement while minimizing risk to golden eagles (Miller et al. 2014). As produc-tion of wind energy continues to grow, this research could have potential applications for other species

and energy projects both in the U.S. and abroad.

Eagles and Wind TurbinesDistributed throughout the U.S. and Canada, golden eagles are enig-matic apex predators of high public and ecological value. Though protected by the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act, the

Migratory Bird Treaty Act, and many state and provincial laws, the species is poorly understood and of conservation concern nationwide (Millsap et al. 2013). Factors contributing to death of eagles in-clude lead poisoning, capture in leg-hold traps, habitat loss, and wind energy.

Wind energy is a special case that in recent years has defined the problem of golden eagle conservation in North America. One reason for this relates to

Todd Katzner, Ph.D., is a Research Assistant Professor at West Virginia University in a position largely funded by the U.S. Forest Service.

Credit: Bill Parsons

Credit: John Terry

Turbines on a ridge in West Virginia generate renewable energy but also pose a potential risk for migrating raptors like golden eagles (inset). New research on eagle flight behavior may help guide turbine placement to reduce risk to wildlife.

Tricia Miller, Ph.D., is a Wildlife Biologist at West Virginia University.

Credit: Åke Nordström

Credit: Michael Lanzone

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golden eagle ecology. The spe-cies’ distribution is primarily defined by the availability of three essentials: food, nesting habitat, and lift. Reaching up to 13 pounds, golden eagles are too heavy to use flapping flight for long periods of time, so they require updrafts from thermals or deflected winds to keep them aloft for extended flight.

The potential risk of mixing wind power and golden eagles in flight has been well-studied at Altamont Pass in California, a region with an abundance of eagle food (primarily California ground squirrels in that area), nesting and perching habitat, and conditions that generate significant updrafts. Because it is so windy, Altamont also has thousands of wind turbines, which have killed significant numbers of golden eagles and a host of other raptors. Peer-reviewed science suggests that on an annual basis from 1998 to 2002, about 65 golden eagles and about 1,100 other raptors were killed in the pass (Smallwood and Thelander 2008). In spite of recent efforts at “repowering”—replacing large numbers of small turbines with fewer, bigger turbines in the hopes of killing fewer birds—the numbers of deaths are still high and, for a low-density apex predator such as the golden eagle, it is unlikely that this mortality is simply compensatory.

To help address problems associated with wind-energy mortality, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) in 2013 developed its “Eagle Conservation

Plan Guidance” to provide “specific in-depth guidance for conserving bald and golden eagles in the course of siting, constructing, and operating wind energy facilities” (FWS 2013). The Service developed a risk model, founded in Bayesian statistics, to predict an annual fatality rate for eagles at a given wind facility. The model is built using generalized collision and fatality probabilities and site-specific observational data on eagle exposure. It also accounts for uncertainties in estimating all these input parameters.

The FWS model is the standard given the agencies’ statutory obligation to manage eagles across the na-tion at facilities with hugely varying degrees of eagle density, environmental characteristics, and risk. However, at a more local scale, there are opportuni-ties to predict risk to birds using detailed knowledge of flight behavior and eagle biology. So far this has been done in two different ways. At Altamont,

Credit: Doug Bell

Credit: Randy Flament

The remains of a golden eagle hit by a turbine lie in California’s Altamont Pass (below). Tracking-technology expert Mike Lanzone (left) holds a female golden eagle fitted with a transmitter to provide flight-behavior data that may help protect eagles from turbines in the eastern U.S.

The U.S. Forest Service’s (USFS) Research and Development branch oversees a partnership program with cooperating universities that involves “shared faculty positions”—faculty posts that split time be-tween teaching (funded by the university) and Forest Service research (funded by USFS). Offered through USFS’s Northern Research Station (NRS), the program currently has 12 such shared faculty positions at nine different universities in the Northeast and Midwest, ranging from the University of Maine to Purdue University in Indiana.

The faculty in these posts may or may not be in tenure positions and typically spend anywhere from 25 percent to 75 percent of their time doing USFS research on a wide variety of natural re-source issues ranging from wildlife and biometrics to ecology and forestry. Todd Katzner’s research on golden eagles, for example,

occurred while he served in a shared faculty position at West Virginia University that was jointly supported by the university and NRS. His other recent work for the partnership includes investi-gating how prescribed fire—used on the Monongahela National Forest in West Virginia to restore mixed-oak forests—alters avian habitat and use.

“These USFS shared faculty partnerships are a win-win for the host universities and the Forest Service,” says Thomas Schmidt, assistant research director of the NRS in St. Paul, Minnesota. “The Forest Ser-vice gets the research, and students can use it in their coursework, gaining exposure to the Forest Service.” Ultimately, the program offers students a way to see research in action—both in the classroom and on the ground—an inspiration to future natural resource professionals.

Co-author Affiliations

Scott Stoleson is a Research Wildlife Biologist with the USDA Forest Service Northern Research Station in Irvine, Pennsylvania.

University Partnerships with the Forest Service

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Shawn Smallwood, Doug Bell, and their collabora-tors have placed observers in the turbine fields and recorded flight behavior of eagles and other raptors as they passed through the observers’ field of view and within range of turbines. With thousands of records, the team can now estimate the topographic and meteorological conditions under which specific species of birds are most at risk, and they can thus guide turbine locations using that knowledge.

The Altamont risk maps are extremely useful, but they are built for a specific site and have also re-quired investment of time to observe bird flight. It is nearly impossible to collect such observational data when eagle densities are lower, as they are in the central Appalachians. As an alternative approach, our team developed a plan based on GPS-GSM te-lemetry systems, giving us a similar product to what the researchers at Altamont have produced, but designed at a much broader spatial scale and based on GPS-derived flight altitude information.

Relating Flight Height to RiskThe conceptual approach we took was broad based (Miller et al. 2014). First, we outfitted about 35 golden eagles with advanced GPS-GSM telemetry systems. These tracking devices collect GPS data with remarkably short time-between fixes, usually at 30-to-60-second intervals. Each of those GPS fixes is similar to what you would get on your personal GPS: it provides not only x and y coordinates, but also a position in 3D (flight altitude above sea level) and information on heading, instantaneous flight speed, fix accuracy, and a host of other important details.

We can also derive additional information by using the GPS data to calculate characteristics of flight de-scribed by multiple GPS fixes and external datasets, such as topography and land cover. These types of derived data include speed between points, flight altitude, and distance to predicted wind resources for energy development. For additional detail, we can obtain weather characteristics—such as tem-perature, wind speed, and humidity—that the bird experienced at the specific altitude it was flying.

Using a subset of these external predictors, our team then built models of resource selection func-tions (RSFs; Manly 2002) for eagles, to characterize and predict the situations when eagles fly below 150 meters above ground throughout three physiographic regions of the central Appalachians: the Allegheny Mountains, the Allegheny Plateau, and the Ridge and Valley region. Since flight altitude is directly corre-

© The Wildlife Society

Recycling the Dead

How Deer Carcasses Aid Golden Eagle ResearchBy Scott Stoleson

“Someone is dumping deer carcasses in the parking lot! Does anyone know anything about that?” This newest staff member at the Forest Service Research Lab in Irvine, Pennsylvania, was learning that anything can happen in the name of research. In this case, the deer carcasses—often obtained from roadkill—were destined to serve as bait at carefully selected sites where researchers had placed trail cams in hopes of capturing images of golden eagles feeding on the carrion. Such images help researchers understand the eagles’ abundance, habitat use, and other behaviors.

There are now more than 150 deer-carcass bait sites across the Northeast and Midwest, some in experimental forests and others in a variety of public-land settings. Each site is equipped with a trail cam triggered by the motion of animals visiting the sites. Though golden eagles are the primary species of inter-est, many other species have been captured on film, including bobcat at a site in Ohio, where the species is state endangered; wild elk at a Pennsylvania site; fishers at another Pennsylvania site; and a wide variety of bird species.

Several of the 150 sites are maintained by U.S. Forest Service (USFS) staff, a vital part of this collaborative effort. A host of dedicated USFS scientists, professionals, technicians, and other volunteers serve as boots on the ground to collect and freshen bait, change camera memory cards, and supply images to research teams. Once images are collected in the field, they are passed to regional coordinators and ultimately to a USFS ecologist who sorts through millions of images each year and shares them with the research team for further analysis. Much of this research is captured at the Appalachian Eagles website.

While analysis of photos is ongoing, this work has generated new ideas about the relative abundance of golden eagles and the boundaries of their winter range. “The vast geographic scope of this project and the volume of data generated are unprecedented,” says eagle researcher Todd Katzner, “and this would never be possible without the network of volunteers willing to haul deer carcasses to advance science.”

Scott Stoleson is a Research Wildlife Biologist at the USDA Forest Service Northern Research Station in Irvine, Pennsylvania.

Credit: Barbara McGuinness/USFS

30 The Wildlife Professional, Fall 2014

Credit: Scott Stoleson

An immature golden eagle visits a deer-carcass bait pile in the Allegheny National Forest, Pennsylvania. Motion-sensitive cameras placed at these bait piles help document the number of eagles and other species that visit the region.

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lated to risk from 150-meter-tall turbines, characterizing such be-havior can aid management. The RSFs were then used to predict distribution of sites across regions where eagles would engage in low-altitude, high-risk flight. Understanding the circumstances of this low-altitude flight is the key to understanding when eagles could interact with, and be at risk from, turbines.

Location MattersPredicting this low-altitude flight, though, is not enough for effec-tive management of risk to eagles. We also want to understand the characteristics of the areas that wind developers select for turbine place-ment in various regions of the country. Since every company has its own wind development policies, the second conceptual step we took in our research was to characterize the turbine locations in a similar man-ner to that done for eagle telemetry locations. Once again, we mapped the location of every turbine within those same three topographically distinct physio-graphic provinces, and we then used those locations to develop resource selection probability functions (RSPFs) and predictive maps for wind turbines, using the same external predictors as in our eagle model.

We overlaid maps of resource selection for low-altitude eagle flight and for wind turbine placement to pro-duce a risk map for golden eagles (see map above).We classified areas that eagles rarely selected as low risk, regardless of the area’s utility to turbines. We classified as moderate risk the areas eagles selected with inter-mediate frequency but that were chosen infrequently or frequently for turbines. We categorized as highest risk the areas that were selected most frequently for both turbines and eagles. As it turned out, the phys-iographic province with the greatest number of long, linear ridges (the Ridge and Valley region) was the province with the highest risk habitat. Those areas with more diverse and less linearly organized topog-raphy were comparatively lower risk to eagles. Such a classification system allows us to provide feedback to wind-energy developers and conservation planners. It identifies not only areas of high risk to eagles, but alternative sites of relatively lower risk to eagles but of still potentially high value to wind developers.

In addition to producing large-scale guidance on what physiographic provinces are relatively high

and low risk to eagles, our model lets us zoom down to specific sites and advise on siting of individual turbines anywhere within the modeled region. Thus, when agency staff or developers request details on a proposed facility, we are able to provide risk cat-egories for every turbine within the facility and, for high-risk turbines, suggest potentially safer siting alternatives. The next step of course—for our model and for every other risk model—is to use real fatality data from existing turbines to validate and improve the model’s predictions.

The partnership formed by the USFS and the academic community provides a framework for problem solving that can help address key management issues in the U.S. The potential for conflict between wind energy and eagles is one that requires careful attention from developers, regulators, managers and researchers of all types. This is increasingly important as our country faces a suite of challenges associated with environ-mentally-friendly energy development. The recent prosecution of Duke Energy by the U.S. Department of Justice for taking of eagles demonstrates the serious stance on this issue taken by federal wildlife and regu-latory agencies (U.S. Department of Justice 2013).

It is unlikely that anyone—agencies, developers, opera-tors, or the general public—wishes for eagles and other protected species to be killed at wind facilities. Thus, development of risk models presents an opportunity for improved siting within the low-altitude flight corri-dors of the Appalachians and also provides a template for developing partnership-based risk models in other areas, nationwide and internationally.

This article has been reviewed by subject-matter experts.

Credit: Tricia Miller

Data lines trace the long migration routes of golden eagles in the eastern U.S., ranging from North Carolina to Canada (inset at left). The map at right color-codes relative risk in three key regions of the Pennsylvania Appalachians based on an area’s wind potential and use by eagles during spring migration. For example, dark blue denotes low risk because of poor wind potential and low use by eagles, while orange indicates high risk because of good eagle habitat and turbine potential.

This article is open access online.

32 The Wildlife Professional, Fall 2014 © The Wildlife Society

June 11, 2014 - A tentative sun burns through an unseasonably cool, rainy Pennsylvania morn-ing as a faint but distinct song seeps out of a

patch of young forest. Suddenly, on a snag at the edge of a clearing, a vivid bird appears. A group of biologists peer through binoculars and confirm that the bird is a male golden-winged warbler (Vermivora chrysoptera). Nearby, amid goldenrod stems, black-berry canes, native grasses, and regenerating oak saplings, the bird’s mate is guarding her nest. Dis-covery of these birds in a forest harvested just three years earlier marks a clear victory for management of a dwindling species—and for a young program show-ing promise for long-term conservation.

In 2011, a new group called the Pennsylvania Young Forest Council was formed to improve coordination among partners promoting the creation of early successional forest, ideal habitat for the golden-winged warbler (GWWA)—a species currently being considered for listing under the Endangered Species Act. The new council spearheaded the Pennsylva-nia Golden-winged Warbler Habitat Initiative, a collaborative effort to work with public and private landowners to create high-quality habitat. After just three years, in April 2014, the Young Forest Council received the North American Migratory Bird Joint

Venture Conservation Champion Award for its “in-novative approach to protecting public and private lands for priority species” (AMJV 2014).

This success has its roots in a broad-based collaboration among partners in the GWWA initia-tive—including the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), the Pennsylvania Game Com-mission (PGC), the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources (DCNR), the Indiana University of Pennsylvania Research In-stitute (IUP-RI), the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS), the American Bird Conservancy (ABC), and many others—committed to showing that careful forest management can create the habitat needed to save this rare bird. We can attest to the value of this joint effort—and its urgency.

Addressing the ChallengeGolden-winged warblers need the attributes of young forest—including thick shrub and sapling cover, open patches of herbaceous vegetation, and scat-tered large, residual trees—for successful nesting and foraging. Yet the percentage of young forest in Pennsylvania has declined by 43 percent since 1978 (Alerich 1993). Likewise, the regional population of golden-winged warblers has dropped 8.5 percent per

By Mike Pruss, Jeff Larkin, Tammy Colt, and Barry Isaacs

CONSERVATION OF GOLDEN-WINGED WARBLERS IN PENNSYLVANIA

Golden Opportunity

Mike Pruss is the Private Lands Section Chief for the Pennsylvania Game Commission and Chair of the Pennsylvania Young Forest Council.

Credit: Bryce Busler

Credit: Jeff LarkinCredit: Jeff Larkin

A male golden-winged warbler (GWWA) with leg bands (left) is part of a study to assess the effectiveness of NRCS conservation practices. A female of the species (right) perches on a black-berry stem in an area harvested for GWWAs in northeastern Pennsylvania. Black-berries, grasses, and broadleaf herbaceous plants like goldenrod are important GWWA habitat components.

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year since 1966 (Sauer et al. 2014). Due to this long-term decline, the bird is now scarce in Pennsylvania, with a state-wide population estimate of only 6,300 singing (or adult) males. As a result, the GWWA has become a focal species for conservation-based research and subse-quent efforts to implement science-based breeding habitat guidelines in both the Appalachian Mountains and Upper Great Lakes regions.

Although recent efforts have been es-pecially intense in Pennsylvania, work to improve GWWA habitat across the species’ entire breeding range—from Georgia to Canada—had already been laid. In 2005, more than 80 ornitholo-gists and conservationists formed the GWWA Working Group to ensure the conservation of GWWA populations through sound science, education, and management. With support from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation (NFWF), FWS, and several state agencies and NGOs, the working group produced the GWWA Status Assessment and Con-servation Plan, which includes habitat guidelines, population goals, and conservation focal areas for the species (see map). Conservation of the species has accelerated thanks to many additional efforts. These include:

Young Forest Communication Strategy. The Northeast Habitat Technical Committee (NHTC), under the leadership of Jim Oehler of the New Hampshire Fish and Game Department, initiated this program in 2010 to effectively communicate to private landowners the need for young forest management. One strategy was to populate the youngforest.org website with basic information about young forests and their management, their benefits, and why more young forest habitat is needed, with answers to frequently asked questions.

Best Management Practices (BMPs). Pub-lished in 2011, Golden-winged Warbler Habitat: Best Management Practices for Forestlands in Maryland and Pennsylvania (Bakermans et al. 2011) offers specific guidelines for optimal GWWA habitat generation. For example, it recommends timber harvests or noncommercial cuts that result

in a residual basal area of 10-40 square feet per acre, or 10-15 residual trees per acre, with these trees having a diameter-breast-height of nine inches or greater (preferably greater than 15 inches). At the landscape scale, projects should have 70 percent forested cover within a one-half-mile radius, be within one mile of other young forest habitat, and occur at elevations greater than 950 feet to mini-mize hybridization with the blue-winged warbler.

Farm Bill Programs. Pennsylvania used two Farm Bill programs to specifically target young for-est management. The Working Lands for Wildlife (WLFW) program targeted GWWA as a focal species in the Appalachians and was available to private non-industrial forest landowners, who received cost-share reimbursements for implementing appropriate conservation practices. The Volunteer Public Access-Habitat Incentive Program (VPA-HIP) was available on private lands open to public hunting, and was uti-lized to improve habitat on and increase the amount of land enrolled in Pennsylvania’s Hunter Access program. Practices offered through these programs included noncommercial cutting and control of competing and invasive species such as rhizomatous

Co-author Affiliations

Jeff Larkin, Ph.D., CWB, is a Professor of Wildlife Ecology and Conservation at Indiana University of Pennsylvania, the American Bird Conservancy’s Golden-Winged Warbler Range-Wide Breeding Habitat Coordinator, and a member of the Golden-Winged Warbler Working Group.

Tammy Colt is a Regional Wildlife Diversity Biologist with the Pennsylvania Game Commission.

Barry Isaacs is the retired USDA-NRCS State Biologist for Pennsylvania.

The Golden-Winged Warbler Appalachian Conservation Region, which stretches from northern Georgia to southern New York, covers approximately 61,500 square miles in portions of 10 states. The region also contains designated focal areas where GWWA conservation activities—such as NRCS Working Lands for Wildlife projects—are targeted.

Credit: Emily Bellush/IUP-RI

Golden-Winged Warbler Focal Area and Conservation Region

GWWA Appalachian Conservation Region

NRCS Working Lands for Wildlife GWWA Focal Areas

34 The Wildlife Professional, Fall 2014 © The Wildlife Society

ferns, striped maple, and Japanese stiltgrass. Lack of technical assistance capacity necessary to deliver these forestry-based NRCS programs is a huge challenge. As such, two IUP-RI forester and conser-vation planner positions funded through the NFWF were key to our partnership’s ability to capitalize on these programs with landowners.

Golden-Winged Warbler Cooperative Management Area. In 2013, partners in the GWWA Habitat Initiative created the first-ever Golden-Winged Warbler Cooperative Management Area (GWCMA). Located in northeastern Pennsyl-vania, it is comprised of 60 percent private lands and 40 percent public lands including five State Game Lands and the Delaware State Forest. Several GWWA projects have been implemented within this area via funding from the ABC, PGC, NRCS, DCNR, and NFWF, creating demonstration areas for the public to see what high-quality GWWA habitat looks like and to see and appreciate the bird itself.

All these efforts are helping wildlife biologists and habitat managers focus on the ultimate goal of pro-

viding habitat to conserve and expand populations of GWWA. To date, the partnership has resulted in management benefiting GWWA on more than 7,000 acres of private lands and more than 30,000 acres of public lands within Pennsylvania’s GWWA focal areas. Most of the private lands were enrolled in the WLWF program; the remainder was funded by the VPA-HIP program. For the nine-state golden-winged warbler WLFW program, our partnership in Pennsylvania has accounted for 58 percent (122 of 209) of all landowner contracts and 82 percent (5,705 of 6,986) of all acres enrolled. More than 34 of the 122 WLFW projects on 1,490 acres have been completed in Pennsylvania. The following case study helps illustrate what is being done, how, why, and with what effect—information that may apply to warbler conservation elsewhere in the nation.

Case Study: Pike CountyOn a 211-acre site in northeastern Pennsylvania’s Pike County, a mixed-oak forest faced a gypsy moth infestation, with about 40 percent canopy-tree mortality. To transform the site into prime GWWA habitat, IUP-RI forester Darren Wolfgang made several site visits to the landowner to learn about his objectives for his property and discuss options that could meet those objectives while also provid-ing high-quality GWWA breeding habitat. After evaluating site conditions, Wolfgang delineated a 16-acre project boundary then drafted a manage-ment plan that involved cutting approximately 70 percent of the overstory trees.

The site showed adequate regeneration of desir-able tree species, but deer browsing and competing ground vegetation (hay-scented fern) presented challenges. Wolfgang recommended deer fencing to protect regeneration, but the landowner chose not to allow fencing. As a compromise, Wolfgang directed the logging contractor to distribute and retain tree tops to protect seedlings in an effort to reduce the deer browsing on existing regeneration.

After the landowner approved the plan, it received funding approval from NRCS and work began. Wolfgang used marking paint on trees to delineate the project boundary and had a contractor apply herbicide to the hay-scented fern. The forester then selected and marked the trees that were to remain uncut after harvest to achieve a residual basal area that averaged 10-40 square feet per acre, per BMPs, to maximize structural diversity and GWWA ter-ritory density. The landowner contracted a logger Credit: Jeff Larkin

On private land in central Pennsylvania, foresters Zach Stephens (left) and Dan Heggenstaller (right) of the Indiana University of Pennsylvania Research Institute, along with forester Peter Dieser (visiting from Minnesota), mark a 40-acre mixed oak hardwood stand for harvest using BMPs developed for golden-winged warblers.

35www.wildlife.org© The Wildlife Society

who completed the harvest, with periodic inspec-tion from Wolfgang to ensure compliance with BMPs. Today, the site is ending its first growing season post-treatment. With its lush regeneration of shrubs, saplings, and herbaceous cover among scattered large residual trees, it is well on its way to becoming suitable for nesting golden-wings and a myriad of other species.

Challenges on Private LandsResearch has revealed that timber harvests in ar-eas occupied by breeding golden-winged warblers average only 40 acres in size. Larger projects are easier to contract with private companies for timber harvest, noncommercial cutting, and herbicide treatment of invasive understory plants. However, such large-scale projects can affect for-est aesthetics, a concern for many private forest owners. “Beauty and scenery” ranked highest among reasons for people to own forest land, ac-cording to the U.S. Forest Service’s 2006 National Woodland Owner Survey (Butler 2008). Such fac-tors create challenges to completing private land habitat projects.

Landowners Ralph and Billie Miranda, for ex-ample, had 43 acres of beautiful mature forest that they wished to remain intact, but they also had 33 acres of Christmas tree plantation with several overly mature and dying stands. Under these conifers were plenty of hardwood seedlings, particularly oak, that were stunted by the conifers’ shade. WLFW provided the means to remove the conifers and allow the oaks to grow. Finding a contractor for this small contract of about 20 acres proved difficult, but a local logger agreed to do the job. Although the contract allowed them to rid the property of the decadent conifer stands, the Mi-randas were still shocked at the initial appearance of the tree cutting. “When we first looked out from our deck after it was cut,” says Ralph, “we looked at each other and asked, ‘What have we done?’” Within one month of the project’s completion, however, any regrets were alleviated by the sight

Credit: Jeff Larkin

Credit: Jeff Larkin

After gypsy moths damaged habitat in Pennsylvania’s Delaware State Forest, foresters conducted a salvage harvest on a 115-acre site. Progressive photographs taken post-harvest at three months (top), two years (middle), and three years (bottom) show rapid regeneration of groundcover, grasses, and saplings among the unharvested trees. Seven pairs of GWWA defended territories at the site in year two, and at least 20 breeding pairs appeared in 2014.

Credit: Jeff Larkin

36 The Wildlife Professional, Fall 2014 © The Wildlife Society

of new growth and the sounds of eastern towhees, field sparrows, and other young forest birds.

In working with landowners, we find that some applicants for WLFW funding already have Forest Stewardship Plans (FSP) for their properties and they’re able to take advantage of WLFW practices to accomplish FSP goals. Such was the case for Lewis and Katherine Lobdell. Their FSP identified a 60-acre Allegheny hardwoods stand of mostly poor-quality trees with an understory dominated by native but undesirable spicebush and invasive multiflora rose. The FSP called for total regenera-tion of this stand through a noncommercial clearcut with residuals and treatment of invasives. WLFW allowed the Lobdells to accomplish this objective. “The program provided the resources and motiva-tion to undertake the management activities that we had intended for this property since we developed our forest management plan,” Lewis says. “The results were outstanding for our forest’s health.”

Outreach to Private Landowners

The two largest public landowners in Pennsylvania—the DCNR Bureau of Forestry and the PGC—already man-age their forest land to benefit wildlife habitat, and specifi-cally in a manner that benefits sensitive species, including the GWWA. However 85 percent of the state is in private ownership, so to meet the habitat objectives of 12,200 new young forest acres added annually through the year 2020 in Pennsylvania’s GWWA focal area, private lands must play a critical role. One of the unique aspects of the GWWA habitat effort has been the outreach to private landowners. Based on the outcomes of the situation analysis conducted as part of the Young Forest Communications Strategy, spe-cific outreach efforts were crafted. Multiple funding rounds with WLFW allowed for analysis of landowner response and subsequent fine-tuning of outreach effort for each round.

We selected approximately 6,000 landowners based on their location within the Pennsylvania GWWA Focal Area, presence within a minimum 70-percent forested landscape, elevation, acres of forest owned, and parcel size, which we anticipated might affect their willingness to treat at least 20 acres of forested land on their property. Targeted areas in the Appa-lachian highlands and Poconos contained the birds’ primary habitat associations, which are mixed-oak uplands, scrub oak barrens, and shrub and forested wetlands.

We tested landowner response to three different letter con-tents, follow-up postcards, and messages on the outside of envelopes. Initial response rates to letters were 4.8 percent, but improved to 15.5 percent by our third round of mailings (DJ Case 2013). We tracked respondents’ participation from initial call-in or email to project implementation. One of the most surprising results of outreach was that only 0.3 percent of those who responded to the letters had ever participated in any program that any of the broad range of partners offered to forest landowners, from USFS/DCNR Forest Stewardship Plans or Tree Farm Program to NRCS Environmental Qual-ity Incentive Program or Conservation Stewardship Program. These were truly newcomers to conservation. To improve future letters, we conducted focus groups of different respon-dent categories to further determine what factors influenced their participation.

One of the most important things we learned from focus groups was that meeting landowner expectations for com-munication is critical. For the person who takes the time to pick up the phone and call to get more details about a program, that first contact is important, but following up and providing a consistent message and continually demonstrat-ing knowledge of the program gives the landowner confi-dence that what started as a letter in the mail can result in habitat on the ground.

Credit: Bill Weaver

Emily Bellush, a wildlife biologist with the Indiana University of Pennsylvania Research Institute, discusses a GWWA conservation plan developed for landowners who enrolled some acres through NRCS’s Working Lands for Wildlife program. Surveys show that regular communication with interested landowners is critical to program success.

37www.wildlife.org© The Wildlife Society

Monitoring the Results After most trees have been cut and invasive species have been controlled, do warblers respond to the habitat created? Everyone from NRCS to wildlife agencies to landowners want to know the answer to this question. The IUP Research Institute, which has been monitoring such forestry practices on public land for several years, says the answer is a resounding YES, but will the answer be different on private lands?

To find out, PGC and NRCS’s Conservation Effects Assessment Program (CEAP) have been funding the IUP-RI and its partners (West Virginia Univer-sity, University of Tennessee, and North Carolina Audubon) to conduct research on private lands. Starting in 2012, the CEAP-funded monitoring team has evaluated GWWA response at more than 65 study sites located in Pennsylvania, North Caro-lina, Tennessee, and West Virginia. Specifically, the first three years of evaluation have focused on quantifying demographics such as GWWA territory density, nesting success, adult return rates, and post-fledging habitat use and survival in relation to NRCS conservation practices.

All of these avian metrics have accompanying habi-tat evaluation protocols. Field technicians follow these protocols to quantify features known to be important to golden-winged warbler ecology such as residual basal area, shrub and sapling cover, grass and forb cover, and distance to treatment edge. Re-searchers then incorporate habitat and avian data into analyses to better understand how to achieve maximum benefits to breeding GWWA.

Ultimately, these first three to four years of monitoring are intended to provide a better un-derstanding of how GWWA will respond to the implementation of the primary NRCS conservation practices that are being incorporated on private lands enrolled in WLFW and, if necessary, to revise practice guidelines. Now that several WLFW-GWWA projects have been completed, we look forward to moving on to the next phase of monitor-ing, which will include point-count-based surveys and an associated habitat evaluation protocol on all private lands enrolled in WLFW projects to benefit GWWA. We also hope to secure additional funding to expand our monitoring effort to include surveys for American woodcock, another declining young forest species.

Broadening Our ScopeHoping to improve the golden-winged warbler’s habitat range-wide, we are working with other states, and sharing components of our successful model to help them implement similar efforts. For example, we work directly with New Jersey and Maryland to conduct BMP trainings, assist with their program deliveries, draft GWWA habitat plans, and share our insight on outreach.

The ABC has a GWWA Range-wide Breeding Habitat Coordinator, for example, who helps supervise GWWA foresters and conservation planners in Maryland, Wisconsin, and Minnesota, which are modifying the Pennsylvania model to fit their partnerships. Partners in the Pennsylvania GWWA Initiative have also applied for additional VPA-HIP funds and are expanding their scope to include cerulean warblers by applying for the new 2014 Farm Bill Regional Conservation Partnerships Program grant on a regional scale with West Vir-ginia, Kentucky, Ohio, Maryland, and Pennsylvania in conjunction with ABC, Appalachian Mountains Joint Venture, and a whole new list opartners.

It is our hope that continued success and the program’s expansion into other key states will help prevent the need to list the GWWA as an endangered species, and that future generations of wildlife enthusiasts have the opportunity to catch a glimpse of this charismatic symbol of dynamic forested landscapes.

This article has been reviewed by a subject-matter expert.

Credit: Jeff Larkin

A ruffed grouse hen and her chicks forage for insects in the diverse native herbaceous vegetation that grows in a GWWA harvest area in northeastern Pennsylvania. Forestry efforts as part of the GWWA Habitat Initiative clearly benefit many species of birds and other wildlife.

38 The Wildlife Professional, Fall 2014 © The Wildlife Society

Combating the RageBy David A. Jessup

ATTRACTING RABID BATS WITH ARTIFICIAL SOUND

When renowned bat researcher Denny Constantine passed away on May 24, 2014, the wildlife health community lost one

of its most prolific researchers (see sidebar on page 41). Last winter, when Denny realized he was very ill, he asked the Wildlife Disease Association (WDA) to help him publish his wide-ranging work on the link between rabid bats and artificial sound, a capstone of his career. Unfortunately, he died before seeing that accomplished, but WDA pursued and completed the project (Constantine 2014). This article is part of our efforts to both honor Denny and to disseminate knowledge about wildlife disease in relation to human and domestic animal health, WDA’s mission. Some 50 years ago, Constantine began to suspect that rabid bats were unusually attracted to sound after learning about odd bat behaviors. From 1964 to 2005 he documented 85 cases of rabid bats attacking people in California, often in situations in-volving loud noise. For example, he recorded cases

of a brown bat (Myotis lucifugus) attacking a bark-ing dog, a canyon bat (Parastrellus hesperus) biting the wrist of a man driving a tractor, another canyon bat biting the back of a man riding a motorcycle, and an unidentified bat attacking a person mowing a lawn. All these attacks occurred in broad daylight.

Such behaviors were highly unusual because bats are normally crepuscular, active only in the dim light of early morning or in the evening, and they generally avoid humans. Yet laboratory testing showed that the bats in these cases were rabid, and the presence of loud noises in each attack suggested something more than chance was at work.

Over time, Constantine’s research showed that such attacks could also occur at night, even in cases where the source of sound was extremely faint. In a report on bat rabies he published in 2009, he wrote that nearly a third of North American human rabies victims were bitten at night while sleeping. “Snoring or even faint noises such as air movement through partially closed lips may suffice to attract a rabid bat,” he wrote (Constantine 2009).

After first suspecting a link between rabid bat at-tacks and noise, Constantine did what scientists do: He began to ask questions. It was well known that rabies is caused by a lyssavirus that travels up nerve endings from the site of entry—often a bite or scratch—and attacks the brain, generally leading to aggressiveness, seizures, paralysis, and death. (The French term for rabies is “la rage,” derived from the often vicious behavior of rabies-infected dogs and wolves.) The disease was also known to make animals hypersensitive to various stimuli, such as noise. So Constantine asked: What if the viral damage of rabies in bats, which are known for their superhuman acoustic abilities, caused them to be attracted to noises? And what if particular frequen-cies and volumes could be used to lure rabid bats from vast colonies of normal bats?

His quest to answer these questions led to ground-breaking research on using acoustics to attract,

David A. Jessup is Executive Manager of the Wildlife Disease Association.

Credit: Amber Jessup

Credit: Michael Durham/Minden Pictures, Bat Conservation International

A canyon bat pursues a moth over desert landscape near Oregon’s John Day Fossil Beds National Monument. Bat researcher Denny Constantine found that the canyon bat was the dominant species involved in flying attacks against animals and humans in California.

© The Wildlife Society 39www.wildlife.org

capture, and study rabid bats. Today, his findings may help researchers selectively attract and remove rabid bats and other wildlife (such as skunks or foxes) from healthy populations, thereby potentially helping to safeguard human and animal health. The ability to capture live rabid bats could also give researchers the ability to study how rabies alters the brains of live infected bats, doing away with tradi-tional and laborious laboratory assays that involve sectioning brain tissues and detecting the virus with reagents. Such is one legacy of Constantine’s work on rabies—especially notable given the lethal nature of the disease.

Challenge of Capturing a Killer Once rabies takes hold it is virtually always fatal, making it one of the most deadly viruses known to humans. By some estimates, from 40,000 to 100,000 people worldwide die from rabies each year (Rupprecht et al. 1995), and millions more are exposed and effectively treated. In the United States, preventive veterinary medicine (mainly vaccination of dogs and cats) and immediate post-exposure vaccination have reduced human deaths from rabies to two or three a year (CDC). Neverthe-less, the number of laboratory-diagnosed cases of rabies in animals remains high, with 90 percent of those cases occurring in wildlife, primarily rac-coons, skunks, foxes, and bats (CDC).

Because collection and submission of adequate specimens from dead or dying animals is required for diagnosis, most researchers suspect that wildlife rabies is grossly under-reported. And as a zoonotic

disease that can pass from animals to humans, it still remains a significant concern, especially as growing human populations lead to more frequent human-wildlife interaction.

Historically, detection of rabies resulted in whole-sale slaughter of some wildlife populations to reduce risk by destroying potentially infected animals. In recent years, however, questions about the effectiveness and ecological consequences of non-selective lethal practices, along with increasing public opposition to killing wildlife, have fostered the development of baits containing oral rabies vaccines, which are helping to control the disease in populations of known rabies vectors such as rac-coons and skunks (Chipman 2010).

Bats pose special challenges, however. Because most bats that could be rabies carriers are insectivores, developing vaccinated baits that they will consume has not been feasible, and lethal control measures have not been applied because of the recognized value of bats in insect control. In addition, only a very few individuals out of many thousands of bats in a colony may be rabid. Researchers in one compre-hensive survey reported rabies prevalence “around or below 1 percent across all bat species” (Klug et al. 2011), a rate lower than previously suspected. Nev-ertheless, any tool that can remove infected animals from a wild population would be desirable, especially in populations such as bats, which, as Constantine famously discovered, can spread the disease through aerosolized particles from saliva, urine, or feces (Constantine 1962, Winkler 1968).

Of 85 documented cases of rabid bat attacks in California over 41 years, Constantine found that canyon bats accounted for nearly 32 percent of the attacks, with at least 10 other bat species involved. Most of the attacks involved sound associated with the victim.

Credit: Denny Constantine

Canyon bat

Species Unknown

Hoary bat Silver-haired bat

Long-eared myotis

Brazilian free-tailed

Big brown bat

Western small-footed

myotis

California myotis

Fringed myotis

Western yellow bat

Yuma myotis

28

24

20

16

12

8

4

0

Bat Species

Num

ber

of A

ttac

ks

27

21

76 6

4 4 4

2 21 1

Documented cases of 85 flying rabid bat attacks in California during 41 years, 1964-2005

40 The Wildlife Professional, Fall 2014 © The Wildlife Society

Linking Sound to Bat AttacksConstantine’s analysis of rabid bat attacks in Cali-fornia from 1964 to 2005 indicated that the canyon bat was the dominant species involved in flying attacks against animals and people, accounting for nearly 32 percent of the 85 attacks on 77 people and five dogs (see chart on page 39). However, at least 10 other bat species were implicated in the remain-ing documented attacks. The analysis also suggested that most if not all of the attacks were associated with sound produced by or otherwise associated with the victim. As part of his research, Constantine captured bats with a harp trap, a contraption consisting of closely spaced parallel wires that, when hit by bats in flight, make them fall unharmed into a plastic collecting funnel. Constantine modified these common bat traps by attaching various types of sound lures. Early models used smoke alarms, but further refine-ments revealed that sound at the 25-48 kHz range was most effective to attract bats.

In one of his experiments, harp traps bearing 48 kHz sound units were deployed along with nearby silent harp traps at cattle watering sites in the Kingston Mountains of eastern California’s Mojave Desert. He set these traps at 18 sites during 2000 and at six sites during 2001, and compared the capture results from both types of traps for 175 trap days. A total of 24 rabid bats (23 canyon bats and one big brown bat) were caught in sound-lure traps, whereas no bats were caught in the silent control traps. In another experiment, Constantine placed mist nets (a silent, non-selective method of captur-ing bats) next to the cattle watering sites where the majority of rabid bats had been trapped. Twenty canyon bats were captured in the mist nets, and

laboratory tests showed that none of these bats were infected with rabies. These were the first tantalizing pieces of evidence that certain sounds might selec-tively attract rabid bats.

Next, Constantine tried to see if there was a dif-ference in attractiveness of intermittent versus constant sound in its ability to lure rabid bats. From September 17-21, 2001, his team deployed two types of small harp traps—one emitting intermit-tent ultrasound bursts of 0.1-second duration and the other emitting continuous sound—at sites in the Kingston Mountains. While some trap data had to be discarded due to trap vandalism, three rabid canyon bats were caught in intermittent sound traps during three trap days whereas no bats were caught during 13 trap days in traps emitting continuous sound. This reinforced the concept that rabid bats are indeed attracted to sound, and that this attrac-tion is more powerful if sound is intermittent.

Years later, in August 2007, Constantine headed south to deploy these sound lure traps in a Texas bat cave that houses millions of Brazilian free-tailed bats (Tadarida brasiliensis). Bat caves are a frenzy of activity where all of the air space within the cave can be filled with flying bats as they enter or depart. Accordingly, one can imagine that healthy bats could blunder into traps, especially during migra-tion periods or as young bats start flying. One could also imagine that a crowded bat cave would be filled with distracting noise, which might reduce the ef-fectiveness of traps that use sound to attract animals. Nevertheless, 33 percent of the bats caught in the sound-lure traps were rabid. This contrasts with the usual 0.5 percent of rabid bats encountered in this and similar caves when bats are trapped using non-selective methods such as mist nets. This difference

Credit: Denny ConstantineCredit: Denny Constantine

Sound-lure harp traps designed to capture rabid canyon bats evolved over time. An early model (left) used a smoke alarm, while later, more-effective models included a 25 kHz sound unit (center) then a 48 kHz unit (right). Installing test and control sound-lure bat traps in California’s Kingston Mountain Range (far right), Constantine noted that sound-lure traps caught rabid bats while silent traps caught none—evidence that sound could selectively attract rabid bats.

This article is open access online.

41www.wildlife.org© The Wildlife Society

was statistically significant and again confirmed that even in the chaotic environment of bat caves, sound traps seemed to select for rabid animals.

Implications of DiscoveryMore than two decades of accumulated observa-tions and experiments have shown that certain non-biological sounds may attract rabid bats, probably because of the hypersthenic clinical

manifestations of the rabies virus attacking their nervous systems. In Constantine’s research, traps fitted with sound lures succeeded in the capture of 101 rabid canyon bats and 15 rabid bats of six other species. Canyon bats are the most common labora-tory-diagnosed rabid-bat involved in attacks, and it appears that Constantine discovered a method to selectively attract and remove rabid individuals from the population.

A Pioneer in Bat ResearchBy Julie Duke

Denny Constantine—an expert on bat biology, epidemiology, and wildlife rabies—was best known for transforming views on the rabies virus. In the early 1960s, he became the first person to show that rabies can spread through the air, rather than through puncture wounds only, as previously believed.

Early in his career, Constantine noted two unusual situa-tions in which men died of rabies soon after exploring a bat cave in Texas, despite claiming never to have been bitten or scratched. As part of his research, Constantine placed healthy test animals in a rabies-infected bat cave in double-screened, bat-proof cages and discovered that inhalation of aerosolized bat urine or feces could cause rabies (Constan-tine 1962). This seminal finding of what became known as “cryptic rabies” changed the way biologists and others ap-proached bat cave exploration and rabies prevention—leading to new safety precautions and further research.

Early Interest in Bats Constantine first became interested in bats when he was five and saw neigh-borhood boys playing with a dead bat. What followed was a lifelong fascina-tion and a nearly 50-year career focused on bats, rabies, and other lyssavi-rus diseases (caused by rabies-like viruses).

After graduating from the U.C.-Davis School of Veterinary Medicine in 1955, Constantine began working with the Centers for Disease Control. There, he led studies on bat rabies in the U.S. including moni-toring bat migratory routes

and examining risks posed by bat populations to visitors of Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico. In 1958, Constantine developed and led the first Southwest Rabies Investigation Station in University Park, New Mexico. He went on to obtain a Master’s degree in Public Health at U.C.-Berkeley in 1965, and soon after served as virologist and veterinary epidemiolo-gist at Oakland’s Naval Biomedical Research Laboratory.

Constantine retired from the U.S. Public Health Service in 1976, and from there began working as chief veterinarian for the California Department of Public Health (CDPH), where he helped ensure proper testing standards for rabies and other vaccines until 1989. Even after retirement, he helped iden-tify bat species for the CDPH while persisting with his own rabies research for another 20 years. On his personal time and funds, Constantine delved into research on artificial sounds and rabies with the goal of finding ways to selectively remove rabid animals, or in his words, “filtering rabid animals from their animal population” (Country World News 2006).

“His knowledge of bats and rabies ranked number one among scientists in his field,” says Anna Wong, a former colleague at

the CDPH. “He will always be known as the ‘Bat Man’.” Indeed, Constantine’s exper-tise garnered multiple calls for help—everything from individu-als requesting help with bats in their attic to Steven Spielberg seeking a consultation for a cave scene in Indiana Jones.

Among myriad accomplish-ments over his lengthy and fruitful career, Constantine helped define rabies infection in insectivore bats, published research in over 90 publica-tions, and contributed im-mensely to the study of rabies and its management. His work continues to influence rabies research and the future of disease control.

Credit: Lynn Montgomery

Denny Constantine uses headphones to test skunk traps that project a high-pitch sound to attract rabid skunks. Based on his research, Constantine found that while rabid animals including bats were unusually attracted to artificial sound, healthy animals remained unaffected.

42 The Wildlife Professional, Fall 2014 © The Wildlife Society

This discovery is groundbreaking from several standpoints. First, from a pure disease-ecology perspective, it may suggest that the prevalence of rabies in bats as estimated by non-selective trap-ping methods such as mist nets may be too low, though admittedly it’s impossible to determine actual incidence rates without accurate population data. Second, it raises the question of whether sound traps could prove effective at attracting bat species infected with other rabies-like viruses, such as Nipah and Hendra virus in fruit bats. Third, the phenom-enon that rabid bats respond differently to sound raises important questions about the neurobiology of rabies not only in bats but also in other common rabies carriers like skunks and raccoons. Constan-tine began trying to test that question in 2006 when he deployed sound-lure traps to attempt to capture rabid raccoons in Texas, but, to date, the limited research involving the effects of artificial sound on skunk and raccoon has been inconclusive.

Finally, and probably most important, is the question of whether sound could be used to selectively remove rabies-infected animals on a scale that would effec-tively eliminate the disease in reservoir populations.

Clearly rabid insectivorous bats can be very selectively attracted and removed from bat populations and, since bat-to-bat transmission is the primary, perhaps only, way rabies is spread among these bats, this is signifi-cant. In some locations, Constantine noted that once a small number of rabid bats were removed, no addi-tional rabid bats were caught in those locations despite continued efforts, sometimes for a year or more.

Given the public health burden imposed by rabies and rabies-like viruses globally, the potential of these findings to contribute to human, domestic, and wild animal health seems huge. The bat ecology and wildlife health communities owe a debt of gratitude to Denny Constantine for his tireless efforts.

This article has been reviewed by a subject-matter expert.

WDA is all wildlife diseases, all con-servation, all one health, all the time.

To review Denny Constantine’s extensive bibliography on bat research, rabies, and sound, go to news.wildlife.org/twp.

http://wildlifesociety.org

44 The Wildlife Professional, Fall 2014 © The Wildlife Society

Discovering Life in the Smoky Mountains By Michael M. Schofield

MAJOR EFFORT TO TALLY SPECIES HELPS GUIDE CONSERVATION

Todd Witcher never dreamed that muddy creek water could be beautiful. He was therefore shocked by the colorful water-mite

ballet he saw in Tennessee stream water viewed through a microscope. Scarlet, orange, red, and yellow spider-like creatures danced under the lens. “It was amazing!” he says. “People love bears or love rabbits, but there’s a real lack of understanding about the interconnection of all things.”

Witcher acutely grasps that connection. As executive director of the nonprofit Discover Life in America (DLIA), he leads one of the nation’s most ambitious efforts ever undertaken to inventory every life form in one geographic region. For the past 15 years, DLIA has been working to catalog all species in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, an area that covers more than half a million acres in the Southern Appa-lachians on the Tennessee-North Carolina border.

Water mites, salamanders, bats, and black bears are just a few of the thousands of life forms that

Witcher and his team have catalogued in their All Taxa Biodiversity Inventory, the first such inventory attempted in the United States. So far, the effort has identified 18,200 species in the park, including 7,799 species that no one knew lived there and 931 species completely new to science. The organiza-tion hopes that discovering and understanding the park’s biological diversity will help prioritize conservation efforts and guide park management decisions—a hope that is starting to be realized.

Surprising Wealth of LifeWhen people think about a biologically diverse area, they generally imagine a coral reef or rainfor-est. But with its high mountains, heavy rainfall, and old-growth forests, Great Smoky Mountains National Park is incredibly diverse. This is due in part because the Southern Appalachians provide a wide range of elevations—from 876 to 6,643 feet above sea level—which can support myriad wildlife species. In addition, this mountain range escaped glaciation and ocean submersion for over a million years, providing a refuge for wildlife and ample time for species to diversify (Thornberry-Ehrlich 2008).

To understand this diversity, a group of more than 100 scientists, government officials, and educators formed DLIA in 1998. Since that time, more than 1,000 scientists and university students from over 20 countries have worked with the program, some spending months trekking through the park’s land-scapes to determine what species live there, where, how their populations vary throughout the year, and how they interact with other life forms. Informa-tion about each species is added to DLIA’s public database, which park officials consult for wildlife management decisions and researchers can use in ongoing studies.

The park’s impressive range of wildlife includes charismatic mammals and birds such as black bears, river otters, coyotes, and several species of wood-peckers and owls. Just a few years ago, for example, searchers found short-eared owls for the first time

Michael M. Schofield is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Michigan Medical School and science-writing intern at The Wildlife Society.

Credit: Phil Schillaci

Credit: Phil Schillaci

The sun rises over Cades Cove, Tennessee, within Great Smoky Mountains National Park. An All Taxa Biodiversity Inventory in the park—the first of its kind in the nation—is revealing surprising biodiversity, such as short-eared owls newly found in Cades Cove.

45www.wildlife.org© The Wildlife Society

within the park’s boundaries. The owls were found in Cades Cove, a former farming community that park managers have restored to a meadow. The subse-quent appearance of the owls and reappearance of other bird species to the area signal the value of such restorations and bodes well for future projects.

Less charismatic species like slime molds and beetles may not wow park visitors but are just as important to ecosystem health. “You really need to understand everything … within any natural area that you’re trying to manage … including the microbes, the worms, and the invertebrates,” says Rebecca Nichols, an entomologist for the park. Spe-cialists and trained volunteers have helped record many humble creatures that are completely new to science, including 270 bacteria, 78 algae, 58 fungi, 59 beetles, 42 spiders, 36 moths, 26 crustaceans, 20 bees, and 18 tardigrades species.

Whether species are new to science or just new to the park, such discoveries fuel searchers’ enthusiasm. For example, DLIA researchers discovered a new moth species from the genus Ligdia (Ligdia wagneri)—a group once thought only to exist in Europe. Scien-tists now believe the caterpillars of the species may provide an important source of protein for migratory songbirds passing through the park. Researchers also discovered that the southern tawny crescent butterfly (Phyciodes batesii macronensis) lives in the Great Smokies, a federal species of concern that scientists thought no longer existed in the region.

Powered by PeopleCataloging every life form in the park is a daunting task, but DLIA has an army of skilled volunteers to help with the effort. To date, DLIA has trained more than 800 volunteers—including students, teachers, and retired scientists—many of whom bring exper-tise to the process. Board member Charles Smith, for example, is a retired senior research associate from Cornell University with a Ph.D. in wildlife ecology. He and his wife helped document what butterfly species live in the region, and he is now working with a former student to compile a butter-fly field guide for the park.

The program’s volunteers have collectively spent more than 50,000 hours inventorying species in the Smokies and compiling and entering more than 500,000 data records. “I think one of our biggest successes … is that [DLIA] involves citizens to a degree that’s never been accomplished before,” says

Witcher. To gather its ranks, DLIA recruits and trains volunteers through its website and events such as the BioBlitz program hosted this past sum-mer, which focused on identifying fungal species.

Some projects require just a quick day of training on how to examine and label samples, while others require more in-depth field training or the keen eye of an expert. Fearing a lack of accuracy, some researchers have been hesitant to rely on citizen sci-entists in inventory efforts. Patricia Cox, a botanist and board member of DLIA, was initially very vocal against citizen science because she couldn’t imagine volunteers capable of collecting accurate data for her research, which involves cataloging fern species. But the caliber of volunteers won her over. “Once

Credit: Chuck Cooper

Credit: Chuck Cooper

Scientists Andrew Miller (top left) and Andrew Methven identify mushrooms at a BioBlitz event designed to teach volunteer citizen scientists about fungal species in Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Elsewhere in the park, students from Stone Mountain School in Georgia work with citizen scientists to identify, catch, and measure forest salamanders during a 2010 event (bottom).

46 The Wildlife Professional, Fall 2014 © The Wildlife Society

you see the quality of the people that are volunteer-ing, you just have to change your mind,” she says. She now hosts Fern Forays for DLIA that draw in a range of citizen scientists to help with the catalogu-ing process.

Maps to Manage Wildlife The DLIA effort is producing concrete results for wildlife management. After a landslide last year washed out a large section of highway, park officials wanted to act quickly to repair the damage but had to first conduct an environmental impact assess-ment. “Any time we need to reroute a trail, make repairs to a road, or do any kind of change to the en-vironment, we need to assess the project for impacts to the park,” says Paul Super, Science Coordinator at the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

Because the highway was destroyed in the dead of winter, the site was difficult to assess. But the biodiversity database allowed park managers to gauge what kinds of species and plant life inhabited the project area and helped them determine that the road repair would pose a minimal risk to the park’s wildlife. Construction went forward and was completed ahead of schedule.

Now, DLIA and park managers want to make the in-ventory database even more useful for management applications by adding its data to the geographic information system (GIS) maps they routinely use to study features such as elevation, temperature, rainfall, and soil characteristics in the park. This is an ambitious project, given that the DLIA database holds more than half a million records, but adding

these records to the GIS library will give managers a comprehensive tool to understand and manage wildlife in the region. For example, the new levels of data can help managers predict species distribu-tions in unexplored areas of the park. With enough data on a species, computer models can detect patterns about their preferred habitats and indicate other areas in the park that could support them.

Though this mapping program is still in its early stages, park managers expect the user-friendly maps will create even more applications for wildlife management once completed. Ongoing and planned uses include:

• Monitoring Invasive Species. Plans are underway to model what impact invasive species such as wild boars, green tree frogs, and rain-bow trout are having in the park. For example, managers are using the DLIA database and other data sets to create a distribution model of ash trees, which is showing what regions may be most threatened by emerald ash borers (Agrilus pla-nipennis )—an invasive species found in the park in 2012 and known to wipe out ash trees by the thousands. Paul Super says these types of distri-bution models help prioritize conservation efforts and predict where species will invade next. Plans are also in the works to develop a similar map of hardwood trees, favored by invasive oriental longhorn beetles.

• Discovering Rare Species. Efforts by DLIA and other research groups have also helped generate data records that will be used to model the distribution of endangered and rare species throughout the park and to help locate new popu-lations of rare species, such as the Indiana bat, northern flying squirrel, or Henslow’s sparrow. Park managers hope that limiting infrastructure and visitor activity in these areas could help pre-serve struggling species.

• Identifying Biodiversity Hotspots. Examin-

ing the distribution of multiple species on a single map could help park managers identify regions of the park that are particularly biodiverse, indicating which areas are of highest conservation value.

•   Guiding Scientific Research. Because the

maps provide a quick way to locate where any species can be found in the park, park officials can easily direct scientists to species they are inter-ested in studying.

Credit: National Park Service

Construction workers repair a highway running through the park that was destroyed by a landslide. Before any construction project begins, park officials use inventory findings from the Discover Life in America (DLIA) program to assess the potential impacts of repairs on wildlife.

47www.wildlife.org© The Wildlife Society

Ants are the species that most interest Nathan Sand-ers, an ecologist at the University of Copenhagen. Sanders spent ten summers studying the more than 100 ant species found in the park, working with a research team to examine how climate variations in the Smoky Mountains impact ant communities and the functions they perform. One of their most in-triguing findings was that a single ant species might be more important for dispersing seeds than all other ant species combined (Zelikova et. al. 2008). Their extensive research on ant diversity in the park is now part of the DLIA public database.

Beyond their value as seed dispersers—and as a food source for bears and birds—ants have the potential to be ideal bioindicators, which species manag-ers can use to monitor the health of an ecosystem. Researchers throughout the world have shown that the diversity in ant communities is often reflective of the diversity and abundance of other invertebrates, soil bacteria, and even plant and animal species (Andersen and Majer 2004). “When people think of management, they usually think of managing forests—as if a forest consists only of trees,” says Sanders. “But forests are what they are because of all the little things.” The park hasn’t had the oppor-tunity to use ants as bioindicators yet, but officials say that Sanders’ contributions to the DLIA data-base provide important reference points that wildlife biologists could use to monitor park ecosystems.

Looking to the FutureWhen the DLIA program first began, biologists predicted as many as 100,000 species inhabited the park—likely an inflated estimate, given that the pro-gram has catalogued only 18,200 species in 15 years. Park officials say very little scientific thought went into the original estimate. “It was basically some people sitting around a dinner table,” says Super. “We’re trying to get a more accurate estimate based on an understanding of the habitats in the park.”

Though biologists don’t have an updated estimate of how many species exist in the park, they believe most major species have been identified. Of those species yet undiscovered, many may lie in remote areas and remain elusive to cataloging efforts. For example, it takes several days to travel to the northern shore of Fontana Lake in North Caro-lina, or to areas along the Appalachian Trail in the northeastern part of the park. Distribution maps may help predict what known species live there, but they won’t provide very much help for any species new to the park or to science.

Finding experts to track and identify elusive species is a major challenge for any extensive biodiversity inventory because classical taxonomy is a dying area of study. Fewer scientists are being trained in how to identify species in the field based on their physi-cal characteristics, and most taxonomy classes now focus on molecular or systematic characterization, which limits researchers’ ability to identify species in the field. “If people aren’t being trained to make observations and to even notice that something is

different, how are we ever going to [understand] the biodiversity of the planet?” says DLIA board mem-ber Patricia Cox, a classical taxonomist and botanist.

In time, DLIA hopes to identify even the most elusive species. Meanwhile, the organization has been advising other parks and preserves on how to set up programs to understand their own unique biodiversity. More than 73 All Taxa Biodiversity In-ventory projects are currently underway, including Acadia National Park in Maine, Rock Creek Park in the District of Columbia, and Yellowstone National Park—all of which got the idea from the DLIA program in Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Some concentrate more on specific groups of spe-cies while others focus more on the citizen science aspect of the program to draw in park visitors. DLIA has even helped advise ongoing inventory efforts in France and Italy. Such projects could ultimately help researchers discover, understand, and preserve all of the planet’s diverse species.

This article has been reviewed by subject-matter experts.

Credit: Martin Nuñez

Ecologist Nathan Sanders searches for ants in the leaf litter of Great Smoky Mountains National Park as part of his long-term research to study climate impacts on ant species. Ants and other small species could one day help park officials monitor the health of ecosystems throughout the park.

48 The Wildlife Professional, Fall 2014 © The Wildlife Society

By Jessica A. Homyack, Sara H. Schweitzer, and Tabitha Graves

A CLOSER LOOK AT BARRIERS FACING WOMEN IN SCIENCE AND TECHNICAL FIELDS

In a recent study, researchers asked faculty in the sciences to review an application pack-age for a student applying for a lab manager

position. The reviewers rated packages that were identical, with one exception—the name of the applicant, which was either “John” or “Jennifer.” Reviewers were more likely to hire, collaborate with, and mentor “John” regardless of reviewer gender (Moss-Racusin et al. 2012). They would also offer “John” a higher starting salary. These results, and similar studies from other fields, illustrate the subtle biases women face in the workplace from both men and women. They also reveal inherent biases we all possess, while providing suggestions to overcome obstacles that keep women from advancing into leadership positions in the wildlife profession.

What Research Tells UsWhen we began exploring literature about women in wildlife and other closely related professions such as zoology and biology, we identified several barri-

ers in our profession—many of which we had faced. From receiving limited institutional support during and following pregnancy to facing a challenging transition in becoming a working parent, some situ-ations were not only stressful but even precipitated a change in position. Still, we love our chosen career and strive to improve conditions.

As scientists, we decided to address the issue by reviewing the literature—rather than relying on anecdotes—and summarizing the latest research on biases and barriers to women in wildlife and closely associated professions across employers. The amount and depth of research on the topic varied widely across institutions. Research was particularly sparse for non-governmental organizations, state agencies, and consulting firms. Most research also assessed broader groups such as women in science rather than specific institutions within wildlife biol-ogy such as academia or a particular federal agency. We combined these and examined 64 relevant published reports and peer-reviewed papers. Below are highlights of our findings:

Salary and Leadership. In our research we found that although reports of overt discrimina-tion have decreased over time (Ceci and Williams 2011), gaps between men and women still exist, particularly relative to salary and representation in leadership positions (McGuire et al. 2012). Across all institutions, women, on average, have lower salaries than men, but salaries are more equitable in state and federal agencies where this information is public and often available online or in libraries (GAO 2002, Reese and Warner 2012). Negotiat-ing for a fair salary is more difficult when you don’t know what your peers are being paid.

Further, although more women than ever are obtaining Ph.D.s, those in upper leadership posi-tions such as department heads, deans, and agency directors are few and far between (Kerr et al. 2002). This pattern also exists in The Wildlife Society (TWS), which has had only two female presidents

Jessica A. Homyack, Ph.D., CWB, is the Leader of the Southern Wildlife Program for Weyerhaeuser Company and a board member of the Ethnic and Gender Diversity Working Group.

Credit: Michelle Salsman

Credit: Jessica A. Homyack

Post-doctoral research assistant Kristen Lucia-Simmons studies the effects of biofuel production on rodents. Women in academia often face challenges when starting a family: For post-docs, only 23 percent of surveyed research universities provide unrestricted, paid maternity leave while 12 percent provide subsidized childcare (Ehm and Johnson 2013).

Glass Ceilings and Institutional Biases

49www.wildlife.org© The Wildlife Society

and only 10 percent female TWS fellows. However, numbers of women in TWS leadership positions are increasing, with three women serving as section representatives and two of three editor-in-chief positions currently filled by women. We view this increase as a great improvement, but recognize that a gender discrepancy exists in the membership (Nicholson et al. 2008).

In some cases, women are now facing a glass wall instead of a glass ceiling, where movement upward is inhibited by the challenge of getting a breadth of experience that comes from working on many different projects, potentially in multiple roles or in different locations (U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board 2011). For example, women may not be recruited, asked to change positions, or gain managerial experience, which further limits future professional growth. In addition to not being offered opportunities as a result of implicit biases, women often do not see or accept advance-ment opportunities that are readily available to them, sometimes because of real or perceived

conflicts with family life, lack of self-confidence in abilities, or because of lack of knowledge about available options. In her best selling book “Lean In,” Facebook Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg urges women to think of their career paths as a jungle gym rather than a ladder, with multiple, nonlinear pathways leading to the corner office (Sandberg 2013).

Family Life. The literature we reviewed identified limited opportunities for advancement and sig-nificant life events as two primary drivers slowing progress of women in the workplace. The study that had reviewers rate job applications illustrates one key factor limiting opportunities for advancement of women—implicit biases. Most of us grow up as-sociating women with family and men with career. Even if we value equality, both women and men can unintentionally make decisions that play into these implicit biases and limit women’s opportuni-ties for advancement. Shelley Correll, a professor at Stanford University’s Department of Sociology, says stereotypes like these are a natural shortcut to

Co-author Affiliations

Sara H. Schweitzer, Ph.D., is a Wildlife Diversity Biologist with the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission, Adjunct Professor and Graduate Faculty at the University of Georgia’s D.B. Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources, and past-chair of the Ethnic and Gender Diversity Working Group.

Tabitha Graves, Ph.D., is a David H. Smith Post-Doctoral Fellow at Colorado State University.

Career Life Cycle of Scientists

Overlap between career development and major life events occurs throughout the life of a wildlife biologist, but some of the greatest tension between the two occurs in early- to mid-professional stages. For example, as young professionals begin to start families, they’re often offered their first jobs as assistant professors or wildlife biologists—demanding roles. Research shows that household chores still fall disproportionately to women, often limiting their ability to advance in their careers.

Retirement

DevelopingCareer

Interests

Selecting Major,

Completing Degree

Graduate School

Post-doc or Temp. Position

1st Position: Asst. Prof.,

Wildlife Biologist, etc.

Assoc. Prof. w/ Tenure, Career Scientist, etc.

Full Prof., Sr. Scientist

Admin., Dept. Head, Dean, Director, etc.

Emptynest

Kids in college

Teenagers

Toddlers- young kids

Baby (-ies)

Marriage

Single

Foot-loose & fancy-free

Credit: Sara Schweitzer

50 The Wildlife Professional, Fall 2014 © The Wildlife Society

help us make decisions more quickly, but can lead to poor decision making, particularly if we choose a less qualified individual over a more qualified indi-vidual for employment or collaboration.

Many studies also reported that significant life events such as having and raising children are well-described barriers to both recruiting and retaining women in the sciences including the wildlife profes-sion (Ceci and Williams 2011, Ehm and Johnson

2013). We have seen and experienced the difficul-ties of managing parenthood with a demanding career, particularly in academic departments where female biologists with children are rare. From conducting remote fieldwork while pregnant to finding a way to nurse an infant despite frequent travel, some challenges biologically affect women more than men. As children mature, demands of childrearing change, but remain. Extra-curricular activities, sick days, and assistance with homework replace diapers and bottles and exemplify why a flexible work schedule can be so important to par-ents. Further, many of these life event challenges occur during the time of greatest professional growth. For instance, the period of time from graduate school to the first large promotion, such as receiving tenure, can have a great effect on future salary as well as the professional track taken, and this time period occurs when a person is likely

to embark on marriage and starting a family (see graphic on page 49). Hence, stresses of concomi-tant demands often result in nascent professionals dropping out of the career track completely or for an extended period of time.

Parenthood comes with a greater cost to women than men. Women with children were less likely than men with or without children to obtain tenure in academia or be promoted to higher, leadership positions (Ceci and Williams 2011, Goulden et al. 2011). Women who remain employed often face declining fertility and have fewer children than planned, particularly when they wait to begin a family until after obtaining tenure, career status, or other promotions. Although many organizations are slowly incorporating more family friendly policies into their structure—such as paid parental leave and flexible work hours—women generally provide the greatest amount of care for children or elderly parents in the household. Housekeeping, shopping, and other errands also continue to fall dispropor-tionately on women’s shoulders (Schiebinger and Gilmartin 2010).

Dual Careers. Women in natural resources were also more likely to have a spouse in the same field or profession (Kennedy and Mincolla 1985, Primack and O’Leary 1993). Trying to find two rewarding and challenging positions in the wildlife field in the same location can be extremely difficult, particularly in rural areas where job opportunities are limited. Often, women trail their spouse, potentially ac-cepting temporary or non-tenure track positions, or even dropping out of the profession. Institu-tional support for dual careers is rare outside of academia, and can be frowned upon as nepotism in the private world. For many couples, dual-career issues arise even before the first professional job as they search for graduate programs that meet both of their needs. Unfortunately, graduate students and sometimes post-doctoral researchers rarely have access to institutional faculty resources, although strategies exist for partners to sell themselves as an opportunity rather than a “two-body problem” (Homyack and Gorman 2009, Ehm and Johnson 2013). Wini Kessler, one of two former female presidents of TWS, suggests that the term “dual-career family” is often a misnomer. “Many of my peers have dual careers as homemaker and wildlife professional, and their spouse has a job too,” she says. “That’s a tri-career family!”

Credit: The Kalcounis-Rueppell Lab

Matina Kalcounis-Rueppell (left)—a biology professor at the University of North Carolina-Greensboro —and graduate student Melissa Vindigni remove a bat from a mist net during research on bats and water sources. Research on pay across scientific disciplines shows salaries for men being nearly a third higher than for women across institutions and tenure status (Holden 2001).

51www.wildlife.org© The Wildlife Society

Professional Relationships. Within the workplace, networking and collegiality among co-workers and col-leagues builds important connections that help with knowledge transfer, grantsmanship, and promotion to new positions. Some studies have shown that women, already minorities in the wildlife profession, felt excluded from formal events, such as professional conferences, and informal networking opportunities (Etzkowitz et al. 1994, Mason and Golden 2002, Sabharwal 2013). Often such gatherings were golf-ing outings, hunting trips, or fishing trips to which women were not invited, or that would be difficult to attend due to family commitments.

Potential SolutionsReviewing literature on implicit biases allowed us to reflect on why institutions function the way they do and helped identify potential solutions. These include:

Recognizing biases. Research suggests we can train ourselves to overcome biases by asking our-selves a few hard questions when choosing someone to work with in any capacity. The trick is to make the decision process transparent by first identifying the qualifications we want in a person for a particu-lar activity, then evaluating people based strictly on those qualifications rather than relying only on our gut feelings about a particular person. One way to learn about the degree of your personal biases about women and science is to complete online evalua-tions through Project Implicit, a Harvard research project designed to advance understanding of gender and diversity. Our own results suggested we saw stronger associations between women and fam-ily than with science and work. Incorporating these types of tests into institutional diversity training, followed by discussions, can build awareness and lead to less biased decisions.

At the institutional level, managers need to remem-ber that their organization’s goals can be seen as a business plan. All organizations have a product to produce, whether it is numbers of acres to place in conservation easements, numbers of large grants obtained, or numbers of students graduated. To achieve these goals, we need the best-qualified and

appropriately trained people on the task. Managers will only have the best and brightest by selecting from the entire pool of people, not a subset created by implicit or overt biases. One successful approach has been to make the decision-making process blind where possible. Malcolm Gladwell, author of the book Blink, which addresses various components of decision making, noted that in the classical mu-sic world, orchestras went from five to nearly 50 percent women simply by putting up screens during auditions (Rouse and Goldin 2000). A double-blind review process in our wildlife journals would help reduce implicit bias in publishing by removing the structural context for it (Darling 2014).

To attract and keep the best people, institutions and agencies need to provide an environment that promotes their productivity and removes extra-neous stressors. Goulden et al. (2009) discussed several family-responsive policies, benefits, and resources some institutions have begun to imple-ment to remove challenges and stumbling blocks or stressors affecting their bright employees and their productivity. Retention-focused policies include incorporating flexibility into work schedules and promotional structure, such as stop-the-clock timelines for life events, as well as on-site and emergency childcare. All of these actions cannot be implemented everywhere, but both men and women would benefit from their availability and would

Credit: The Wildlife Society

Wildlife professionals mingle at The Wildlife Society’s Women of Wildlife event during the 2011 annual conference in Waikoloa, Hawaii. Such networking opportunities allow women to share experiences with peers and generate professional contacts.

52 The Wildlife Professional, Fall 2014 © The Wildlife Society

likely experience less stress, be more productive, and be more likely to stay with the institution for the long term, which should benefit institutions in achieving their ultimate goals and objectives.

Turning to Mentors. One way to help increase women’s perceived and actual opportunities for advancement can be to provide well-trained and established mentors for new and early-career employees. Mentors can help hone career goals by providing their mentees with valuable professional tips such as negotiation and conflict resolution as well as effective ways to discuss salary and promotions. Mentors and those in institutions’ ad-ministration should be well-read in gender studies literature and understand how the sociology of work affects productivity and achievement of goals.

More research. We also need well-designed and thorough investigative studies to better understand gender dynamics in NGOs, state agencies, consult-ing firms, and other institutions that lack research on bias and barriers to women. At the Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies 2009 conference, state

wildlife directors approved a position statement on diversity needs, prepared by the association’s Di-versity Working Group of the Education, Outreach, and Diversity Committee. The statement acknowl-edged that workforce composition in agencies no longer reflects states’ citizenry, and that diversity of opinion and perspective will make decision-making richer and more effective. The committee is working on a white paper that will provide a well-prepared value and paradigm foundation for diversity in the workplace. Researchers must report similar initia-tives so we can better understand diversification efforts and learn about actions that work.

Networking Opportunities. Building pro-fessional relationships is critical for young professionals learning to navigate advisors, job searches, publishing, and interviews. Groups such as The Wildlife Society’s Women of Wild-life (WOW)—which we’re all a part of—provide mentorship through networking events and other professional activities. WOW has hosted hundreds of people at their events at TWS annual conferenc-es, and in 2013 held a workshop and a symposium where we presented our review of the literature on biases and barriers. We talked about how even small actions—such as complimenting, supporting, and promoting female colleagues—subtly remind us all that women are an integral and talented pool of individuals in the profession. After the symposium several people asked us for guidance and advice about difficult work situations. Additionally, look-ing around the room at WOW events and seeing our male colleagues and supervisors sent a power-ful message that many wildlifers are committed to gender equality and equity.

Removing RoadblocksAlthough barriers still exist for women and other minorities in the wildlife field, we hope that contin-ued progress towards equality in the sciences will speed up as more of us learn how to remove barriers and both individual and institutional changes are implemented. We anticipate that the continued growth of WOW, ongoing projects of the Ethnic and Gender Diversity Working Group, and strong com-mitment from TWS leadership to adapt to evolving membership will accelerate positive changes within TWS and the profession as a whole. In the words of Maya Angelou, “Ask for what you want and be prepared to get it.”

This article has been reviewed by a subject-matter expert.

53www.wildlife.org© The Wildlife Society

A Turkey Tale from MassachusettsBy Julie Duke

WILD TURKEYS IN BOSTON NO CAUSE FOR THANKSGIVING

Early one April morning this year, a bus full of middle school students in Ashland, Mas-sachusetts received a jolt when a 25-pound

wild turkey crashed through a side window, flut-tered around inside the bus, and died. No one on the bus was seriously hurt, but the incident shocked residents of this Boston suburb (WHDH.com).

Such wild encounters have grown increasingly com-mon in populated areas around Boston. Sightings of wild turkeys (Meleagris gallopavo) began escalat-ing around 2006, and by 2012 the birds had been reported chasing kids on bicycles, causing highway backups, and sitting on cars in the heart of Harvard Square. In 2013, Boston Magazine reported that turkeys “strut around in gangs” and “have attacked cars, cops, and plate-glass windows with disastrous results.” Some residents began arming themselves with sticks and tennis rackets to defend against the feathered “thugs.”

Today, Boston’s turkey flock has ballooned in part because of remarkably successful restoration efforts and an increased availability of food from people. In response to the influx, city residents have reacted with a mix of excitement and alarm. After several encounters with turkeys in the Boston suburb of Brookline in 2012, one local headline read, “Turkey Gangs Terrorize Boston Suburb.” Such hype may seem funny, but when wildlife poses a public men-ace, it’s no laughing matter for wildlife managers, who must decide the fate of the wild gobblers.

Return of the Wild TurkeyAlthough wild turkeys now abound in Boston, a cen-tury ago they were a thing of the past. Populations began dropping as soon as European colonizers ar-rived, leveling the birds’ forest habitat and hunting with unhindered abandon. By 1672, turkeys were al-ready rare in Boston and by 1800, they were rare in the state. Turkeys continued to disappear across the U.S. and in the early 1900s, only 30,000 individu-als, or about 0.3 percent of the estimated original population of ten million, were left (Smith 2006).

Much of the impetus for restoring turkeys in the state came from those who hoped to hunt them. Between 1911 and 1970, the Massachusetts Divi-sion of Fisheries and Game and turkey-hungry sportsmen made at least 12 serious attempts to bring the turkey back. Until populations took hold, the state enacted laws to protect introduced birds from overeager hunters. In 1966, shooting a turkey for Thanksgiving dinner would earn a $500 fine (Nashua Telegraph 1966).

Early restoration efforts—using farm-raised turkeys unprepared for the wild life—were unsuc-cessful until the the 1970s, when a wild stock of 37 turkeys from New York was released by the Massachusetts Division of Fisheries and Wildlife (MassWildlife) in western Massachusetts, where they thrived. The first turkey-hunting season since 1851 kicked off in the spring of 1980 and today, the species has spread to fill nearly all available

Julie Duke is a Science-Writing Intern for The Wildlife Society.

Credit: Krystal Cantos

Credit: Colin Urbina/Flickr Creative Commons

A gang of wild turkeys marches through front yards of the Boston suburb of Brookline. Unseen in the city for three centuries, wild turkeys began settling in yards and parks in the Boston area around 2006—posing challenges for residents and wildlife-control officers.

54 The Wildlife Professional, Fall 2014 © The Wildlife Society

habitat. MassWildlife estimates there are 30,000 wild turkeys in the state—the same number that existed in the entire country just a century earlier.

This trend extends across the nation. The wild turkey population in the U.S. numbers around seven million, and the total area of turkey habitat now spans every state but Alaska—more than that of any other North American game bird and larger

than the species’ historical range. The return of the wild turkey has been called “one of the most significant wildlife restoration successes in North American history” (Cardoza 2009).

When Turkeys Come to TownThat success carries a price. “They’ve come back, and no one knows what to do with them,” says Mark McCabe of the Animal Commission in Cam-bridge, Massachusetts. Calls about wild turkeys in Cambridge increased notably two years ago, he says, and now, “almost every community around here has been dealing with the turkey situation.”

For wildlife managers, turkey duty in the city involves responding to residents’ often confused or frustrated calls, informing the public of proper turkey etiquette (avoid feeding them, and frighten

them away so as to preserve their natural fear of people), moving sick or injured birds to rehabili-tation centers, and deciding when a turkey has become a menace that must be removed.

A highly adaptable species, wild turkeys find ideal habitat in urban and suburban areas, which offer a mix of open land for feeding and mating, covered areas for shelter, and trees for roosting at night. Bird feeders stocked by urban residents supplement the turkey’s diet of wild nuts, seeds, grasses, and insects. While poults are vulnerable to predators such as foxes and coyotes—a com-mon sight in Boston’s suburbs and occasionally in the city—adult turkeys have few natural predators and mostly fall victim to moving vehicles. Fur-ther, although adult turkeys can be hunted, gun laws prohibit shooting them within city limits. This lack of hunting and predators may even make cities safer than rural areas for the birds.

It’s a different story for urban residents and wildlife managers who must confront these large, hardy, bold birds. The biggest game bird in North America, wild turkeys can weigh up to 25 pounds and reach four feet tall with a six-foot wingspan. Despite their large size, they can fly short distanc-es at speeds of up to 55 mph and run as fast as 25 mph. “They’re about as big as a bird can get,” says Joan Walsh, director of bird monitoring at Mass Audubon. “For wildlife enthusiasts, a turkey’s a wonderful thing,” she says. “But to a suburban or urban dweller whose kids can’t get to the bus stop because there’s a turkey in the way, turkeys become another real challenging issue.”

The wild turkey is a social, non-migratory bird that lives in flocks organized by a “pecking order,” a hierarchy of dominance governing how individ-uals interact with turkeys of a different gender, age, and status. Male turkeys (toms), with color-ful red, white, and blue heads and long beards, are substantially larger than females (hens), which have brown feathers and blue-gray heads. When a tom gears up to fight, its head turns red, and it will kick to fend off predators, using the sharp spurs on the back of its legs. Individual turkeys that have grown unafraid of people might see humans as part of the “flock;” for example, people may be followed by hens or challenged by dominant toms—which can lead to unsettling situations between the birds and humans.

Credit: Bill Byrne/MassWildlife

MassWildlife biologists release wild turkeys on a farm in central Massachusetts in 1983, part of a turkey restoration effort. This is one of multiple in-state “transplanting” projects conducted by the state agency between1979 and 1996 to spread the population of reintroduced turkeys that had taken hold in western Massachusetts.

This article is open access online.

55www.wildlife.org© The Wildlife Society

Credit: bradalmanac/Flickr Creative Commons

Two turkeys—part of a larger group of 15 that migrated to the Brookline area in 2008—pick at trash on the side of the road. Though the sight of wild turkeys excites many urban residents, it frightens others, as aggressive toms have attacked and chased people when they exit their homes.

The job of managing this challenge often falls to the town police, who respond to turkey calls and refer cases requiring action to the state agency. As MassWildlife protects the birds as a native resident wildlife species, usually not too much can be done when a turkey decides to take up residence in someone’s backyard. Environmen-tal police are the only ones who can euthanize turkeys—and only when they are judged a proven public menace. “There’s not a whole lot we can do to prevent turkeys from living where they want to live,” says David Scarpitti, a wildlife biologist with Mass Wildlife. More than managing the turkeys, he says, education of the public is key.

To assist city residents, MassWildlife biologists have distributed recommendations for living with the birds. For example, they advise residents to remove potential food sources such as bird feeders and to cover windows or other reflective objects to prevent turkeys from pecking at their reflections. According to MassWildlife, people can establish “dominance”—and reduce the threat of turkey attacks—by swatting the birds with brooms, spraying them with water, and making loud noises. “Don’t let turkeys intimidate you,” MassWildlife experts tell residents (Mass.gov).

Easier said than done. Karen Halverson of Brookline, for example, has been trapped in her car and chased into the street by wild turkeys, and she finds MassWildlife’s tips for dealing with birds unhelpful. “The turkeys are not scared of loud noises and water,” she says. “There should be ways of controlling the population. It really is an issue.”

In late 2012, Halverson encouraged the town of Brookline to hold a com-munity meeting to discuss the turkey issue, in particular what to do about an aggressive gang of three males that had attacked her and others. Besides charging and scratching Halverson in

the street, the birds had chased a mailman into a resident’s home and pursued children on their way to school. At the meeting on December 6, about 30 community members testified, with some residents who loved the turkeys and others who wanted them gone. “It was a very conten-tious meeting, a lot of yelling and screaming,” says Halverson. In the end, public safety won. In January 2013, after a two- to three-hour wild turkey chase, Brookline animal control officers stunned one of the troublesome turkeys with a beanbag shotgun and brought it to a nearby vet-erinary school, where it was euthanized.

In his 2009 book The Wild Turkey in Massachusetts, wildlife biologist Jim Cardoza—a leader in efforts

Credit: Mark GarfinkelCredit: Mark Garfinkel

Two sizeable wild turkeys (left) wander the Harvard Medical school area in downtown Boston in 2011, fascinating a passer-by who stopped to snap a photo. At one point, police officer Shawn McCarthy (right) stepped in to help one of the birds safely cross Boston’s busy Longwood Avenue. A source of amusement for some, the presence of these large birds within the city can cause conflict and concern.

56 The Wildlife Professional, Fall 2014 © The Wildlife Society

to restore wild turkey in the state—addressed the increasingly unavoidable problem faced by wildlife conservationists. “Urban turkeys are a comparative-ly new phenomenon and will challenge biologists and managers for practical and innovative solutions which are acceptable to changes in public social

attitudes,” he wrote. “Persistence and a reasonable degree of tolerance will be needed.” Among poten-tial solutions in Massachusetts and elsewhere in New England: • Selective Culling: MassWildlife currently

recommends killing only the turkeys that become a proven danger to public safety, adding that this option rarely needs to be undertaken.

• Large-Scale Culling: Although this hasn’t been implemented in Massachusetts, in 2013, the New York Department of Environmental Conservation authorized the U.S. Department of Agriculture to round up and kill dozens of gobblers that had con-gregated on the property of a psychiatric hospital on New York’s Staten Island. However, the deci-sion caused a public backlash, leading to roadside and online protests. (Associated Press 2013).

• Relocating: Though this is a popular option among some wildlife lovers, MassWildlife does not recommend moving wildlife—in fact, relocat-ing any animal in Massachusetts is illegal. And according to MassWildlife, it is both ineffective and harmful to the animal. Further, big, flying turkeys are difficult to catch, and are only more likely to return to that spot at a later time.

• Public Education: MassWildlife believes the better the public understands the wild turkey’s behavior and natural history and how to interact with (or avoid) the bird, the more comfortably hu-mans and turkeys can live alongside each other. To spread the word, they distribute pamphlets, post tips on the Internet and social media, and visit municipalities experiencing turkey problems.

Overall, many wildlife experts in the area believe turkeys have integrated themselves into the city relatively smoothly. “It’s a great wildlife success story,” says Joan Walsh of Mass Audubon. Despite a few alarming incidents, she says, “I think people are living with those gigantic birds pretty darn well.” Walsh predicts that local populations of coyotes and fisher (which are also growing) may eventually keep the birds in check. Until then, she says, “as long as there’s food available and little patches of parks they can go to, they will be here.”

This article has been reviewed by subject-matter experts.

Brookline Animal Control officer Pierre Verrier (above) handles one of three troublesome toms that harassed Brookline residents in 2012. Following a town meeting vote to remove problem turkeys from the area, Animal Control (below) captured and transported one aggressive gobbler to a nearby veterinary hospital, where it was euthanized. The removal of this one hostile turkey helped decrease the aggression of the others.

Courtesy of The Boston Globe

Courtesy of The Boston Globe

58 The Wildlife Professional, Fall 2014 © The Wildlife Society

Last year, representatives of 14 working groups of The Wildlife Society (TWS) met at the Society’s annual conference in Milwaukee,

Wisconsin to discuss common ideas and goals as part of the All Working Group Coordination Meeting. This was the first time working group officers had the opportunity to formally present their missions and accomplishments to other working groups and to facilitate structured conversations aimed at increasing collaboration, bolstering member morale and produc-tivity, and generating a collective sense of purpose.

TWS currently has 27 working groups, many of which host meetings at the annual conference or other venues, develop position statements, and serve as a source of expertise for TWS in specialized fields such as wetlands, toxicology, and human dimen-sions. Despite different foci, the working groups have overlapping missions and goals such as establishing strategic plans, sponsoring workshops and symposia, compiling position statements, drafting charters and governance documents, and many others.

Unfortunately, opportunities rarely arise where working group leadership can formally discuss chal-lenges and successes, share new ideas or lessons learned, or foster and develop collaborations that benefit membership and TWS as a whole. “When I started the Early Career Professional (ECP) Working Group, I decided that I was going to try to meet with all of the working groups with a direct connection to ECP issues at the annual conference, in order to talk about collaboration,” says co-author Kristina Boyd. However, connecting with officers proved to be a challenge—one that numerous other working group officers also appeared to have encountered. In addition to logistical challenges, relatively special-ized interests within and broad foci among current working groups likely create natural barriers to the exchange of ideas and resources. Working group leaders and members may attend different confer-ences specific to their individual fields of interest throughout the year, with the annual TWS confer-ence being the only intersection. And until last year, structured sessions at the annual conference weren’t

available for working group executive boards and members to intersect, communicate and solve prob-lems collectively, explore collaborative opportunities, and share resources and ideas.

Inner Workings of a Working GroupMembers of TWS working groups will understand that keeping up working group morale and enthusi-asm can be a challenge. If you’ve ever had the fortune (or perhaps more accurately the misfortune) to start a working group from scratch you’ll know that attracting members, developing a charter, meeting your milestones for achievement of official status (which involves garnering at least 50 members and drafting a charter that’s voted on by membership and approved by TWS), hosting annual meetings, compil-ing newsletters, and other activities are daunting tasks that can quickly overwhelm most busy profes-sionals. Last year’s meeting addressed these shared challenges and experiences and provided an oasis of valuable information for all TWS working groups.

The session format was a hybrid of meeting styles composed of three segments during a two-hour period: an example of working group collaboration, individual working group presentations, and an open discussion of intersections between group needs or goals. In session one, the Student Development Working Group described its collaboration with the Early Career Professional Development group on a conference workshop titled “Behind the Scenes of Scientific Publication and Critical Review”—now in its third iteration. These two working groups pro-vided students and early career professionals with an opportunity to develop critical reviewing skills needed to participate in the scientific peer-review process. Similarly, the Military Lands and Renewable Energy group has collaborated with several other working groups on meetings outside of the TWS an-nual conference. These examples were presented as models for other working groups to consider.

In session two, each working group chair or representative delivered a two- to five-minute presentation describing the status of their working

By Andrew R. Little, Kristina Boyd, and Heath M. Hagy

TWS WORKING GROUPS SHARE IDEAS AT ANNUAL CONFERENCE

Meeting of the Minds

Andrew R. Little, AWB, is the Chair of the Student Development Working Group, Student Representative to TWS Council, and a Ph.D. student at the Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources, University of Georgia, Athens.

Credit: Gail Morris

Co-author Affiliations

Kristina Boyd, CWB, is President of the Montana Chapter of The Wildlife Society, Chair of the Early Career Professional Working Group, and Development Director at the Yaak Valley Forest Council.

Heath M. Hagy, Ph.D., AWB, is Director of the Forbes Biological Station–Bellrose Waterfowl Research Center, Illinois Natural History Survey, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

59www.wildlife.org© The Wildlife Society

group, membership composition, major accomplishments, major challenges, and other tidbits of information useful to the group. Some struggling groups were candid about the challenges of mobilizing their membership or recruiting officers, while other very active groups gave constructive examples of how they structure their board meetings and member communications.

Session three was the least structured, but perhaps the most valuable as groups brain-stormed extensively on a variety of topics that ranged from establishment of liaisons between working groups to scheduling working group meetings at the annual con-ference most effectively. Working groups quickly found common ground on impor-tant issues related to scheduling and recruitment and shared tips to improve overall effectiveness, including the following:

1) Meet at TWS Annual Conference. Working groups agreed that “All Working Group Coordination Meetings” should be a regular feature of future TWS annual conferences. To minimize scheduling conflicts, members suggested waiting to schedule a joint meeting after conference sessions have been finalized. For ex-ample, as students are an important part of the future of TWS, members suggested working with TWS staff to determine a way to involve the Student Development Working Group in the meeting and garner student par-ticipation. Further, according to Mike Mengak, Chair of the Wildlife Damage Management Working Group, “… there was a very strong sense of need that working group meetings should overlap as little as possible.”

2) Assign Liaison to Council. Members proposed recruiting a working group liaison to TWS Council as a means to provide information on how working groups operate, how they can be of service, and their special needs and interests to that body. In addition, mem-bers felt that appointing liaisons within each working group could help facilitate additional collaboration and resource sharing among each other. These liaisons would be primarily responsible for fostering informa-tion exchange between related working groups and identifying potential opportunities for collaboration.

3) Build an Online Forum. A working group of-ficer forum could serve as a valuable tool to increase exchange of ideas and share problem-solving solu-tions. For example, an officer who is considering organizing an event outside of a TWS conference

may garner advice from those who have detailed knowledge about how to sponsor an event success-fully under the TWS umbrella.

4) Encourage Participation. Virtually all work-ing groups struggle to motivate members to increase participation. The Government Affairs office of TWS is a great support resource for all subunits, whether sections, chapters, or working groups, and in re-sponse to our conversation will offer specific training for officers on member recruitment and engagement techniques at this year’s annual conference.

5) Improve Board Structure. Many working groups identified potential deficiencies in internal board structure and politics such as duty delega-tion, meeting management, and transparency. A potential solution would be to work with TWS Government Affairs staff to create specific board training opportunities.

A Valuable ResourceTWS working groups have the critical task of pro-moting and engaging their membership to advance science-based policies and management decisions within their respective sub-disciplines. As a result, the main takeaway from last year’s meeting was the need to keep members engaged. Working groups hope to discuss ways to achieve this objective and other shared goals at the next All Working Group Coordination Meeting at the upcoming TWS annual conference in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. We hope this forum continues in the future and that many of you are inspired not only to participate in a working group, but to serve on a board and attend the joint meeting in Pittsburgh and beyond.

Credit: The WIldlife Society

Members of the Native People’s Wildlife Management Working Group take a break from meetings at The Wildlife Society’s annual conference in Monterey, California. Officially launched in 1998, this active working group strives to increase cooperation between numerous government wildlife agencies as well as educate TWS members on wildlife management and conservation issues facing native people.

60 The Wildlife Professional, Fall 2014 © The Wildlife Society

Choosing Lands for ConservationBy David A. Bunn

TIPS ON EVALUATING CONSERVATION BANKS

Earlier this year, the Wildlife Society Bulletin (WSB) published a first-ever study of the per-formance of conservation banking—a program

that enables publicly or privately owned lands to be managed in perpetuity to protect species of concern. In exchange, owners of the protected land may sell conservation land credits to developers looking to offset impacts of developed lands elsewhere. Titled “Maximizing the Ecological Contribution of Conser-vation Banks,” the study (of which I was an author) analyzed the California Conservation Banking Pro-gram—the first such program in the country, launched by the California Department of Fish and Wildlife in 1995 (Bunn et al. 2014). Since then, FWS and numerous state agencies have implemented similar programs (USFWS 2003).

Conservation banking firms and wildlife agencies are now evaluating potential new bank sites to add to the more than 120 approved conservation banks across the United States that currently protect more than 100,000 acres of land. Our recent WSB study critically analyzes performance of conservation banks in the California program, specifically looking at how banks can help conserve the targeted species of concern and achieve regional conservation objectives. It also offers guidance on when banking is the right tool for conser-vation planners and practitioners—tips that could help wildlife professionals select sites with the best ecologi-cal values for future conservation banks.

Critical Role of Regional Planning When designated as part of a regional plan, conserva-tion banks can protect and enhance wildlife habitats and achieve other important conservation goals. How-ever, in the absence of regional planning, conservation bankers and wildlife agencies must rely on limited biological assessments, which primarily provide in-formation ranging from site topography and site soils to the life history and ecology of a species. Compara-tively, regional plans are much more comprehensive, providing analyses of regional connectivity and prioritizing which lands to conserve. Most conserva-tion banks in southern California protect habitat for reserves and corridors on a regional level as part of the Natural Community Conservation Program—a state-wide initiative to adopt a broad ecosystem approach to protect and conserve biological diversity.

In addition to biological assessments, conservation bankers might consult FWS Species Recovery Plans—created to inform management of federally listed species—if such plans exist for the proposed covered species. Although recovery plans contain information on threats to species and important habitat, they lack key information for assessing ecological values of sites in a region. For example, unlike regional conservation plans, recovery plans do not prioritize lands at the regional scale for habitat connectivity, maintaining biodiversity, regional representation of rare natural communities, or assessing the threat level (Noss et al. 1997, USFWS 1998, Margules and Pressey 2000,

David A. Bunn, Ph.D., is an Assistant Adjunct Professor in the Department of Animal Science and Researcher in the Wildlife Health Center at the University of California, Davis.

Courtesy of David Bunn

Credit: Wildlands, Inc.

An aerial view of California’s Liberty Island Conservation Bank—part of the federal Conser-vation Banking Program—shows created open water channels, tidal emergent marsh, and seasonally inundated floodplain habitats that serve as high quality habitat for native fish species in the Delta such as federally endangered Chinook salmon, federally threatened Delta smelt, and state threatened longfin smelt. California’s Conservation Banking Program, which currently includes 29 conservation banks, was the first such program in the country, designed to protect species of concern and enhance wildlife habitat.

61www.wildlife.org© The Wildlife Society

Calculating the Ecological Value of Conservation Banks

Conservation bank Acres (Approx. ha)

Acres rank a

Connectivity b

Connectivity rank c

Habitat diversity d

EVMe

Sacramento Region Orchard Creek 632.2 (256) 3 0.81 5 5.00 13 Brushy Creek 120 (49) 2 0.98 5 4.00 11 Agua Fria 1,824.5 (738) 4 1.00 5 1.00 10 Bryte Ranch 573 (232) 3 0.28 2 3.00 8 Pope Ranch 391 (158) 2 0.15 1 5.00 8 Haera Wildlife 299 (121) 2 1.00 5 1.00 8 Dolan Ranch 252 (102) 2 0.32 2 4.00 8 Byron 140 (57) 2 0.81 5 1.00 8 Springtown Natural

Community Reserve51.74 (21) 1 0.55 3 3.00 7

Jenny Farms 405.56 (164) 2 0.13 1 1.00 4Mean 469 (190) 0.60 2.80East Bay Hills Region Ohlone Preserve 640 (259) 3 1.00 5 6.00 14 Pleasanton Ridge 654.1 (265) 3 1.00 5 5.00 13Mean 647 (262) 1.0 5.5

Santa Rosa Plain Region Slippery Rock 38.06 (15) 1 0.47 3 3.00 7 Alton North 22.67 (9) 1 0.47 3 3.00 7 Swift–Turner 34.18 (14) 1 0.15 1 4.00 6 Alton South 8.11 (3.3) 1 0.24 2 3.00 6Mean 26 0.33 3.25

Southern San Joaquin Valley (SJV) Coles Levee Ecosystem

Preserve6,059 5 0.98 5 7.00 17

Kern Water Bank 3,267 5 0.70 4 6.00 15 Palo Prieto 2,226 5 1.00 5 3.00 13Mean 3,851 0.89 5.33

Southern California (SCL) Daley Ranch 3,058 5 0.79 4 6.00 15 Cornerstone Lands 2,600 5 1.00 5 5.00 15 Crestridge 2,355 5 0.52 3 6.00 14 Chiquita Canyon 1,158 4 0.89 5 4.00 13 Carlsbad Highlands 180 2 0.92 5 4.00 11 Heights Pala Mesa 321.3 3 0.77 4 4.00 10 Cajon Creek 567 0.70 2.00 9 Whelan 136 2 0.63 4 2.00 8 North County Habitat 14.15 1 0.54 3 4.00 8 Manchester Ave 123 2 0.29 2 3.00 7Mean 1,051 0.71 4.00

a Acre rankings = 1 for ≤ 100 acres (40.5 hectares) (, 2 for 101–500 acres (40.6 - 202 hectares), 3 for 501–1,000 acres (203- 405 hectares), 4 for 1,001–2,000 acres (406 hectares - 809 hectares), and 5 for > 2000 acres (809 hectares).

b Connectivity is percent of site edge connected to adjacent habitat.

c Connectivity rank: 1 for Connectivity= 0–0.2, 2 for Connectivity = 0.21–0.40, 3 for Connectivity = 0.41–0.60, 4 for Connectivity = 0.61–0.80, 5 for Connectivity = 0.81–1.0.

d Habitat diversity based on 1 point for each natural community representing ≥ 5% of the site, plus 1 point if the site has riparian or wetland habitat.

e Ecological Value Metric—The metric combines the 3 criteria of Acre Rankings, Connectivity Rank, and Habitat Diversity. For the purposes of constructing the EVM, the size and connectivity criteria are adjusted to a 1–5 scale. The habitat diversity values were unadjusted with a range of 1–7.

Lambeck and Hobbs 2002, NMFS 2010). Also, recov-ery plans do not designate a network of reserves or a financial mechanism for protecting sets of properties that together ensure habitat connectivity.

In the Absence of Regional PlansAs part of our recent study, we looked at the 29 conser-vation banks under the California program that extend across five geographic regions: the Santa Rosa Plain, East Bay Hills, Sacramento Area, southern San Joaquin Valley, and the South Coast. We then showed how three principles of conservation planning—conserving large blocks of habitat, maintaining habitat connectivity, and conserving habitats with high biodiversity—may be used to compare ecological value of conservation bank sites where regional planning is lacking.

We began by creating an Ecological Value Metric (EVM), which combines the criteria of site size, per-cent edge connectivity (the percent of the edge of the property that is adjacent to similar habitat rather than houses or other developed areas), and habitat diversity (as a surrogate for biodiversity). To construct the EVM, the size and connectivity criteria were adjusted to a one-to-five scale. For example, a site that was less than 100 acres scored one on the scale whereas anything larger than 2,000 acres scored five. Likewise, in terms of connectivity, if zero to 20 percent of a site’s edge was adjacent to similar habitat, it scored one, while if 81 to 100 percent of a site was connected to similar habitat, it scored five. Habitat diversity, scored on an unadjusted scale of one to seven, was based on the number of natural communities—such as upland annual grassland or vernal pools—that were found on the site. Although the habitat diversity value in our study never exceeded seven, it could exceed that number in other conserva-tion banking program regions. A site scored one point for each natural community that occupied 5 percent or more of the site. In addition, a site that had riparian or wetland habitat scored an extra habitat diversity point to account for the critical role of these wet habitats in maintaining biodiversity in all eco-regions of the state (Roberts et al. 1977, Naiman et al. 1993, Moyle and Yoshiyama 1994, CDFG 2003, Dudgeon et al. 2007).

Next, we applied the EVM to each conservation bank in California to assess its ecological value. For example, Sacramento Region’s Orchard Creek Conservation Bank—a site selected to protect vernal pool species and adjacent upland grassland—scored a total of 13, which is the sum of the size score of three (derived from the 632 acres), the connectivity score of five (derived from the 81 percent connectivity), and five points for habitat diversity.

When assessing the ecological value of a particular site, researchers considered factors such as site size, connectivity to similar habitat, and habitat diversity. Here, researchers compile those features to calculate the ecological value metric of 29 conservation banks spread across five regions of California.

Credit: David Bunn

62 The Wildlife Professional, Fall 2014 © The Wildlife Society

Based on our overall assessment of the California program, we found that site selection for conservation banks would be improved if wildlife professionals used standardized criteria such as the EVM score for site size, connectivity, and habitat diversity in their initial assessments. However, it’s worth bearing in mind that the EVM is merely a starting point for comparing sites.

Adjusting Site Scores Occasionally regional habitat conservation planning or a landscape-scale analyses may indicate that a specific site has greater regional conservation value than the EVM score indicates. The EVM may underestimate the ecological value of a site in the following ways:

• Regional analyses may show that a site with a low EVM score due to low or average percent-edge connectivity may still be critical for regional connec-tivity. For example, a site might include a segment of riparian habitat that connects a critical riparian cor-ridor across a region, while the connectivity score for the site itself may be low because most of the edges of the site are adjacent to developed lands.

• The EVM scores all wetlands and riparian habitats equally and does not differentiate between degrad-ed and high-quality habitat. A site with high quality riparian habitat or wetlands has more value than may be indicated by the EVM ranking.

• Similarly, the EVM values each vegetation com-munity equally. Sites with particularly rare natural communities should be given higher consideration than is indicated by the metric score. For example, a site with low habitat diversity may be a rare natu-ral community or provide preferred habitat for a rare species. However, in this case, the EVM would undervalue the site because it would score poorly for habitat diversity.

Based on our research, we concluded that regional conservation planning is ideal in fully assessing and

prioritizing the ecological value of potential bank sites. The relative size of properties must be evalu-ated against other large blocks of open lands in the region. Evaluating connectivity requires evaluating potential networks of habitat at the regional scale and understanding how diverse species of concern move between these connected habitats. In fact, biodiversity or habitat diversity is a more relevant concept at the regional scale. Although a site may have little habitat heterogeneity at the 1,000-acre scale, it may preserve an important part of a habitat mosaic and contribute to biodiversity at the regional level. Further, as we saw, a site with low heterogeneity and biodiversity may contribute to biodiversity of adjacent lands by providing the corridor between the two habitats or by providing forage for keystone species in the region, thereby benefitting many species.

Further, prioritizing representative natural commu-nities for conservation requires gap analyses at the regional and eco-regional level (Huber et al. 2010). Once such regional analyses are conducted, the value of natural communities can be compared among potential bank sites. However, where conservation planning has not been conducted at the regional scale, applying the EVM is a good starting point for compar-ing the ecological value of potential conservation bank sites. Once potential bank sites or reserves are scored and ranked, emphasis should be on making the case that a proposed site is of lower or higher value than indicated by the EVM score as compared with other potential sites in a region. The California study showed that without using a standard metric like the EVM, properties of low ecological value may be given undue consideration, rather than being rejected early in the conservation bank review process. As practitioners apply EVM metric methods repeatedly in a region, minimum guidelines could be established for regional EVM scores. Ideally, investment in conservation plan-ning would allow potential sites to be more thoroughly evaluated and ranked. Regional planning is especially critical for selecting bank sites or reserves if:

The Swainson’s hawk (left), San Joaquin kit fox (center), and giant garter snake (right) are all species of concern that have benefited from California’s conservation banking program. For example, conservation banks in the region have enhanced upland foraging habitat for the Swainson’s hawk while an increase in vernal and riparian areas provides critical habitat for giant garter snakes.

Credit: B. Peterson/USFWSCredit: Pharaoh Hound/Wikipedia Credit: Dave Feliz/Wikipedia

63www.wildlife.org© The Wildlife Society

• Species of concern are wide-ranging; • Target species rely on habitat connectivity; • Threat levels to target species across the region are

highly varied; and • Landscapes have numerous land parcels where a

bank could be established, such as in an agricultural landscape.

Limits of Conservation BankingOur California study also identified the limits of conservation banking as a mechanism for conserving species and natural communities. For example, con-servation banking is not likely to be an appropriate conservation tool where:

1) Location and size of conservation banks and species they cover are constrained by the lack of market for mitigation credits such as in areas with little growth and development including Modoc County and other parts of northern California outside of major growth areas.

2) Species of concern are threatened primarily by stressors other than development, such as water diversions, spread of invasive species, and habitat degradation. In California’s Mojave Desert region, for example, loss of riparian habitat due to groundwater overdrafting, habitat degradation due to off-road vehicles, and excessive livestock grazing threaten species such as the Amargosa vole (Microtus californicus scirpensis), desert tortoise (Gopherus agassizii), and Mohave ground squirrel (Spermophilus mohavensis).

3) Conservation of biodiversity is the highest priority. By focusing on benefiting a few species, rather than on conserving natural communities and ecosystems as regional habitat conservation plans do, stand-alone conservation banks are less likely to support high biodiversity or contribute to regional connectivity (Fleischer and Fox 2008). In Califor-nia’s Central Valley, restoring riparian habitat in addition to upland areas would yield the greatest benefit to conserving biodiversity. However, sev-eral conservation bank programs in the region are focused on conserving the kit fox (Vulpes macrotis) and Swainson’s hawk (Buteo swainsoni) and provide primarily upland habitats as a result.

4) Conservation banking is mainly designed to conserve species of concern and is not necessarily suited to protect rare natural communities, such as those on serpentine soils, from development. Also, the one-to-one mitigation credit ratio that’s typi-cal of conservation banks requires only one acre of protected land for each acre of lost habitat for de-

velopment, which could lead to unacceptable losses of rare natural communities if used as a principal conservation tool. To make conservation banking useful for protecting rare natural communities, con-servation bank programs need to have the flexibility to mitigate development impacts on lower priority habitats by protecting higher priority sites that have rare natural communities or greater biodiversity.

Conservation bankers and wildlife agency biolo-gists must work together to evaluate and negotiate the conservation value of potential new bank sites. Nationwide, most conservation banks are likely to be established as stand-alone banks without regional planning. Ranking sites by their EVM scores, which are based on information available to state and federal wildlife staff, provides a framework for evaluating banks where regional planning is lacking. The limited state and federal funding for regional conservation planning should be applied to regions with wide-ranging species of concern, high variability of biodiversity, highly varied threats to the species of concern, and many potential conservation bank sites—a formula that could maximize returns for conservation.

This article has been reviewed by a subject-matter expert.

64 The Wildlife Professional, Fall 2014 © The Wildlife Society

Sad Demise of the Passenger PigeonBy John H. Schulz, David L. Otis, and Gary E. Potts

LEARNING FROM—OR REPEATING—THE PAST?

This year marks the 100th anniversary of the extinction of the passenger pigeon (Ecto-pistes migratorius). Many accounts describe

the former abundance of this species, once thought to number three to five billion birds. A newly pub-lished piece in the Wildlife Society Bulletin notes how passenger pigeons must have appeared to Euro-pean colonists as “an inexhaustible resource,” able to withstand almost unlimited exploitation (Schulz et al. 2014). In 1860, a flock of passenger pigeons flying over Toronto was estimated to exceed one billion birds, yet within only 40 years the species had begun its spiral toward extinction (Greenberg 2014).

Regardless of who tells the story, it usually follows the same sad refrain: vivid descriptions of un-imaginable abundance followed by correspondingly unimaginable destruction and exploitation fueled by a lack of biological information, naivety, and economic motives. But we’re left to wonder: What can modern wildlife biologists and managers learn

from this bitter history, especially in light of today’s complex social, economic, and ecological issues?

Trip Back in TimeImagine traveling back to the late 1890s or early 1900s, somewhere in central Michigan or southern Wisconsin. On this fictional journey, we bring today’s scientific knowledge and technological tools with us. Upon arrival we find ourselves in the midst of a large passenger pigeon nesting colony, the birds in trees above us. We have to beware of falling branches, feces, and squabs too young to fly jumping out of nests. The noise is so loud we can barely hear each other speak. Passenger pigeons fill the trees as far as we can see. But as darkness approaches, we see torches coming through the forest, and we hear the loud voices and gunfire of market hunters.

By some accounts, market hunters could take from 1.1 to 1.8 million birds from a single nesting colony during a three-week hunting excursion (Schorger

John H. Schulz works part-time in the Department of Fisheries and Wildlife Sciences at the University of Missouri, retired from the Missouri Department of Conservation in 2012, and is a TWS Fellow.

Credit: George Andrejko/AZGFD

Credit: Ethan Beute

Described as a “feathered river across the sky” by author Joel Greenberg, passenger pigeons and their unimaginable abundance inspired many an author and artist, including Lewis Luman Cross, who painted this lyrical flock in the early 1900s.

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1955). Hoping to stop such slaughter, we talk with the market hunters, sharing de-tailed information about how passenger pigeon population growth rates must be stable or increasing for the birds to sustain such high exploita-tion. We explain how annual survival is a function of sev-eral mortality mechanisms, and how recruitment must at least equal annual mortal-ity. We discuss the species’ unique natural history—such as their single-egg nests, ex-pansive nesting and roosting colonies, and massive flock-ing behavior—and stress that high-level exploitation, along with habitat destruc-tion, could well extinguish the species.

Our scientific arguments go unheeded, and the killing goes on. We had been naïve to assume that market hunters who profit from what appeared to be a limitless resource would simply lay down their nets and guns to protect a species and forego their seasonal income. Often more than 2,000 workers were needed to process all the birds taken from a single nesting colony—including trappers or “netters,” workers to clean and pack the birds into barrels, and transportation workers for shipping the birds to growing urban markets. Passenger pigeons were big business creating needed jobs in rural America and resulting in immense profits—for some. In 1880, estimated income reported by game dealers in Michigan and Pennsylvania exceeded $100,000, with individual trappers making $1–$2 per dozen birds (Schorger 1955).

Though the odds are against us, we stay longer in the past to collect more data, develop more so-phisticated models, and write detailed reports in an attempt to reverse the species’ demise. We are, after all, armed with modern scientific knowledge about how to monitor populations using a variety of methods, ranging from low-tech banding studies using mark-recapture techniques to sophisticated GPS satellite transmitters providing real-time loca-tions of habitat use. We use this information in an effort to convince the public and politicians that they must reduce the level of unsustainable harvest

and protect forested habitat of the nesting colonies before it is too late. A few people listen to our mes-sage, but the lack of a national conservation ethic combined with understandable economic consider-ations result in no meaningful change. A few short years later, on September 1, 1914, the passenger pigeon officially becomes extinct when the last indi-vidual of this once unimaginably abundant species dies at the Cincinnati Zoo.

Lessons Gained or LostThe wakeup call of the passenger pigeon’s extinc-tion—and awareness of other unbridled exploitation of natural resources at the turn of the 20th centu-ry—launched a conservation movement of which we

Co-author Affiliations

David L. Otis, Ph.D., is affiliate faculty in the Department of Fish, Wildlife, and Conservation Biology at Colorado State University.

Gary E. Potts, CWB, is a Wildlife Project Manager with the Illinois Department of Natural Resources, Vice President of The Wildlife Society, and a TWS Fellow.

Credit: Wikicommons

Credit: From the collection of the Chicago Academy of Sciences and its Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum

A watercolor by James Pattison Cockburn done in 1829 depicts the large nets that hunters used to capture many hundreds of passenger pigeons during a single hunting expedition.

Passenger pigeon study specimens lie in a drawer in the collection of Chicago’s Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum. The breast meat and vivid feathers of these once-abundant birds proved an irresistible attraction to market and sport hunters.

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can justifiably be proud. However, when it comes to resource protection, there’s a fair amount of hy-perbole and shallowness in modern social-political discourse. Many current efforts at resource protec-tion are just nibbling on the edges of a set of wicked problems that rival the seriousness of the passenger pigeon’s extinction.

Today, as in the past, solving such problems is influenced by individual core beliefs, personal values, economic realities, and social and political pressures that are often at odds. Numerous recent examples include pitting hunting and gun inter-ests against thoughtful public discussions of the problems related to traditional lead-based hunting ammunition, commercial fishermen against ocean conservationists, and energy companies against emissions regulators. Among other pressing prob-lems, we’re seeing long-term population declines of numerous mammal and bird species (such as the black-footed ferret and prairie grouse) due to broad-scale habitat alterations, issues result-

ing from a rise in captive-cervid farming, political battles over adequate conservation funding, and declines in traditional outdoor recreation.

By their nature, such intractable problems defy simple classification, and dealing with them will involve much more than simply conducting more ecological or conservation research. Effective action will require a deeper understanding and acknowledgement of the importance of integrat-ing economic, political, and social factors into the conservation problem-solving paradigm.

Election politics complicates this challenge. All too often, complex and important resource manage-ment decisions are ping-ponged back and forth between political parties competing for power and control. Consider recent debates over gray wolf de-listing or the implications of the proposed Keystone XL pipeline. Politicians live to be re-elected, and public opinion matters to them because it is the currency of elections. The challenge we face today is that, despite advances in scientific understanding, we often are not capable of informing the public and policymakers about these important issues in ways that lead to long-term science-based commitments that last beyond the next election cycle.

Beyond politics, another equally potent factor that frustrates science is money and the politics of money. In the past and today, money rules. Commercial market hunters won out over the few voices of restraint long ago, and today we struggle to obtain minimal funding for conser-vation when millions of dollars are needed. For example, the recent Bipartisan Sportsmen’s Act (S. 2363) to protect and enhance opportunities for recreational hunting, fishing, and shooting failed on procedural grounds amid a flurry of last-minute controversial amendments. Two of the amendments were related to the Environmen-tal Protection Agency’s (EPA) proposal to clarify the reach of Clean Water Act regulations and remove the agency’s ability to regulate traditional lead-based hunting ammunition under the Toxic Substances Control Act.

Past experiences cannot provide direct answers to our modern problems, but they can suggest con-text and a general direction for the future. As we reflect on the 100th anniversary of the passenger

Credit: Louis Agassiz Fuertes

Natural history books help enhance our knowledge of the physical traits of passenger pigeons. In this illustration, a male of the species perches above the female resting below.

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pigeon’s extinction, consider if our current con-dition is little different than 100 years ago. At the turn of the 20th century, social-economic factors of market hunting and modern rail transporta-tion influenced decisions about the environment and attitudes toward natural resources. Market forces provided the financial incentives to kill as many passenger pigeons as possible in a single day and ship them to urban markets quickly and efficiently using the growing railroad infrastruc-ture (Schulz et al. 2014).

It is debatable whether or not we could have saved the species using modern wildlife science given the larger socio-political and economic realities. Absent more effective advocacy for our wildlife resources in terms of economic, ethical, and quality of life values, wildlife professionals 100 years from now may be wishing they could transport back to our time, questioning why we were unable to prevent the emerging ecological challenges of the current era.

Credit: Smithsonian Institution Archives

Martha—the last remaining passenger pigeon—goes on display at various museums. Her plaque reads: “MARTHA, last of her species, died at 1 p.m., 1 September 1914, age 29, in the Cincinnati Zoological Garden. EXTINCT.”

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As we commemorate the 100th anniversary of the passenger pigeon’s extinction, Aldo Leo-pold’s essay “On a Monument to the Pigeon”

stands as one of the most poignant pieces ever written about the bird that once numbered three to five billion and darkened the skies of eastern North America. Many know the essay because it is includ-ed in A Sand County Almanac, but that ultimate version of the essay has a little-known history.

That history began in 1946, when the Wisconsin Society for Ornithology (WSO) invited Leopold to give a 20-minute talk at the unveiling of a plaque for WSO’s soon-to-be-constructed Passenger Pigeon Monument at Wyalusing State Park. The plaque was dedicated to the last known passenger pigeon in Wisconsin, shot in 1899.

Leopold’s title for the talk, “The Path of the Pigeon,” was less prosaic than the one he was assigned: “The Passenger Pigeon as a Symbol of Conservation.” Those present agreed that Leopold used the talk to get a lot off his chest. His moving comments on the demise of the passenger pigeon segued into a sober-ing discourse on the roles of science and technology

in modern society and how they were affecting our relationship with the natural world—words we can still learn from today.

From Poet to FirebrandThe initial portion of the talk contained beautiful prose describing the passenger pigeon and its ex-tinction. “There will always be pigeons in books and in museums,” Leopold said, “but these are effigies and images, dead to all hardships and to all delights … They know no urge of seasons; they feel no kiss of sun, no lash of wind and weather; they live forever by not living at all” (Leopold 1946).

In a revision of the speech Leopold made these profound observations about the act of commemo-rating the pigeon’s extinction. “For one species to mourn the death of another is a new thing under the sun,” he wrote. “We who erect this monument are performing a dangerous act. Because our sor-row is genuine, we are tempted to believe that we had no part in the demise of the pigeon. The truth is that our grandfathers, who did the actual killing, were our agents … in the sense that they shared the conviction, which we have only now begun to doubt, that it is more important to multiply people and comforts than to cherish the beauty of the land in which they live. What we are doing here today is publicly to confess a doubt whether this is true. … This, then, is a monument to a bird we have lost, and to a doubt we have gained” (Leopold 1947).

Over time, Leopold revised the original script from his 1946 talk for inclusion in the 1947 WSO publication Silent Wings: A Memorial to the Passenger Pigeon (Leopold 1947) and then for what would become A Sand County Almanac (Leopold 1949). The title changed from “The Path of the Pigeon” to “On a Mon-ument to the Pigeon,” and though the first part of the 1946 script stayed largely intact through subsequent revisions, the remaining parts of Leopold’s 1946 talk were not included in later drafts. What he deleted is best described as a tirade, a rant against how science and technology were changing the world.

By Stanley A. Temple

ALDO LEOPOLD ON THE PASSENGER PIGEON’S EXTINCTION

A “Bird Lost” and a “Doubt Gained”

Stanley A. Temple is the Beers-Bascom Professor Emeritus of Conservation at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Senior Fellow of the Aldo Leopold Foundation.

Credit: University of Wisconsin-Madison

Credit: Staber Reese/Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources

A photo of Aldo Leopold addressing a crowd in the early 1940s captures the upright fire of this impassioned conservationist, whose talks and writings have inspired generations. Leopold’s words about the death of the passenger pigeon are among his most moving—and damning.

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For example, in his speech, Leopold disparaged the desecration of wilderness in search of natural resources. “At the present moment,” he said, “hy-droplanes are hovering over arctic lakes, sowing new Klondikes over the tundra, planting engineers and snowmobiles in the land of little sticks. These men have learned nothing from Darwin except the rule of devil-take-the-hindmost, nor do they feel nostalgic about auks or pigeons. To them, as to the Cro-Ma-gnon, the caribou is a cutlet, the musk-ox a steak. To them the barren-ground grizzly and the whooping crane are beautiful to behold … through a peep sight. These and other species, heretofore secure behind a fortress of arctic solitude, must now soon follow the path of the pigeon” (Leopold 1946).

He also decried our obsessive quest for a still higher standard of living, a theme he famously repeated in the “Foreword” of A Sand County Almanac. “The reason for all these developments,” he said, “is that they raise our standard-of-living. So they do—some of them. But surely there is also an esthetic stan-dard-of-living which is impoverished for all time when a species is erased from the biota, or when no raindrop can run unfettered to the sea. … I suppose it is impossible to explain this to those who do not know it” (Leopold 1946).

Concluding his speech, Leopold was most critical of the role of “power-science” and technology in shifting our relationship with nature in a danger-ous direction. “Time was when the aim of science was to understand the world, and to learn how man may live in harmony with it,” he said. “But science, as now decanted for public consumption, is mainly a race for power. Science has no respect for the land as a community of organisms, no concept of man as a fellow-passenger in the odyssey of evolution. Science has developed a kind of cosmic arrogance which in turn determines the content and direction of scientific endeavor. … We have taught science for a century without implanting in the mind of youth the concept of community with the land.”

Leopold’s conclusion held the weight of a warning. “Perhaps we have now to learn that preoccupation with mankind, as distinguished from the community of which man is a member, defeats its own ends,” he said. “Perhaps this monument is not merely a sym-bol of the dead past, but also a portent of a different future. Perhaps we learn more from the dead than from the living” (Leopold 1946).

Refined for the AlmanacIn his final revision of the speech for A Sand County Almanac, Leopold eliminated almost all his earlier dia-tribe, but he posited a basic premise of his land ethic: that we are members of a community of living things.

“We know now what was unknown to all the pre-ceding caravan of generations: that men are only fellow-voyagers with other creatures in the odyssey of evolution,” he wrote. “This new knowledge should have given us, by this time, a sense of kinship with fellow-creatures; a wish to live and let live; a sense of wonder over the magnitude and duration of the biotic enterprise… These things, I say, should have come to us. I fear they have not come to many” (Leopold 1949).

Have we yet, in 2014, gained that sense of kinship with fellow creatures that Leopold championed? His cautionary words about how far—or whether—humanity has progressed are still relevant, and the centennial of the passenger pigeon’s extinction provides a teachable moment to reflect on our rela-tionship with other species.

Credit: Wisconsin Society for Ornithology

A bronze plaque in a monument at Wisconsin’s Wyalusing State Park commemorates the last passenger pigeon killed in the state in 1899. Aldo Leopold’s 1946 speech given at the plaque’s unveiling was an eloquent warning about man’s debt to nature, role in its destruction, and duty as stewards of fellow species.

To learn more about the centennial of the passenger pigeon’s extinction, visit www.passengerpigeon.org.

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Leaders in the MakingBy Sarah N. Kahlich

HOW THE WELDER WILDLIFE FOUNDATION SHAPES FUTURE WILDLIFERS

T ick, tick, tick ... the hands on the clock turn agonizingly slow in the empty classroom. My heart quickens and my palms grow sweaty

with the anticipation of my impending thesis de-fense. Much hinges on my success. I was selected as a Welder Wildlife Foundation Fellow to evaluate the effectiveness of the fellowship program. Knowing my research could impact the careers of future wildlife professionals only compounds the level of stress I’m already feeling. Suddenly the door opens and gradu-ate students start to fill the classroom—the largest in the Turner Range and Animal Science building on Texas’ Sul Ross State University campus. I remind myself that confidence is key, take a deep breath, and begin my presentation—following in the footsteps of many Welder Wildlife Foundation Fellows.

Awarding Excellence I am the 325th Fellow to receive a graduate de-gree under the Rob and Bessie Welder Wildlife Foundation’s Fellowship program. The Founda-

tion—established in 1954—was the first non-profit foundation in North America specifically estab-lished to fund graduate student research in wildlife. Robert H. Welder established the Foundation in his will stating, “It is my desire and my purpose to further the education of the people of Texas and elsewhere in wildlife conservation …; to afford students and others interested in wildlife along with domestic animals, a place for research and an opportunity for the study thereof; and to develop scientific methods of increasing the wildlife popula-tions of the state and nation for the benefit of future generations ….”

A novel idea at the time, the Welder Wildlife Foundation’s establishment proved to be a boon for wildlife research. Students seeking masters or doctorate degrees were eligible for a full fellowship provided only that they didn’t hold an outside job during the fellowship and that they would submit two bound copies of their thesis or dissertation to

Sarah N. Kahlich is Staff Biologist I at Plateau Land and Wildlife Management in Dripping Springs, Texas and a Welder Wildlife Foundation Fellow.

Credit: Mandy Krause

Credit: Welder Wildlife Refuge

Robert Welder and his wife Bessie created the Welder Wildlife Foundation in hopes that future generations would have the same experiences they did of growing up amidst abundant and diverse wildlife. As a result, Robert Welder set aside approximately 7,800 acres of his property to serve as the Welder Wildlife Foundation headquarters (inset) as well as the Welder Wildlife Refuge that’s conserved and managed as native habitat for wildlife.

Credit: Welder Wildlife Refuge

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Author Sarah Kahlich (right) and an elementary student of Texas’ Sarita Elementary School release a mouse after checking traps for small rodents as part of their learning about South Texas ecosystems at the Welder Wildlife Refuge. As part of the program, Welder Wildlife Fellows who are conservation educators conduct outreach activities at surrounding schools and community programs.

the Foundation. In turn, the Foundation awarded each Fellow with a monthly stipend that could be used to pay for their tuition, books, and cost of liv-ing. Students are selected based on their GPA and GRE scores, character, ability, and merit of their research. Over the years, Fellowship recipients have conducted research in a wide variety of fields including animal behavior, genetics, parasitology, veterinary pathology, and wildlife sciences.

The Foundation not only awards fellowships to graduate students interested in continuing their education, but also provides year-round conservation education and field experiences to university undergraduate and graduate classes, public school students, and nature enthusiasts. Foundation directors conduct workshops for landowners, wildlife agencies, teachers, and the public. In addition, during its 60-year history, the Foundation has supported more than 2,000 scientific publications.

The Welder Wildlife Foundation headquarters and its associated 7,800-acre Welder Wildlife Refuge are located approximately 35 miles north of Corpus Christi, Texas. The Foundation is privately funded through endowments generated in years past from mineral royalties and cattle ranching and is man-aged by a director and an assistant director—all accomplished conservationists. The Foundation’s first director, Clarence Cottam who headed the or-ganization from 1955 to 1973, worked with the U.S. Biological Survey and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS), serving as chief of the Division of Wildlife research and assistant to the FWS director before becoming dean of the College of Biologi-cal and Agricultural Sciences at Brigham Young University. Cottam was also a close colleague of Rachal Carson and collaborated with her on her seminal work, “Silent Spring.” Cottam was followed by equally distinguished directors including James Teer—past president of The Wildlife Society and recipient of the coveted Leopold Award.

Currently, Terry Blankenship, an established wildlife professional whose research focus is on predator-prey relations and bobcat ecology in Texas, serves as director of the program. Selma Glasscock, also an established wildlifer whose research focuses on wildlife habitat management, systems ecology, and conservation education, serves as assistant director. Each director and assistant

director has dedicated their career to the wildlife profession and The Wildlife Society at different levels as well as many years to the Welder Wildlife Foundation’s mission.

A Closer Look at the ProgramIn 2010, I was selected as a Welder Wildlife Foundation Fellow to conduct a first-ever scien-tific evaluation of the Fellowship Program through a survey of former Welder Fellows. My master’s research project had two objectives: The first was to use survey methodology to evaluate whether the Fellowship Program had met its original intent of helping prepare graduate students to become future leaders in the wildlife profession. If the survey showed a large majority of Fellows felt they were not prepared for their careers, then differ-ent aspects of the Fellowship Program would need further evaluation to make necessary changes. The second objective was to determine if there was an interest in forming a Welder Wildlife Foundation Fellows Alumni Association.

Credit: Mandy Krause

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Welder Wildlife Foundation alum and past president of The Wildlife Society Wini Kessler, back in 1974, collects data from the Attwater Prairie Chicken National Wildlife Refuge near Eagle Lake, Texas for her Ph.D. project on Attwater’s prairie chickens.

I began by reaching out to Welder Fellows, which, for research purposes, I defined as individuals who received a Welder Foundation fellowship that supported their research. Based on that definition, we estimated an approximate 320 individuals could be defined as Welder Fellows, of which I located 248.

I sent them a survey questionnaire and of those 248 individuals, 41 indicated they were not Fel-lows (based on our definition), but had received other support in the form of lodging on the ref-uge during their field seasons or research support for supplies from the Welder Foundation. The survey evaluated multiple aspects of the Fellow-ship Program: 1) what career paths Fellows had followed; 2) what degree of education Fellows had achieved; 3) some of their experiences as a Welder Fellow; 4) their opinions about the Fel-lowship Program, the facilities on the Welder Refuge, and the assistance the Foundation staff had provided during the time they were on the Refuge; and finally 5) their interest in the forma-

tion of and participation in a Welder Fellows Alumni Association. What follows are some high-lights from the survey:

Degrees and Qualifications. Forty nine percent of fellowships were awarded to master’s students, 41.1 percent were awarded to Ph.D. students, and 9.5 percent of Fellows received fellowships for both their master’s and Ph.D. research. A majority (63 percent) of Fellows lived on the Welder Refuge in the Foundation’s graduate student housing while conducting their field research, thus many have close ties to the Foundation. Brad Strobel, wildlife biologist at Wisconsin’s Necedah National Wildlife Refuge and a former Fellow, managed to build long-lasting ties with fellow alums as a result. “I think the most beneficial part of being a Welder Fellow was how the atmosphere encouraged collabora-tion among students and staff,” Strobel says. “The conversations had over dinner, or while sitting in the screen porch listening to the paraques, not only improved each individual’s research, but fostered professional relationships and friend-ships that have endured.” Alum Louis Harveson echoes that sentiment: “The Welder Refuge was a ‘Grand Central Station’ for wildlife conserva-tionists across the world,” he says. “On any given day, you might be sharing the dorm or library with the Deputy Director of USFWS or an aspir-ing ornithologist or tiger biologist from India. As a Fellow, it was incredible to interact with such a diversity of conservationists.”

In terms of the number of Fellows who stayed in the wildlife profession after completing their grad-uate degree, 75 percent had careers closely related to their graduate degree and another 20 percent had careers somewhat related to their degree. Only 5 percent did not have a job related to the degree obtained while on a Welder fellowship. We didn’t evaluate the reason for them leaving the field.

Professional Development. The survey indi-cated that 43 percent of Welder Fellows have held or are currently holding officer positions in pro-fessional natural resource related organizations, and 41.5 percent of them volunteer their time to conservation organizations. This points to their recognition as professionals and their dedication to wildlife research and conservation in general. Courtesy of Wini Kessler

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A few notable Welder Fellows include Michael Tewes, Frank Daniel Yturria Endowed Chair for Wild Cat Studies at the Caesar Kleberg Wildlife Research Institute at Texas A&M University, Kingsville; past TWS presidents Paul Krausman and Bruce Leopold; and Wini Kessler, also a past TWS president, who received a Welder fellow-ship for her Ph.D. research on the Attwater Prairie Chicken National Wildlife Refuge in Southeast Texas. “I am forever indebted and grateful to the Welder Wildlife Foundation …,” Kessler says. “Although my study area was not on the Welder Refuge, my visits there gave access to amazing mentors such as Clarence Cottam, Jim Teer, and Fran Hamerstrom—and folded me into a network of wildlife professionals that endures to this day.”

Forty-five percent of Fellows indicated they worked at an educational institution. Of these, 55 percent worked at a four-year university or col-lege, 21 percent worked at a university-affiliated research institute, 11 percent worked at a two-year college, and 10 percent worked in other educa-tional areas. Thirty-eight percent of Fellows in the academic field are professors and 12 percent are associate professors. Research (26 percent), wild-life biology (24 percent), education (20 percent), conservation (15 percent), and ecology (9 percent) comprise the five highest ranking career areas for Welder Fellows. Community of Fellows. The last section of the survey inquired about a potential interest in forming an alumni association for Welder Wildlife Foundation Fellows, which would be governed by an elected board composed of Welder Fel-lows. A vast majority (82 percent) noted that such an association would enrich the Welder Fellows Program while 39 percent indicated an interest in helping create the alumni association. Goals of a Fellows Alumni Association would include forming connections among Fellows, providing mentorship or guidance to incoming and newly graduated Fellows, and assisting the Foundation in enhancing the Fellowship Pro-gram by helping develop partnerships and secure funding for future research and education. Lastly, an Alumni Association would allow Fellows to reunite with each other and the Welder Wildlife Foundation.

Building a Solid FoundationThe Fellowship Program was designed to help pre-pare future wildlife professionals for their careers in the wildlife field. Overall, 88 percent of Fellows surveyed strongly agreed the Fellowship Program is beneficial to the development of future wildlife professionals, and 73 percent strongly agreed the program helped prepare them for their careers in the wildlife profession. ‘‘The Welder has helped shape the conservation ethic in so many wildlife profes-sionals—not just the Fellows,” Harveson says. “The ‘Welder experience’ was remarkable and certainly laid the foundation for my professional career.” In addition, the contributions of the more than 325 Welder Wildlife Fellows to the field of wildlife re-search and to the profession of wildlife science have been staggering. But perhaps most important, the fellowship helps instill a sense of accomplishment and pride among fellows—all aspiring or established wildlife professionals—evident in Kessler’s words, “Once a Welder Fellow, always a Welder Fellow!”

Credit: Welder Wildlife Refuge

Welder Wildlife Foundation alum Brad Strobel examines a red-shouldered hawk as part of a graduate research project to understand the species’ annual patterns in resource selection. Strobel later worked as a biologist for Wisconsin’s Necedah National Wildlife Refuge.

For more information on the program, go to www.welderwildlife.org.

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Tracking Disease in the Great Lakes

When the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) began dropping dead loons into Lake Michigan, they wanted to solve a mystery that had caused more than 80,000 dead waterbirds to wash up along the Great Lakes shorelines in the last decade. Led by biologist Kevin Kenow, the research team knew the culprit be-hind the deaths was avian botulism—a food poisoning caused by ingestion of a toxin that paralyzes and drowns the animals. But they didn’t know the source of the deadly disease.

Kenow thought that tagging dead common loons with satel-lite transmitters and dropping them into the lake could help pinpoint where birds first became exposed to the toxin. He contracted researchers from Florida Atlantic University to take detailed measurements of the forces that wind and waves exerted on the loon bodies. Kenow and his colleagues are using this information to develop a computer model that can draw on weather and current conditions just before a carcass washes ashore. They hope to use that information to backtrack the routes that beached carcasses took through the water—likely to feeding grounds where the birds were first exposed to the toxin.

The idea for the drift model began when Kenow read about models developed for search and rescue missions. Other re-search groups—like the team at Florida Atlantic University he now collaborates with—had already used models to understand how ships, cargo, and people move through water. Kenow thought that the same kind of models could help uncover where waterbirds in the Great Lakes came into contact with the toxin. “The basic theories are the same,” he says. “It just hadn’t been applied to carcasses before.”

The computer model isn’t done yet, but the carcass experiments combined with extensive aerial surveys, migra-tion-tracking studies, and geolocater tags strapped to common loons’ legs have already uncovered surprising information. “… We’ve learned that [common] loons are further off shore than we previously expected and using much deeper water than we expected,” Kenow says. In all, the team has tracked nine loon bodies that floated varying distances, with some having trav-eled over 50 miles during the course of a week.

About half of all birds killed by avian botulism are loons. The birds’ deep diving depths may help explain why they are so susceptible to the toxin. The bacterium that makes the toxin—Clostridium botulinum—prefers low oxygen environ-ments like those found in the muddy bottoms of lakes and ponds. One theory is fish feed on invertebrates at the bottom

of the lake that have been exposed to the toxin. Loons may forage for fish at deeper depths, putting them at greater risk for the disease.

The big question is whether all of the outbreaks in the region can be traced back to a single foraging site. “In an ideal world … it all coalesces in one really tight spot out in the middle of the lake and then we know that’s where to focus our manage-ment efforts,” says Jennifer Chipault, a wildlife biologist at USGS National Wildlife Health Center. “In reality it’ll probably be a lot messier than that, because [avian botulism] seems to be a widespread problem throughout northern Lake Michigan. We’ll just have to wait and see.”

Management options could include things like keeping birds away from dangerous foraging areas with buoys or noise. “But until we know more about the root of the problem, we won’t know about the feasibility of the management options,” Chipault says.

New Wetland Mapping Tool

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) recently an-nounced the completion of a 35-year-long effort to map out wetlands across the United States. The Service’s online tool—the Wetlands Inventory Mapper—is the most comprehensive and detailed map of U.S. wetlands to date, covering 210

T H E W I L D L I F E S O C I E T Y

FIELD NOTES

Credit: Steve Maanum

A female common loon—tagged with a geolocator—lays an egg on her shoreline nest. The geolocator tags help biologist Kevin Kenow and colleagues uncover where waterbirds are exposed to avian botulism.

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FIELD NOTES

million acres of wetland from across the entirety of the lower 48 states as well as Hawaii, dependent territories, and over a third of Alaska.

“For the first time ever, we have an inventory of wetlands by acres, by size, for the lower 48,” says Rusty Griffin, a physical scientist at FWS. “This is the first time we’ve actually answered the questions, how many wetlands there are and how many of each type there are, without relying on sampling models.”

To further the protection and conservation of wetlands, FWS used data collected from aerial imagery and field work to cre-ate a digital, interactive map of the nation’s swamps, marshes, and bogs including the type, size, and location of each wetland resource as well as deep-water habitats.

The tool is simple: Zooming in on the map or typing an ad-dress in the search bar displays an aerial view of the location. Patches colored in light greens or blues indicate different types of wetlands, bright blue represents rivers, and dark blue signifies lakes. Clicking on a light green area, which represents a freshwater emergent wetland, for example, produces a box with details including its size in acres, a classification code denoting physical characteristics such as salinity and vegeta-tion, and the date the aerial image was taken. Biologists and managers use wetland maps for designing wildlife corridors,

surveying wildlife populations, and analyzing environmental status and trends related to climate change.

Although wetlands make up only about five percent of U.S. landmass, they serve as critical habitats for thousands of species of animals and plants, constitute some of the most biologi-cally diverse communities in the world, and hold economic and cultural value. Wetlands act as stopover sites for migratory birds such as northern pintails and whooping cranes, and species such as muskrats and cattails depend on these habitats. They also provide valuable services such as flood control, water purifica-tion, nutrient recycling, and groundwater supplies, as well as recreational areas for hunting, hiking, birding, and fishing.

However, the country’s wetlands have been rapidly declining due to agriculture, development, and climate change-related events including severe storms, sea level rise, and droughts. Between 2004 and 2009, approximately 80,160 acres of wet-lands were lost in coastal watersheds, according to a FWS news release. A detailed, accessible map of the nation’s waters and wetlands provides an invaluable resource to landowners, city planners, conservation organizations, and researchers in their efforts to assess, preserve, and utilize wetlands. “Over the years there was really no easy way to get wetland maps into people’s hands,” says Mark Biddle, environmental

scientist at the Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control (DNREC). “This technology has really helped us educate landowners about what’s on their property and the importance of wetlands. It’s something that I use just about every day,” Biddle said.

Although the map is now complete for the contiguous U.S., FWS is continually updating and remapping to improve the tool’s accuracy. Much of the current imagery was collected in the 1980s and ‘90s, so the next step is to acquire new images and data that better reflect the current landscape.

The FWS established the National Wetlands Inventory (NWI) program in 1974, and it has become one of the oldest and most frequently used government mapping resources. The tool is available for public use on the FWS National Wetlands Inventory website, and its data can be downloaded, viewed on other software applica-tions, and integrated into Google Earth.

Credit: USFWS

This zoom-in on the National Wetlands Inventory Mapper reveals the types of wetlands in an area north of San Francisco including estuarine/marine wetlands (light turquoise), freshwater emergent wetlands (light green), and lakes (dark blue). By zooming in on the map and selecting among six different layers of data, users can quickly locate wetlands and other bodies of water across the U.S.

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T H E W I L D L I F E S O C I E T Y

Ralph TownWildlife biologist Ralph Town passed away on March 25. He was 80.

Born and raised in New Lothrup, Michi-gan, Town earned a bachelor’s degree in biology at Central Michigan University. After serving 13 months in Korea for the U.S. Army, Town went on to get a mas-ter’s degree in wildlife management at

the University of Michigan. In 1959, Town joined the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, where he stayed on for 30 years working in various branches of the Service as assistant refuge manager at wildlife refuges in Michigan and Minnesota and area biolo-gist in offices in the Dakotas.

After retiring to Brookings, South Dakota in 1989, Town continued to dedicate his time to wildlife. He volunteered at the Brookings Wildlife Federation and the Audubon Society. Town also mentored wildlife management students at South Dakota State University. “Ralph was liked and loved by ev-erybody he met,” says Ken Higgins, a former wildlife research biologist and professor emeritus at South Dakota State Uni-versity, who learned how to band ducks and geese from Town.

Town was also passionate about citizen science. He helped conduct and train others to do bird counts; recorded ice ap-pearances and disappearances on a nearby lake for 20 years as part of climate change studies; and collected lake water samples for South Dakota Water Watch, a network of citizen volunteers who gather water quality data on the state’s riv-ers, lakes, and streams. He also actively promoted the South Dakota Wildlife Federation’s Youth Conservation Camp, encouraging youth to attend.

Known as the “Lake Campbell Naturalist,” Town was famous for observing the lake and wildlife from his window and writ-ing about his observations in the Lake Campbell Sportsmen’s Club newsletter. He always kept a microscope, binoculars, and spotting scope within reach.

Herman Ogren Herman “Doc” Ogren, a field biologist, professor, and 54-year member of The Wildlife Society, passed away on January 12 at age 88.

Originally from Wisconsin, Ogren en-tered the Army Air Corps during WWII as

a pilot navigator at age 17, earning a Bronze Star after injuring and eventually losing his right leg below the knee in a plane crash. Never deterred by the injury, on returning home Ogren pursued a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Wisconsin followed by a master’s degree in wildlife technology from the University of Montana. He spent the next few years at the University of Southern California studying barbary sheep (Ammotragus lervia) in New Mexico as part of a doc-torate in biology and mammology, which he earned in 1962.

During the course of his career, Ogren taught biology at the University of North Carolina, Raleigh and Illinois’ Elmhurst College in addition to serving as deputy marshal and field biologist for the U.S. Fish and Game Department in New Mexico. He also taught anthropology, comparative anatomy, astronomy, and even ocean scuba diving at Carthage College in his hometown of Kenosha, Wisconsin, bringing students to the Florida Keys and Caribbean for lessons. His enthusiasm for his subjects and students made him a popular professor, influencing many to enter professions in conservation and the earth sciences over his 34-year career at Carthage.

“Doc didn’t just teach biology; he experienced biology,” says Fred Genthner, a research microbiologist with the Environ-mental Protection Agency and a former student at Carthage College, who enrolled in as many classes with Ogren as he could. “I’m sure he inspired everybody who had him.” In Genthner’s words, Ogren was “a real hands-on biologist,” who brought students on frequent field trips to learn science out-side of the classroom—whether to sewage treatment plants, breweries, or canoeing trips. He retired as a professor in 1998 and moved to Lake City, Florida in 2006.

Paul Minnamon The wildlife profession lost wildlife biolo-gist, teacher, and longtime member of The Wildlife Society Paul Minnamon on December 24, 2013. He was 82.

Minnamon was born in 1931 in New York. After finishing high school in 1950, he en-listed in the Air Force. He served for four years as a radio operator and repairper-

son before earning an honorable discharge as a Staff Sergeant.

Minnamon then moved to Tucson and attended the University of Arizona, where he received bachelor’s and master’s degrees in wildlife management. His graduate dissertation examined the range of the collared peccary in the Tucson Mountains.

IN MEMORY

Credit: Jenny Hanke

Courtesy of Ken Higgins

Courtesy of Karen Garren

79www.wildlife.org© The Wildlife Society

After completing his master’s degree in 1963, Minnamon worked for Arizona Game and Fish as a fish biologist and Regional Fish Manager. He then began teaching science courses at Sahuaro High School and the Tucson Unified School District. Minnamon also organized short courses for his students on scientific topics that textbooks only glossed over, such as genetics or ecology. He was a dedicated teacher and eventually went on to become a department chairman.

“He was more than a colleague,” says Carol Proctor, a teacher who began her career under Minnamon’s tutelage. “My entire teaching career was shaped by his influence. He was truly a great man.” Minnamon retired in 1989 after 24 years of teaching service.

Albert EricksonAlbert W. Erickson, a leading expert in bear biology and wildlife management, died October 27, 2013. He was 84.

Born in Chicago in 1929 and raised in Michigan, Erickson received his Bachelor of Science and Doctor-ate of Philosophy from Michigan State University. He held various

wildlife-related positions at multiple institutions, in-cluding Associate Professor with the University of Idaho in Moscow, Curator of Mammals for the University of Minnesota’s Bell Museum, and Regional Director of Fish and Game in Anchorage, Alaska.

From 1975 to 1993, he worked as a professor in the Depart-ment of Fisheries at the University of Washington. There, he conducted seven research tours to Antarctica to study killer whales, Antarctic seals, and other marine mammals. In honor of his efforts, the Advisory Committee on Antarctic Names designated a series of bluffs in Antarctica the “Erick-son Bluffs.” During his career, Erickson wrote several books on bears, including black bears in Alaska and in Michigan. In addition to teaching, Erickson also served for a time as Mayor of Yarrow Point, Washington.

Erickson was renowned for his colorful, direct personality and exciting research adventures. “When he got back from field season in Alaska, we’d gather around the lunch room for the latest from the ‘Tales of Erickson,’” recalls Marcus Duke, a former colleague at the University of Washington. “It was always an adventure with Al,” says Brad Hanson, a

former student and colleague who shared multiple research trips with Erickson. “He was absolutely fearless in the field.”

He retired in 1993 to Monroe, Washington and went on to become a farmer, rancher, hunting club owner, and track and field star—earning the titles of Washington State, U.S. and World Champion for his age group.

  Brian HoffmannBrian Hoffmann, a prominent wild-life and wetlands biologist, died on June 15, 2013. He was 55.

Born and raised in New York, Hoff-mann received a bachelor’s degree in zoology and animal biology from the State University of New York (SUNY) at Stony Brook and a mas-ter’s degree in wildlife biology from SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry at Syracuse.

Hoffmann began his career in New York and Rhode Island before relocating to California in 1987. In 1994, he started directing all biological studies in support of the Statewide Electrified Fence Project in California. His wildlife exper-tise helped guide the $5 million dollar project and one of the largest and most complex Habitat Conservation Plans (HCPs) ever prepared.

Hoffmann went on to manage wildlife studies, prepare Bio-logical Assessments, and HCPs for projects throughout the United States. In 2008, he began working as Senior Wildlife and Wetlands Biologist with Cardno-TEC—a consulting company—where he also worked as a National Environmen-tal Policy Act project manager. He assisted in a wide variety of projects, like helping the Department of Defense become more reliant on renewable energy sources and assessing the impact of oil and gas wells on wetland habitats.

“He was a warm and sweet person,” says Marion Fischel, a former advisor at Cardno-TEC. “He was a great biologist and really knew wildlife. He was committed to educating anyone who was willing to listen about waterfowl, raptors, or pretty much anything.” Hoffmann even taught schoolchildren about nature and ecology and led wildlife tours at the local Nature Center as a volunteer with the Audubon Society of Greater Denver. His collective professional and volunteer endeavors left a lasting mark on the wildlife profession.

Courtesy of Linda Hoffmann

Courtesy of Monroe Monitor Archives

80 The Wildlife Professional, Fall 2014 © The Wildlife Society

(Top) Common tern (Sterna hirundo). Credit: Dan Hayward. (Below left) Honduras Spikethumb frog (Plectrohyla dasypus). Credit: Damon Yeh. (Below right) Florida red-bellied cooter (Pseudemys nelsoni). Credit: John P. Hayes.

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