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The Maryland Teaming With Wildlife Coalition poses with Naomi Edelson, the Senior Manager of State Wildlife Programs for the National Wildlife Federation, after being honored at this year’s Teaming With Wildlife Fly-in Reception. From left to right: Glenn Therres, Naomi Edelson, Laura Bies, Jim Rapp (Credit: Maryland Teaming With Wildlife Coalition)

The Wildlife Society participated this month in the 2013 Teaming With Wildlife Fly-in. Teaming With Wildlife is the largest and most diverse wildlife conservation coalition in the United States with over 6,300 members nationwide consisting of organizations, agencies, and businesses. This annual event gathers coalition members from across the United States to inform Members of Congress about the value of the State and Tribal Wildlife Grants Program. This program is the core source of funding for managing non-game and non-endangered species. These grants provide each state with approximately $1 million annually to develop and implement State Wildlife Action Plans and thus are crucial in preventing wildlife from becoming endangered and in promoting collaborative conservation projects.

The State and Tribal Wildlife Grants are a small investment compared to the expense associated with the listing of a species for protection under the Endangered Species Act. According to the Government Accountability Office, the average cost of recovering a single species listed under the Endangered Species Act is $15.9 million, with a range of $58,000 to $125 million.

Since 2001, this grant program has provided over $400 million in federal grants that have been matched by at least $200 million in state funds to make available over $600 million in new funding for practical, on-the-ground conservation efforts. However, the level of appropriated funding has decreased by over 30 percent between 2010 and 2012. With sequestration taking effect, any further cuts to the State and Tribal Wildlife Grants program will adversely impact efforts made to preclude species at risk from being listed under the Endangered Species Act by reducing on-the-ground management and monitoring, decreasing invasive species control efforts, garnering fewer dollars in matching funds, and reducing the ability to provide technical assistance to private landowners.

Hellbender (Cryptobranchus alleganiensis) (Credit: Jill Utrip/USFWS)

The Teaming With Wildlife Coalition, along with the Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies, honored Senators Dick Durbin (IL) and Saxby Chambliss (GA), Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro (CT), and Congressman Jim Gerlach (PA) at this year’s event for their efforts in supporting conservation of at risk species and State and Tribal Wildlife Grants. Additionally, the Teaming With Wildlife Maryland Coalition was recognized for their year-round-efforts to maintain effective relationships with their Congressional delegation as well as promoting Teaming With Wildlife to the Maryland Sate Congress. The Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency and the Tennessee Hellbender Recovery Partnership were also acknowledged for their use of State and Tribal Wildlife Grant funds in the development of both a new environmental DNA protocol for the efficient monitoring of hellbender presence and a new sampling protocol to increase the understanding about the impacts of ranaviruses and chytrid fungus.

Over 70 individuals representing 32 states, 17 state agencies, 22 non-profit organizations, three universities, and two private businesses participated in this year’s fly-in and expressed their support for continued funding of The State and Tribal Wildlife Grant Program. To learn more about State and Tribal Wildlife Grants, state action plans, or how to get involved in your state, visit the Teaming With Wildlife website.

Sources: Teaming With Wildlife Coalition, Government Accountability Office report GAO-06-463R, The Outdoor Wire (March 15, 2013)

Wildlife professionals mingle at The Wildlife Society’s 2012 annual conference. TWS and other professional societies rely on diverse leadership involvement from federal, state, and private sectors. (Credit: Ben Wasserman/TWS)

Beginning April 5, 2013, federal employees will once again have the opportunity to serve as officers, directors, or trustees of nonprofit organizations without fear of violating a federal criminal statute. A new amendment to the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) marks the end of a 15-year effort by The Wildlife Society and other professional societies to reverse a roadblock to professional development and collaboration.

“Federal agencies are an important source of highly-qualified volunteers to serve in leadership positions, and agency assistance with travel costs certainly helps with budgetary bottom lines,” said Wini Kessler, TWS President. “Government employee participation is vitally important for The Wildlife Society and other non-profit societies.”

The CFR amendment (5 CFR 2640) changes the interpretation of statute 18 U.S.C. 208(a), which prohibits federal employees from serving in leadership positions with organizations where that service may result in a conflict of interest with their federal employer. In 1996, the Department of Justice interpreted the statute to mean that federal employees couldn’t participate in any official capacity for nonprofit organizations, even when a conflict of interest did not exist. Under the statute, waivers for participation could and were issued, but the waiver process was not standardized across agencies. Some agencies, including the National Institutes of Health, issued waivers freely. Others, such as the U.S. Department of Agriculture, denied waivers in most cases, and some failed to alert their employees at all that serving on nonprofit boards could result in criminal prosecution.

TWS and dozens of scientific societies have battled for the amendment since 1998, meeting with the Office of Government Ethics (OGE), the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, and the Office of Personnel Management. The latter two agencies recognized that the statute’s restrictions made it difficult for the federal government to retain talented scientists by denying those scientists opportunities for career development through leadership roles in professional societies. In turn, societies faced a shortage of representation from the federal sector.

The battle was won on March 6, when the OGE issued a final rule that amends how the statute is interpreted. Under this amendment, federal employees may serve nonprofit organizations because OGE determined that the possibility of a conflict of interest between the employee’s loyalty to the government and any fiduciary duties to the organization is remote. The amendment eliminates waivers because regulations are already in place that allow federal employers to approve an employee’s participation in nonprofit organizations ahead of time and to require employees to document, limit, or end their service to nonprofit organizations if conflicts of interest do arise.

TWS Executive Director Ken Williams said that this is one step in the right direction toward reversing a disturbing trend — a growing separation between the wildlife research and management communities. “The entire conservation community is strengthened by a vital and diverse professional society,” said Williams. “This rule change was badly needed.”

(Credit: Wildlife Disease Association)

Snowshoe Hare Density Influences Toxoplasma Infection in Canadian Lynx
A team of researchers led by Audrey Simon at the University of Montreal investigated factors that may have caused a significant drop in toxoplasma infection of lynx in Western Quebec, Canada. The team measured antibody prevalence in a group of 84 lynx (Lynx canadensis) during the winter of 2009-2010 and compared it to the same number of individuals tested in 1997-1998. Toxoplasma infection fell from 36 percent to 14 percent between the two years. The results indicate that spatiotemporal dynamics may influence infection rates. The researchers ruled out domestic cat density (using human population density as a proxy), but they did find that during periodic population declines of snowshoe hare — common prey for lynx — both lynx density and infection rate decreased. Other abiotic influences could not be ruled out. More

American Goldfinches May Speed Conjunctivitis Spread
In 1994, a conjunctivitis epidemic broke out in House Finches (Carpodacus mexicanus) around Maryland and Virginia, and it rapidly spread west. Now, researchers at Cornell University have found that the bacterium responsible for the disease — Mycoplasma gallisepticum — can be transmitted between House Finches and American Goldfinches (Spinus tristis), and that the latter can harbor the disease even when House Finches are absent. M. gallisepticum causes swelling of the conjunctiva — the delicate membranes of the eye and eyelid — causing impaired vision, and sometimes respiratory complications. Both symptoms increase predation risk and interfere with a bird’s ability to find food. Due to their more migratory behavior, American Goldfinches may play a key role in the speed of spread of the disease. More

Ranavirus Symposium
From July 27-29, the Second International Symposium of Ranaviruses will be held in Knoxville, Tennessee, just before the 62nd International Conference of the Wildlife Disease Association (WDA). The symposium will feature presentations and posters highlighting recent research on ranavirus. During two field trips, amphibians and turtles will be captured and sampled for ranavirus testing.

Bd Infection Could Shape Populations
The common coquí (Eleutherodactylus coqui), a frog native to Puerto Rico, has declined over the past 10 years due to the pathogenic fungus Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis (Bd). But researchers hadn’t confirmed Bd deaths in the field until recently, when a team from Cornell University and the University of Puerto Rico found two dead coquí in ElYunque, Puerto Rico. Many frog populations experience rapid and massive mortality from Bd, but the coquí have persisted with low to moderate infection rates and an overall slow but steady population decline. Such a slow decline could increase the chance that the species will develop tolerance or resistance to the fungus. In the meantime, more long-term studies are needed to assess the effect of this decline on coquí population dynamics. More

Understanding Influenza Infection and Resistance to Treatment
Dabbling ducks are a reservoir for influenza A, a low-pathogenic avian influenza virus that can develop into highly pathogenic strains including ones that can spread to humans. Influenza A viral strains are increasingly resistant to Tamiflu — a widely-used antiviral drug used to combat the virus. A team of Swedish researchers have begun to investigate how the virus responds to exposure to Tamiflu’s active metabolite, called oseltamivir carboxylate (OC), and to monitor progression of the disease in infected mallards (Anas platyrhynchos). Their results showed no difference in the course of infection in mallards that were infected manually versus by close contact with infected individuals, no difference when the mallards were given three different doses of OC, and no difference when infected mallards were left untreated versus when they were treated but were infected with an OC-resistant virus. The researchers suggest that further study into the pathology of viral infection with and without treatment with OC could lead to a better understanding of influenza infections in general. More

Detecting Avian Influenza
Two common molecular tests for detecting avian influenza (AI), a potentially lethal zoonotic virus, are not equally sensitive. Justin Brown and Dave Stallknecht from the University of Georgia took mallards cloacal swabs that tested positive for avian influenza by one of two tests, and attempted to infect healthy mallards with the swabs. Of the swabs that tested positive by both tests, only 55 percent infected healthy mallards, indicating that one or both of the tests give positive results even when the bird is not contagious. The researchers then tried to infect healthy mallards with swabs that tested positive by only one of the tests — real-time reverse transcription-PCR (RRT-PCR), and negative by the other — virus isolation from fertilized chicken eggs (VI). None of the mallards in this section of the experiment became infected, indicating that RRT-PCR, not VI, may give a positive result even when birds are not contagious. This suggests that VI is a more sensitive test for identifying mallards that excrete enough AI virus to infect other mallards. The study also showed that field strains of AI can infect mallards at lower virus titers than do many lab-propagated strains, suggesting the need to evaluate the use of less infectious research strains as a proxy for field strains. More

New Virus Targets Kangaroos
For the first time, a herpesvirus that causes disease in eastern gray kangaroos (Marcopus giganteus) has been isolated from a wild population. A team from the University of Melbourne, Australia, determined that the new virus is a genetically distinct alphaherpesvirus and is most similar to the macropodid herpesvirus 2, but displays different characteristics when grown in cell culture and also causes respiratory and neurologic disease symptoms. More

A giant manta ray (Manta birostris) in the waters off the coast of Thailand. CITES members from 170 countries agreed to protect two manta ray species, five shark species, and other endangered and sensitive plant and marine species from illegal trade and exploitation. (John Hanson/Flickr)

Dozens of Species Given New Trade Protections
(The New York Times)
A major international meeting on wildlife trade signed off on several landmark decisions aimed at protecting dozens of animal and plant species — including five types of sharks — that have come under severe pressure from soaring demand. The decisions, which came on the final day of a two-week meeting of signatories of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, or Cites, were welcomed by conservationists, who see restrictions or outright bans on trade as a key tool to preserving threatened wildlife. More

 

NEWS FROM NORTH AMERICA

Mexican Scientists: Monarch Butterfly Population Falls to Record Low
(NPR)
Monarch butterflies that once covered 50 square acres of forest during their summer layover in central Mexico now occupy fewer than three acres, according to the latest census. The numbers of the orange-and-black butterflies have crashed in the two decades since scientists began making a rough count of them, according to Mexico’s National Commission of Natural Protected Areas. More

Deer Die Off Puzzles Wildlife Officials
(Porterville Recorder)
California Department of Fish and Wildlife officials are still trying to determine why 13 deer in the Camp Nelson area have shown up dead in the past three months. Wildlife Biologist Evan King said so far officials have ruled out poisoning as the cause. More

Room to Roam Needed for Wildlife in the Southern Canadian Rockies
(redOrbit)
A new report from the Wildlife Conservation Society Canada creates a conservation strategy that will promote wildlife resiliency in the Southern Canadian Rockies to the future impacts of climate change and road use. The report’s “safe passages and safe havens” were informed in part by an assessment of six iconic species — bull trout, westslope cutthroat trout, grizzly bears, wolverines, mountain goats and bighorn sheep — five of which were ranked as highly vulnerable to projected changes. More

Governor Overhauls Montana Fish, Wildlife, and Parks Commission
(The Associated Press via The Missoulian)
The governor has named three new members to the Montana Fish, Wildlife, and Parks commission, an overhaul to the panel that is a lightning rod on issues from wolf and bison management to conflicts between landowners and hunters. Richard Stuker of Chinook, Matthew Tourtlotte of Billings and Lawrence Wetsit of Wolf Point will take their new positions in time for the panel’s April 11 meeting, Gov. Steve Bullock. More

South Dakota Wildlife Officials Clarify Dogs-and-Lions Bill
(The Associated Press via Seattle Post Intelligencer)
A new South Dakota law that appears to authorize the use of dogs to hunt mountain lions does not actually change restrictions and is confusing hunters, state wildlife officials say. The bill signed by Gov. Dennis Daugaard is titled, “An act to allow the use of dogs to hunt mountain lions and leashed dogs to track and retrieve wounded or presumed dead big game animals.” More

Grizzly Bear Deserves Protection
(The Vancouver Sun)
It’s that time of the decade again, when Canadians and the federal politicians who represent them get a chance to safeguard the future of one of our most iconic wildlife species. Every 10 years, the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada carefully considers the most up-to-date science in its assessment of the status of Canada’s grizzly bear population and, after careful consideration and more than a little hand-wringing, comes up with a designation for the greatest of all Canadian bears. More

WILDLIFE HEALTH AND DISEASE NEWS

Disease Deadly to Bats Confirmed in Georgia
(Georgia Wildlife Resources Division)
The disease that has killed millions of bats in the eastern U.S. has been confirmed for the first time in Georgia. The Georgia Department of Natural Resources, the National Park Service and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced that bats with white-nose syndrome were found recently at two caves in Dade County. More

Discovery May Explain how Prion Diseases Spread Between Different Types of Animals
(ScienceDaily)
Medical researchers at the University of Alberta have made a discovery that may explain how prion diseases, like chronic wasting disease and mad cow disease, adapt in order to spread between various types of animals. The research team, led by neurologist Valerie Sim, discovered that a miniscule change in the prions’ makeup appears to give the disease the ability to adapt — to mimic and recreate new strains with which it comes into contact. The team has been studying this area for two years. More

Toxic Turtles: Long-Lasting Chemicals Could be Harming Sea Turtles
(Environmental Health News)
From the moment they are born, sea turtles fight to survive. Buried alive, they dig themselves out and evade hungry crabs and birds as they crawl to the ocean, where they begin a long and treacherous migration. One out of 1,000 will survive into adulthood. And those that do will bear a toxic burden. Scientists are discovering that sea turtles, long ignored by toxicologists who study wildlife, are highly contaminated with industrial chemicals and pesticides. More

Manatees with Red Tide Algae Poisoning Struggle for Survival as Workers Try to Save Them
(Reuters via The Huffington Post)
Virginia Edmonds, standing in shallow water, used her legs to slowly nudge an ailing young manatee to one side of a treatment pool. A half dozen other female members of a manatee rehabilitation team hovered close by — one with a syringe — waiting for the signal. “OK!” Edmonds called, as the others jumped in and threw a mat over the manatee to try and hold it still. More

INTERNATIONAL NEWS

Vietnam and Mozambique Urged to Do More to Stop Illegal Rhino Trade
(The Washington Post)
An international convention of wildlife officials stopped short of imposing sanctions on Vietnam and Mozambique — which conservationists consider the world’s worst offenders in the illegal trade of rhino horn — but strongly urged the two nations to do far more to stop the illegal trade, which leads to poaching of an animal on the verge of extinction. More

‘Marshall Plan’ for African Wildlife?
(ScienceDaily)
African lions and villagers would benefit from fences to protect them from each other, according to a new study by University of Minnesota researcher Craig Packer published online by Ecology Letters on March 5. Fencing has long been anathema to most conservationists, but Packer said it offers the best hope for saving iconic African wildlife, an undertaking that will require sweeping measures rather than piecemeal efforts. In an interview, he called for an international “Marshall Plan” to erect fences where possible to protect people, lions, elephants and other threatened wildlife species. More

As the Endangered Species Act turns 40 this year, we examine this critical law designed to protect vulnerable species in the United States. We also explore the challenge of wolf recovery, the rising threat of the deadly pathogen ranavirus, the damage that marijuana-crop poisons can do to wildlife, and more.

Read now!

A Timeline of Trials and Triumphs
Exploring Key Moments in ESA History
By Divya Abhat

 

State Perspectives on the ESA

A Journey of Conflict and Cooperation
By Elsa M. Haubold and Nick Wiley

Online Extra: How to List a Species Under the ESA
By Jessica P. Johnson

 

The Challenge of Wolf Recovery
An Ongoing Dilemma for State Managers
By L. David Mech

Online Extra: Lone Wolf Racking up Miles
By Jessica P. Johnson

 

Silent Forests?
Rodenticides on Illegal Marijuana Crops Harm Wildlife
By Mourad W. Gabriel et al.

 

The Rise of Ranavirus
An Emerging Pathogen Threatens Ectothermic Vertebrates
By Matthew J. Gray and Debra L. Miller

 

A Rewarding Road
How Transportation Biologists Ease Road Impacts on Wildlife
By Sarah Piecuch

 

Letters to the Editor

 

Bibliographies

Leadership Letter
A Glimpse of What’s Possible
By Dan Ashe

Guest Editorial
States Rise to the Challenge
By Ronald J. Regan

Today’s Wildlife Professionals:
Ben Wishnek and Bill Bridgeland
By Divya Abhat

Saga of the Mexican Gray Wolf
The Strife and Hope of a Tricky Recovery Effort
By Lisa Moore

Cool Head for Controversy
Professionalism Helps Achieve Consensus
By Ed Bangs

Return of a Rare Tanzanian Native
The Reintroduction of the Kihansi Spray Toad
By Patrick R. Thomas et al.

Greater Sage-Grouse in Wyoming
An Umbrella Species for Sagebrush-Dependent Wildlife
By Scott Gamo et al.

Rooftop Havens
Green Roofs Offer Habitat for Urban Birds
By Carly Eakin et al.

Wildlife and the National Debt
Know the Numbers to Fight the Battle
By Paul W. Hansen

A Tough Path Worth Taking
Becoming a Wyoming Game Warden
By Bob Lanka

 

A rare sighting of the gray wolf “OR7″ on the move in California. (Credit: Richard Shinn/California Department of Fish and Wildlife)

A gray wolf track in the snow. A wolf’s front feet are between 3.8 and 4.6 inches in length, and about half an inch smaller in width. The hind feet are about half an inch smaller in both dimensions. In contrast to domestic dogs, wolf tracks suggest a purposeful, direct travel path. (Credit: Linda Hay/CDFW)

Around Christmas 2011, a lone gray wolf (Canis lupus) crossed from Oregon into the state of California, ending the species’ nearly 90-year absence from that state. The now four-year-old male, designated OR7, is rarely spotted in the wild, but the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife knows exactly where he is at all times. The signal from OR7’s GPS collar has been documenting his trek from his birthplace in northeastern Oregon, diagonally across the state, and finally into California. The California Department of Fish and Wildlife now updates the wolf’s general location every few days, but keeps it vague enough so that the endangered gray wolf remains safe from poachers.

In California, gray wolves are protected by the federal Endangered Species Act. But in parts of some other states including Oregon, Wyoming, Idaho, and Montana, the gray wolf is delisted. In areas where the species has recovered, management falls to the states — some of which allow hunting. OR7 is now more than 800 miles from his home pack and has weaved a path of an estimated 2,000 miles to get there. Along the way, he has gained a new name — Journey — and 362 Twitter followers. Whether he is in search of a mate or a new pack to join is unclear, but for now, he travels solo.

Author Bio: Jessica P. Johnson is the Science Writer for The Wildlife Professional.

Harnessed in protective climbing gear, author Sarah piecuch navigates a bridge-painting project site where a contractor had spotted a nesting peregrine falcon. piecuch helped establish a safety buffer around the nest, and monitored the endangered bird’s progress. (Credit: Tanya Pace)

Like most wildlife biologists, I am a lover of wild places, a seeker of remoteness, a despiser of the din of traffic. Yet I am employed by the New York State Department of Transportation (NYSDOT). Wildlifers working for road builders may sound like a conflict of interest, even an oxymoron. But we transportation biologists see it very differently.

Biologists at transportation agencies are deeply involved in wildlife conservation. Our job is to ensure the development and maintenance of roads in an environmentally sound manner. Much of this work is straightforward, but also wide-ranging: it involves obtaining federal and state wetlands and stormwater permits, working with engineers to ensure that road projects avoid sensitive wildlife habitat, minimizing and mitigating environmental impacts to streams, wetlands, and endangered species, and managing invasive species. The work can also offer biologists unique opportunities that they might not find in more-traditional roles, such as working on long-range projects with public-private partnerships across state lines, all in the interest of efficiently moving people while protecting habitat.

The need for such expertise has gained recognition at a national level. According to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS), “The Service encourages the design of transportation projects that provide the greatest value to the greatest number of people while avoiding or minimizing impacts to habitat and to the disruption of the ecological processes that naturally sustain these areas” (FWS 2012). In addition, the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) issues two classes of awards — for Exemplary Ecosystem Initiatives and Environmental Excellence. These awards honor projects that reduce habitat fragmentation and barriers to animal movement, encourage sustainable mitigation sites, foster ecosystem research and planning, or go beyond mere “compliance” to benefit the environment. Achieving these goals, however, often requires some out-of-the-box thinking and intense collaboration.

Roads that Work for Wildlife
One vivid example of broad-scale collaboration in- volves the I-90 Snoqualmie Pass East project, now under construction in Washington State. Linking Puget Sound to eastern Washington, I-90 intersects the rugged Cascade Mountains in Washington’s Snoqualmie Pass region, which has been identified as a critical link in the north-south movement of wildlife species such as bear, elk, mountain lions, wolverines, and several species of small mammals and amphibians. This area is also the focus of an extensive effort by the Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) to expand the highway while making it safer for people and wildlife.

The effort involves extensive collaboration among WSDOT and the U.S. Forest Service, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, the FHWA, FWS, the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW), the state’s Department of Ecology, the Environmental Protection Agency, and regional cities, counties, and community groups, which are all working together to develop consensus on their vision for the project. The ultimate goal is to create an efficient six-lane freeway that will have fewer closures from avalanches and rock slides, yet accommodate wildlife movement. Plans include connecting wildlife habitat on either side of I-90 with new bridges and culverts, which will allow for safer passage while minimizing wildlife-vehicle collisions. “It is very rare to have an opportunity to provide and restore ecological connectivity at this scale,” says Craig Broadhead, WSDOT assistant manager for biology. “We have the chance to provide untold benefits to wildlife species and populations at a scale far beyond the scope of a typical highway project.”

Such projects are expensive, but because road functionality is directly related to commerce and the economy, state DOTs are generally among the better-funded state agencies. Even a simple transportation project can have a large budget, and some transportation project costs exceed the entire annual budget of a state’s natural resource agency for targeted species management. It’s therefore advisable—and often very doable—to incorporate wildlife improvements into overall road project costs, especially since those wildlife improvements often run less than 10 percent of the total project cost.

For example, NYSDOT was planning a bridge rehabilitation project that cost $11.5 million. We worked with the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (NYSDEC) to design and incorporate two snake hibernaculums (at a total cost of $10,000) to help protect queen snakes (Regina septemvittata), a state-listed endangered species that would not have received habitat management without DOT funds. A day’s work of strategically hand-placing flat rocks in an area cut near the bridge abutments created lots of access to a partially submerged structure that will give the snakes winter shelter from predators.

Power of Persuasion
It can take the skill of a diplomat to arrange such improvements, however. A transportation biologist must be a mediator, or a translator between biologists working for regulatory agencies and the transportation agencies’ engineers. Each has its own vernacular that may not be understood by the other. During permitting, I’ve often noticed that both sides are viewing things from different scales or saying the same things but using different terms (i.e., stream invert = streambed). The result is confusion, misunderstandings, and delayed permit approvals. It’s challenging, but once these issues are overcome, great partnerships can develop. In my experience, engineers enjoy the challenge of integrating ecologically sensitive solutions into their project designs. The key is to educate them of the need, and inform them of it early in the project’s development.
Early engagement is crucial both internally (with project engineers) and externally (with regulatory agencies) for a transportation biologist, because if you wait until permits are submitted, it is usually too late to add features for the betterment of wildlife. Highway and bridge projects — even those perceived as “simple” roads — can take several years to design, and the closer you get to the construction date, the harder it is to change design plans. Some regulatory agencies tend only to comment on projects when they have a permit application to review, and by that point the project design is 90 percent complete, so changes are very difficult to make without compromising the budget or schedule — both of which are high priorities for transportation agencies.

An example of effective early planning involved a project at Melvin Brook in Clyde, New York. Early in the project’s development, I noticed a road-killed otter (Lontra canadensis) at the site. Because the large culvert was constantly filled with water, the scent trail of this mustelid had been interrupted. The lack of an upland area forced otters to travel out of the water and over the road embankment to leave a scent trail, thus making them vulnerable to traffic. I explained the need and ideal parameters for an upland bench to be built under the culvert. The project engineers eagerly brainstormed the “how,” took ownership of this wildlife improvement, and brought it to life. We made a great team: I identified the need and they created a solution. A year of post-construction monitoring has shown that several medium-sized mammal species are using the bench.

Even the best planning can’t prevent unexpected events during construction. For example, after a bridge painting project had already begun, the contractor spotted the nest of a peregrine falcon (Falco peregrinus), an endangered species not seen in that area before. Prompt discussions with NYSDEC’s endangered species biologists resulted in establishing a buffer area around the nest. Work was allowed to continue while I monitored the adult bird’s behavior and fledgling progression to make sure construction activities were not disturbing the falcons. This resulted in minor delays to the project. By summer’s end, the contractors were still eagerly observing and reporting the falcon’s activities.

Route to Nature’s Renewal
Roads have traditionally been viewed as connections for society to transport people and aid commerce. But today the significance of roads has expanded beyond pavement, and their role as links between wildlife corridors is now at the forefront of transportation planning. Likewise, the role of transportation biologists has expanded. Beyond making technical improvements to the ecological integrity of projects, we also contribute to the environmental awareness of the traveling public.

Road travel is often a first step to outdoor recreation, and that’s where people connect with wildlife. Dendritic branches of roads that reach into wild areas facilitate encounters with wildlife, returning us to our roots in nature. This leads to the growth of relationships with nature, which are foundational to a person’s desire and will to protect the environment. People will protect what they know and love, so it’s not a far reach to conclude that roads support the growth of conservation ethics.

It’s therefore logical to have biologists working for transportation agencies. It’s our job to ensure that roads function in the most ecologically friendly ways possible, while facilitating and enhancing the experiences of the traveling public. It’s our job to think beyond the pavement.

Author Bio: Sarah Piecuch, CWB, is an Environmental Specialist with the New York State Department of Transportation.

Roadblock for a Beetle

Safe Passage for Turtles

I never thought I’d care so much about the sex life of a beetle!” Such were the immortal words of a road contractor facing project delays as biologists with the Nebraska Department of Roads attempted
to move endangered American burying beetles away from a road construction path. Teams set pit traps (above) to catch beetles during mating and emergence seasons. Caught in the process, a female beetle (below) displays the tools of a carrion scavenger. (Credit: Eric Zach)

When biologist Eric Zach worked with the Nebraska Department of Roads (NDOR) from 2006 to 2011, his daily tasks were anything but routine. He gave consultations on endangered and threatened species, trained contractors and construction project managers, handled migratory bird mitigation, did species and habitat surveys, and helped with project planning and research. “It was a very fast-paced work environment where priorities, deadlines, and project specifics were constantly changing and evolving,” he says. “Conflict resolution is definitely part of my vocabulary now.”

One of his biggest challenges—and most rewarding experiences—occurred when a road project was planned through habitat of the endangered American burying beetle or ABB (Nicrophorus americanus), a carrion scavenger that helps put decaying matter back into the ecosystem. Relatively little is known about how this nocturnal insect spends its days, so any road work in the beetle’s range can potentially cause harmful impacts. Zach had to help road-design engineers and contractors understand the importance of avoiding impacts to the beetle. “Educating co-workers about the ‘why’ behind conservation measures was the best and fastest way to get them on board,” Zach says. “After a short life-history lesson on the ABB, most people were somewhat intrigued.” But he admits that some conservation approaches can sound “pretty ridiculous” to non-biologists.

In this case, the approaches included setting pit traps with rotten rat carcasses along the course of the project to catch american burying beetles and remove them from the area. the work was done over two time periods—during ABB mating season in
June and emergence in august—and could take from four days to two weeks. “Nature doesn’t work off of calendar days or Gantt charts the way projects do,” says Zach. “A few days doesn’t sound like much, but for a contractor with workers and equipment waiting to get started, it could get tense.”

Education paid off, however. One of the best quotes Zach heard came from a contractor who was facing work delays until the aBB relocation was complete. “He called one day and said, ‘You know, i never thought i’d care so much about the sex life of a beetle!’” The contractor came to understand why the restrictions were necessary for beetle conservation, and the project was completed with minimal impact.

Now with the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission, Zach works on conservation and farm policy programs. “Just as at NDOR, there are many powerful stakeholders in farm policy, and educating them on the needs of wildlife is essential.”

A costumed technician uses a whooping crane puppet to encourage a whooper chick to swim at the USGS Patuxent Wildlife Research Center in Maryland. FWS declared the whooping crane endangered in 1967 under the Endangered Species Preservation Act of 1966. Since then, state and federal management efforts have resulted in an increase in crane numbers from fewer than 20 birds in the 1940s to more than 400 today. (Credit: USGS)

The year 2013 marks the 40th anniversary of the Endangered Species Act (ESA)—a landmark law established “to provide a means whereby the ecosystems upon which endangered species and threatened species depend may be conserved.” The 1973 Act came on the heels of two notable predecessors: the Endangered Species Preservation Act of 1966, designed to protect vulnerable species native to the United States, and the Endangered Species Conservation Act of 1969, which expanded on the 1966 Act to cover a larger number of species, including animals threatened with worldwide extinction. The 1973 ESA that we celebrate today went further, providing greater protections to listed species along with the ecosystems on which they relied.

Since passage of the ESA, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) and the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS)—the two federal agencies that administer the ESA—have enjoyed notable successes in rescuing dwindling species like the bald eagle and the peregrine falcon. Yet these agencies have also endured steep challenges, such as criticisms over listings and delistings, frequent litigation, inadequate funding, and struggles with states over jurisdiction.

Despite such challenges, the Act is destined to endure as an imperfect but vital safety net for wildlife and habitats at a time of mounting pressures on the nation’s natural resources. Today it offers protections for more than 1,400 plant and animal species in the United States that are listed as threatened or endangered, with close to 200 species categorized as “candidate” species under consideration for inclusion on the endangered species list. Those labels are significant, as they result in the following actions or protections:

Endangered. This designation applies to species currently in danger of extinction. Endangered species are protected from “take”—which includes being killed, wounded, trapped, or moved—and they cannot be traded or sold.

Threatened. This term applies to species that could become endangered in the foreseeable future. It results in many, but not all, of the same protections as are given to endangered species.

Candidate. A candidate species is one being considered for protection under the ESA. Although FWS has enough information on a candidate species’ biological status to propose listing, higher priority listing activities keep the listing process from going forward. These species do not receive statutory protection under the ESA.

Such pat definitions belie the political, social, and logistical complexities that arise in the wake of a listing. Nevertheless, during this 40th anniversary year, it’s worth reflecting on some of the milestones that have helped define the ESA as one of the most significant environmental laws of our time (see timeline) and explore a few key species, issues, and incidents that encapsulate its journey.

When Industry Impacts Species

Although the key purpose of the ESA is simply to protect wildlife species and their habitats, actual execution of the Act has been anything but simple. For decades, wildlife biologists and researchers have been at odds with some industries and landowners over protections of listed species. While the former will highlight the risk of extinction of a particular species, the latter may express concern that protection measures could restrict development and result in financial loss. Two landmark cases from ESA his- tory highlight this complex struggle.

Snail Darters. In August 1973, David Etnier discovered the snail darter (Percina tanasi) in the Little Tennessee River. At the time, Etnier, a biologist and professor at the University of Tennessee, was embroiled in a lawsuit against the Tennessee Valley Authority over construction of the Tellico Dam and Reservoir Project along the same river. Etnier and other experts were concerned that construction could result in the extirpation of a number of fish species, and discovery of the three-inch snail darter only added pressure to protect it and other fish in the region.

Etnier and colleagues began by taking stock of the new species: They estimated that there were probably about 5,000 snail darters in the Little Tennessee River and determined that construction of the dam would almost guarantee the species’ extinction. Still, despite lawsuits and appeals to stop the project, TVA continued to build the dam. In 1975, the snail darter was listed as endangered under the ESA, and in 1978, a U.S. Supreme Court ruling made it clear that the ESA forbade completion of projects that would likely jeopardize survival of a particular species. In 1979, however, then Senator Howard Baker (R-TN) and Representative John Duncan (R-TN) pushed through an appropriations rider overruling the ESA and other laws. By November of that year, the reservoir was completed and the river impounded.

A recovery team consisting of Etnier, biologists from TVA and FWS, and others then hatched a plan to save the fish. “It looked like about the only thing we could do—assuming that TVA would eventually win and the Tennessee population would be gone—was try to reintroduce them [elsewhere],” says Etnier. The plan worked. Though the snail darter was extirpated from the Little Tennessee River, reintroductions established populations that now exist in the Lower French Broad, the Lower Holston, and Little River. Further, researchers have found what appear to be naturally occurring populations in five additional Tennessee River tributaries. In 1984, the listing designation of the snail darter changed from endangered to threatened. “I suspect it will be eventually moved from the list without much fuss,” says Etnier.

Northern Spotted Owl. In 1973, the U.S. Forest Service (USFS), Bureau of Land Management (BLM), FWS, and Oregon’s fish and wildlife agency collaborated to form the Oregon Endangered Species Task Force, which began working to protect Oregon’s northern spotted owls and their old forest habitat. At that time, however, federal agencies were eliminating “decadent” old forest stands and replacing them with vigorously growing younger trees as part of a forest management plan. The Task Force faced a dilemma: how to maintain the species and its habitat on a changing landscape. By 1977, BLM and USFS agreed to protect spotted owl habitat in accordance with guidelines from the Task Force, which recommended maintaining 400 pairs of spotted owls in Oregon and providing each pair with at least 300 acres of old timber.

Seeing that the spotted-owl habitat problem wasn’t restricted to Oregon, the effort was expanded to ad- dress owls in California and Washington. The issue heated up as the timber industry expressed concern over the loss of jobs and income because of reduced logging, while environmental and animal activists called for the protection of old-growth forests and spotted owl populations that relied on them. “The more we learned, the worse the situation looked,” says FWS/Oregon State University researcher Charles Meslow. Eventually, environmentalists filed lawsuits challenging USFS and BLM timber sales.

By 1987, FWS had received a petition to list the spotted owl, and in 1990 it listed the species as threatened. Within a year, a federal court or-
der halted old forest logging in northwest federal forests. Then, in 1994, the Clinton administration adopted the Northwest Forest Plan, which still forms the basis for forest management for federal lands in the Northwest. Though significant, the plan “hasn’t been effective in stopping the decline of the northern spotted owl,” says Meslow, likely because of another factor at play: barred owls. Scientists have found that an increase in barred owls has coincided with a decline in spotted owls (USFWS).

Despite decades of efforts to protect the northern spotted owl, its numbers continue to decline, especially in the northern part of its range (southern British Columbia and Washington). Scientists had hoped that as younger forests matured they would bolster the role of the old forest that these owls rely on. “It’s been almost 25 years now and the decline of the spotted owl has not stopped,” Meslow says.

A biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service works with a tranquilized polar bear in alaska. In 2008, FWS listed the polar bear as threatened under the ESA largely because of a rapid decline in sea ice — the species’ primary habitat. (Credit: Karyn Rhode/USFWS)

Balancing Science and Politics

Like industry, politics can play a significant role in ESA policy and planning. In 2011, for example, legislators from Montana and Idaho attached a rider to an approved federal budget deal, with the rider requiring FWS to remove protections for wolves under the ESA in Montana, Idaho, eastern Oregon, eastern Washington, and north-central Utah, and prohibiting further judicial review.

Far more common than such interventions are questions involving climate science. Climate change was barely a blip on the radar of science or politics back in the 1970s, but today the ESA increasingly considers global-warming impacts on species. In May 2006, for example, the NMFS listed two corals—elkhorn and staghorn—as threatened. The listing was prompted by research showing a significant decline in coral populations over the previous 25 years, largely because of warming oceans. More recently, FWS proposed to list the wolverine (Gulo gulo) as threatened under the ESA, largely because of the threat of climate change on the species’ snow-pack habitat in the northern Rockies.

Such climate-related listings can pit science against political agendas, oftentimes independent of FWS and NMFS. Consider the polar bear. In 2008, FWS listed it as threatened because of the projected loss of its sea ice habitat due to warming oceans—a controversial listing still on appeal. Some scientists went on to argue that this was one reason to limit greenhouse gas emissions, considered a factor in global warming. But both the Bush and Obama administrations have ruled that the government should not invoke the ESA to curb such emissions. Instead, Interior Secretary Ken Sala- zar said that the global risk of greenhouse gases had to be tackled by comprehensive policies rather than as a collection of agency efforts implemented for particular species (New York Times 2009). In another climate- related case, in 2010 the FWS ruled that although the American pika (Ochotona princeps) was potentially vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, it did not warrant ESA listing (FWS 2010) because some research suggested that the species could survive at higher elevations—a ruling that drew much criticism from environmental groups.

Clearly, the ESA will remain a lightning rod, drawing praise and blame. Among its critics, Doc Hastings, Chairman of the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Natural Resources, wrote in 2012 that the ESA “is failing to achieve its primary purpose of species recovery and instead has become a tool for litigation that drains resources away from real recovery efforts and blocks job-creating economic activities” (U.S. House of Representatives 2012). Conversely, many commend the ESA for protecting vulnerable species. “The Act is a safety net for species in real trouble,” says Gary Frazer, FWS’s Assistant Director for Endangered Species, “and it’s been remarkably successful in focusing attention and preventing extinction of species that desperately need our help.” Now 40 years and counting, the ESA will continue to fight for species and their habitats in the face of an ever-shifting world.

Author Bio: Divya Abhat is Managing Editor of The Wildlife Professional.

 

 

 

 

Kayaking in Florida’s St. Joseph Bay, Robbin Trindell with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (at rear) helps a colleague rescue a green sea turtle, one of thousands immobilized by a cold snap in 2010. Turtles rescued off the Gulf and Atlantic coasts were warmed at holding centers like one on the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge (below). There, volunteers recorded size and other data on rescued turtles before sending them to a rehabilitation facility prior to release back to the wild. (Courtesy of FWC)

State-federal partnerships under the U.S. Endangered Species Act (ESA) of 1973 are resulting in myriad conservation successes for wildlife species across the nation. Among the most recent: In January, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) announced that it will reclassify the wood stork from endangered to threatened. Likewise, 2013 population numbers for the endangered red-cockaded woodpecker show that several sites in Florida have already met their 2020 recovery goals for the species — seven years ahead of schedule — reflecting one of the best examples of state, federal, and private landowner cooperation in species conservation. Since the inception of the ESA, states have functioned as co-trustees for federally listed species.

State natural resource agencies and their experts in species and habitat management play a vital role in cooperating with federal agencies in managing listed species and working to protect non-listed species to prevent future listings. The Act mandates such cooperation: Section 6, titled “Cooperation with the States,” requires the Secretary of the Interior to “cooperate to the maximum extent practicable with the states,” including “consultation with the states concerned before acquiring any land or water … for the purpose of conserving any endangered species or threatened species.”

Such cooperation is essential for three main reasons: (1) States have a deep understanding of local values and attitudes toward wildlife conservation, (2) states have principal management authority for resident fish and wildlife, so they are in the best position to assess and meet the conservation needs of at-risk species, and (3) states own and/or manage public lands and provide technical assistance to mangers of private lands that contribute to conservation of federally listed species. In Florida, for example, where more than 25 percent of land is publicly owned, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission has helped manage more than 5.8 million acres of conservation lands that contribute to the recovery of numerous listed species, including the red-cockaded woodpecker.

Getting into the Weeds

Although there are great examples of federal-state collaboration, the ESA has also created some challenges for the states and their constituents. One element that complicates ESA implementation for some states lies in structural bureaucracy. The Act is administered by two federal agencies: The FWS and the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), collectively called the Services. The FWS oversees terrestrial and freshwater species, some marine mammals, and sea turtles when they are on the beach, while NMFS oversees most marine species. Unfortunately, the two Services do not always have a consistent approach to ESA implementation, which causes confusion for state partners trying to understand the implications of species’ listings.

For example, there’s a significant difference in how the Services handle “candidate” species. For NMFS, candidates are species undergoing an ESA status review, but for FWS, species become candidates only after FWS does a status review and finds that a species warrants listing even though FWS may not have resources to immediately develop a listing plan. While states support the need to federally list species when at risk of extinction, their preference is to “keep common species common” so they don’t decline to the point that they require federal protection through listing. When species do reach that point, they generally require a decades-long, arduous, and expensive journey to bring them back to a level where they are no longer endangered (at risk of extinction now) or threatened (at risk of becoming endangered).  Among the challenges states face:

Red-tape Blues. ESA listings trigger regulations and requirements that some states find onerous or inefficient. These include requiring the designation of “Critical Habitat” to protect habitat essential to the conservation of the species, and also developing “Habitat Conservation Plans” to secure incidental take permits. Public and private land managers must get incidental take permits for management activities that might cause short-lived harm to a listed species even if the net benefit of the activity outweighs the take. For example, permits are needed when conducting prescribed fire that may kill a few individuals of a listed species but may benefit the long-term survival of a population by improving habitat.

Read about the process to list a species under the ESA.

Excessive Litigation. An important component of the ESA is that it grants the public the ability to petition for species to be listed, and citizens can sue the Services if they do not meet their obligations under the ESA. However, many states feel that petitions and litigation filed by NGOs and others against the Services are increasingly impinging on states’ trustee responsibilities. That’s particularly true of the increasing number of “mega-petitions” for listing numerous species at one time, such as a 2010 petition to the FWS to list 404 aquatic and aquatic-dependent species primarily occurring across southeastern states, and a 2012 petition for the listing of 53 reptile and amphibian species across the U.S.

Federalization. Many petitioned species and candidate species are state trust species, meaning the state has full regulatory authority over their management and take. These fish and wildlife resources are publicly owned and entrusted to the state for management on behalf of its citizens. Many states maintain their own lists of state endangered or threatened species, which can include federal trust species (generally migratory or federally listed species) or species at risk in that state, or both. Federalization occurs when a state trust species is brought under the regulatory authority of one of the Services through an ESA listing. In such cases, state authority is essentially abrogated or becomes secondary to federal authority, ESA requirements, and federal policy. Recent mega-petitions litigated and settled through court action are pushing an unprecedented number of state trust species toward federalization. This is especially troubling from a state perspective because the litigation process offers few opportunities for states to engage in or influence the outcomes. As a result, outside interests determine management and regulation of species that were previously under state authority, yet state fish and wildlife agencies remain on the front lines of implementing and enforcing these measures.

Limited Capacity. State fish and wildlife agencies are facing steadily increasing workloads with decreasing funding and staffing capacity. Activities associated with ESA listings not only affect state workloads but also cause states to re prioritize activities and shift emphasis away from other species that may be more in need of conservation attention from a state’s perspective. For example, in Florida, for the past year we have allocated one staff member’s time to serve as a liaison for federal issues, including addressing petitioned and candidate species. This individual would normally work on other conservation priorities for the state.

Public Perception. Concerns about federal regulations and litigation regarding federal listings can drive public opinion against the ESA with the unintentional consequence of harming species conservation efforts. In Florida, for example, one manager of a large plantation did not want red-cockaded woodpeckers on his land because of land-use restrictions the ESA would impose. However, tools are available under the ESA to help address such concerns. That land manager, for example, ultimately signed on to FWS’s “Safe Harbor” program, which assures landowners that if they agree to support a listed species on their land, they will only be accountable for the number of individuals that existed when they entered the agreement. With that assurance, the landowner became willing to actively manage for and even encourage the birds to take up residence on the property.

A crew from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission rescues an eight-foot manatee injured by a boat near the mouth of St. Mark’s River. The animal was kept wet as it was transported to Lowry Park Zoo in Tampa for treatment. Sadly, it died the next day. (Credit: FWC)

An Ounce of Prevention …

The ESA does drive positive conservation efforts that can only be successful and durable when states and federal agencies work collaboratively to become less reactive and more proactive in imperiled species conservation efforts. Fortunately, many states have been actively working toward this end with the Services. For example, after the 2010 petition to list 404 aquatic and aquatic-dependent species, the Wildlife Diversity Committee of the Southeastern Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies (SEAFWA)—which represents 15 southeastern states and FWS—began developing an action plan to implement coordinated survey and monitoring measures for those species. The goal is to provide landscape level cooperation that delivers effective conservation for these and other species. Of the 404 petitioned species, 374 will undergo status reviews by the FWS in the future, and the committee plans to provide important data to contribute to many of these reviews.

In 2000, states gained a valuable new tool in their efforts to prevent federal listing when the federal State Wildlife Grants (SWG) program enabled all states to develop State Wildlife Action Plans (SWAPs), a historic first for most states. “By laying out conservation actions needed to conserve at-risk species, State Wildlife Action Plans are our best line of defense for preventing more endangered species listings,” says Mark Humpert, Wildlife Diversity Director for the Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies (AFWA). The SWG program provides funding for states to conserve the rare and declining species identified in their SWAPs.

Unfortunately, that funding safety net is thin at best: most states receive less than $1 million per year from SWG funding— which ranged from as little as $478,601 for small states like Connecticut up to about $2.4 million for Alaska. That’s vastly below the estimated $900 million annually needed to fully implement the SWAPs and conserve the more than 12,000 species nationwide that have been identified as at-risk (AFWA 2011). Humpert has been active in influencing Congress to ensure that SWG program funding continues, arguing that SWAPs have been instrumental in facilitating states’ abilities to develop partnerships for conserving nonlisted species. Yet year after year the SWG program is threatened by cuts, surviving elimination by HR1 in FY2011 but resulting in funding of $64 million, a 31 percent cut and the lowest allocation since the program’s inception.

Case in point: In the Northeast, the New England cottontail (Sylvilagus transitionalis) is a priority species in all seven SWAPs in the species’ range, state listed as endangered in Maine and New Hampshire, and a FWS candidate species. Hoping to prevent federal listing, states in the cottontail’s range are partnering with FWS, the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), and the Wildlife Management Institute to try to reverse habitat and population declines. With a steering committee that meets quarterly, the partners are cooperating to conduct restoration on state lands, target grants to key landowners for private-lands conservation, and commit millions of dollars for restoration on private lands by NRCS. In 2015, the FWS will determine if listing is warranted. Even if that happens, the cooperative framework is already in place so recovery activities can flow from the existing partnership.

Such collaboration among state agencies is not new. States often work together to conduct coordinated surveys and monitoring to fill data gaps and thereby prevent the need for federal listing of species. One iconic case in point involves the black-tailed prairie dog (Cynomys ludovicianus). In 1998, an NGO petitioned FWS to emergency list the species as threatened. That triggered a massive effort among states, management agencies, and tribal entities across the western range of the species to assess its conservation needs and work proactively to prevent listing. In 1999, those groups produced a comprehensive conservation assessment and strategy that assessed risks to prairie dogs—such as plague, grazing competition, recreational shooting, and land conversion—and outlined steps to begin to protect prairie dogs and their habitat (Van Pelt 1999).

In 2000, FWS named the species a “candidate” for listing. That designation gave the states time to implement a coordinated range-wide survey using similar methods in each state. This unprecedented cooperative effort yielded data that resulted in two subsequent findings that the prairie dog did not meet any of the five listing factors, which are (1) damage to or destruction of a species habitat; (2) overutilization of the species for commercial, recreational, scientific, or educational purposes;  existing protection; and (5) other natural or man-made factors that affect the continued existence of the species. Today, black-tailed prairie dogs are estimated to number around 24 million and occupy 2.4 million acres (FWS).

Finding a Better Way 

In spite of the challenges, the ESA is an effective tool for wildlife conservation. Given the pressures on wildlife and habitats, however, it’s clear that stronger collaboration among the states and the Services is the only way forward. Recognizing this need, states and the Services in 2010 formed the Joint Federal/State Task Force on Endangered Species Act Policy (ESA JTF). Designed as an executive-level forum for discussion among the state and federal fish and wildlife agencies, it comprises eight state fish and wildlife agency directors and four representatives from each of the Services. Its purpose is to provide a process to cooperatively identify and address issues of national significance and to jointly develop recommendations concerning those issues.

The ESA JTF has outlined several priorities. Top priorities include: (1) to define the role of states in listing-petition reviews and status reviews of species so states can ensure that their species data and staff expertise are available to the Services when they evaluate species for listing; (2) to clarify the authority conveyed by the Section 6 Cooperative Agreements that each state enters into with one or both Services; and (3) to increase state involvement in federal recovery planning, critical habitat designations, and implementation of the ESA’s mandate for “Interagency Cooperation” (Section 7).

Though still in its nascent stages, the ESA JTF has seen some near-term returns. For example, communication between the states and the Services has improved by providing a forum for agency directors to discuss and work together on issues. A better understanding of the differences in implementation by the two Services exists, and the Services have taken several steps to eliminate some of the differences, such as the FWS revising its policy on timing of impact analysis in designating critical habitat to align with the policy of NMFS so that economic analyses are done when the proposed rule is announced.

More recently, the ESA JTF asked all state fish and wildlife agencies to meet with their federal counterparts to discuss how well they are cooperating on implementing the ESA at the state level. Forty-nine states and territories submitted a report about their meetings to the ESA JTF. Most agreed that while communication and collaboration are better, there is still room for improvement. These reports about the state meetings affirmed the top priorities already identified by the ESA JTF and stressed the importance of developing incentives to enlist private landowners in conservation. The ESA JTF will continue to work on these priorities over the next few years. “Only by envisioning conservation approaches that empower and foster constructive integration of state, federal, and non-governmental conservation machines can we begin to imagine that the great conservation success stories of the 20th century will continue through the 21st century,” says Task Force member Larry Voyles, Director of the Arizona Game and Fish Department.

For the ESA to have continued success over the next 40 years and beyond, numerous challenges to implementation will have to be overcome. These are adaptive problems, and the co-trustees — states and federal agencies — will have to work together with other partners to chart the course. Some cultural differences between agencies will need to be sorted out to allow innovative solutions and to break down barriers to partnerships among the public and private sectors. The ESA JTF offers a strong start, for the first time providing an ongoing forum for the federal and state agencies to have meaningful dialogue and roll up their sleeves together to more effectively conserve our precious fish and wildlife resources — both before and after they require the protection of the U.S. Endangered Species Act.

Author Bios

Elsa M. Haubold, Ph.D., is a biological administrator working on Endangered Species Act issues and Gulf restoration with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission and is a National Conservation Leadership Institute Fellow.

Nick Wiley, CWB, is Executive Director of the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, Co-chair of the Endangered Species Act Joint Task Force, Chair of AFWA’s Threatened and Endangered Species Committee, and a National Conservation Leadership Institute Fellow.

 

As part of an intensive study of wolf predation, biologists with Yellowstone National Park track radio-collared wolves of the Sough Creek Pack in Lamar Valley. Research has revealed that area wolves kill an average of 1.8 elk per wolf each month in winter (with kill rates higher in late winter than in early winter) — data that informs elk herd management. (Courtesy of NPS)

“Dave, would you do another legal declaration on the wolf for us?” The weary voice on the phone belonged to Mike Jimenez, Northern Rocky Mountain Wolf Management and Science Coordinator for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS). He was calling from Wyoming to ask me to prepare a document to address a legal challenge to the FWS’s August 2012 delisting of the wolf (Canis lupus) in Wyoming, a highly controversial move. Mike’s tone reflected the reality that — as so many wildlife biologists know and live each day — wildlife management is mainly people management. This contention could not be truer for managing any wildlife species than for managing the wolf.

Dubbed “the beast of waste and desolation” by Teddy Roosevelt (The Wilderness Hunter 1893/1900), wolves had been universally hated as prolific predators of valuable livestock and game. Around the turn of the 20th century, members of the U.S. Biological Survey and various state agents, ranchers, cowboys, and other frontiersmen poisoned and persecuted wolves, extirpating them from most of the contiguous United States (Young and Goldman 1944). By 1967, Minnesota and nearby Isle Royale National Park in Michigan held the only remaining wolves in the Lower 48 states, prompting the FWS to place the wolf on the Endangered Species List (established by the Endangered Species Preservation Act of 1966). The wolf then became the list’s poster species, and the timing was ideal: Silent Spring (Carson 1962) had just seeded and fertilized the environmental movement, which blossomed on Earth Day (April 22, 1970) into the environmental revolution. “Save the wolf!” became one of the movement’s rallying cries. And save the wolf we did.

Arduous Road to Recovery 

It seemed to matter to no one that a thriving population of 60,000 wolves remained next door in Canada and Alaska: Because they were gone from the western wilderness — including Yellowstone National Park and other wild lands in the contiguous states — wolves were officially endangered and considered worthy of salvation. I was an early proponent of that philosophy. My book The Wolf: The Ecology and Behavior of an Endangered Species ended by saying, “The wolf haters must be outnumbered. They must be outshouted, outfinanced and outvoted” (Mech 1970). To save the species, federal agencies put protections in place. Soon the ranks of wolf supporters began to rise, making it easier to outvote the anti-wolf factions.

After the passage of the Endangered Species Act of 1973 (ESA), wolves gained new protections. In 1978, the FWS approved the Recovery Plan for the Eastern Timber Wolf (a subspecies of gray wolf) that eventually covered populations in Minnesota, Michigan, and Wisconsin. Wolves were already increasing in Minnesota by that time (Fuller et al. 1992), and the added protection furthered the increase and allowed Minnesota’s population to flow over into Wisconsin and Michigan (Wydeven et al. 2009, Beyer et al. 2009). In 1987, the Northern Rocky Mountain Wolf Recovery Plan proposed restoring wolves to Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho. Meanwhile, a similar public attitudinal change in Canada (Carbyn 1983) reduced pressure on wolves there, and dispersers from the rising Canadian wolf population began to recolonize Montana (Ream et al. 1991).

The ESA of 1973 also gave new impetus to an idea that had long been simmering among professional conservationists  the restoration of wolves to Yellowstone National Park (Leopold 1944, Pimlott 1967, Mech 1970). Assistant Secretary of the Interior Nathaniel Reed championed the idea in the 1970s. A long political process followed involving considerable Congressional wrangling, a $350,000 appropriation for an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) on wolf reintroduction, 160,000 written comments on the EIS, an unsuccessful court case against the reintroduction, and a last-minute injunction against releasing the wolves that was soon rescinded (Cook 1993, McNamee 1997).

The process culminated in the reintroduction of wolves into Yellowstone and central Idaho in 1995 and 1996 (Bangs and Fritts 1996) as part of FWS’s Northern Rocky Mountain Wolf Recovery Plan. According to that plan, wolves would be considered “viable” (or recovered) in the region once 10 breeding pairs were maintained in each of three designated recovery areas (in parts of Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming) “for a minimum of three successive years” (FWS 1987). Thanks to legal protection and the wolves’ biotic potential, the species reached the recovery goal in 2002 with at least 663 individuals, and numbers have continued to increase.

Likewise, the plan for wolves in the Upper Midwest specified that the species would be considered recovered once Minnesota retained its existing population of at least 1,250 wolves for five consecutive years, and when Wisconsin and Michigan were supporting at least 100 wolves between them (FWS 1992). By 1999, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan had reached those objectives, and their wolf populations also continued to increase.

More Wolves, More Tension

Lone Wolf Racking up Miles

Track OR7′s epic journey from northeast Oregon to California.

The understanding and intention of both the Northern Rocky Mountain (NRM) and Upper Midwest wolf recovery teams were that once the wolf populations reached their science-based biological recovery levels, the FWS would delist them, and their management — including public harvest — would be returned to the states. Those expectations met numerous roadblocks, however.

In 2003, FWS changed the status of Upper Midwest wolves to threatened rather than endangered, and in 2007 and 2009, delisted them. In 2003, 2008, and 2009, FWS also tried to reclassify or delist the Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming wolf populations. Each attempt, however, was successfully challenged in court by animal-protection groups on the basis of legal technicalities, such as failure to address threats to wolves outside the core recovery areas.

Wolf populations in the NRM and Midwest have continued to increase beyond recovery levels, much to the chagrin of many ranchers, hunters, and guides. In the NRM, those folks generally have been extremely patient and tolerant while wolf populations have grown far beyond the levels that many residents had believed they would have to live with based on the publicly vetted recovery plans. After wolves were delisted in the West (except in Wyoming) and then relisted once more by court order in 2010, some western residents appealed to their Congressional representatives. As a result, in 2011 Congress intervened by legislatively delisting wolves in Montana and Idaho (as well as in parts of Washington, Oregon, and Utah), and exempting that ruling from legal challenges (ENS 2011). By then, the NRM wolf population exceeded 1,750 wolves, about six times the minimum recovery level. Likewise, in the Upper Midwest, the Minnesota wolf population had reached more than twice the minimum recovery level, and the Wisconsin/Michigan population hit 12 times the minimum level, so FWS again delisted wolves in the region in late 2011.

With each of these states’ wolf populations far higher than recovery levels, some groups began to strongly promote public wolf harvesting. (Federal culling of depredating wolves had been ongoing for years in these states, resulting in removal of more than 4,000 wolves.) All the states with recovered wolf populations (except Michigan) began to allow various forms of public wolf harvest. Their approaches varied: all allowed hunting, some allowed trapping, snaring, and baiting. But all set conservative quotas and seasons in their first year’s regulations.

Even so, neither Montana nor Idaho nor Wyoming reached their initial harvest quotas, and wolf populations continued to increase. Montana, for example, had hoped to harvest 220 wolves in the 2010-2011 season but ended up taking only 166, even after extending the season. The state’s wolf population then increased by 15 percent. Likewise, Minnesota, which had issued 3,600 wolf permits during the 2012 deer season, saw hunters harvest 147 of the 200 quota. (A second special season for hunting, trapping, or snaring wolves, with 2,400 permits and a quota of 253, did reach that quota.)

Though conservative wolf-harvest quotas were based on population science, hunting of wolves greatly upset many members of the public. Saving wolves had gained a large and passionate constituency. Wolves in Yellowstone were seen by hundreds of thousands of visitors and had generated an estimated $35 million per year for the local economy (Duffield et al. 2008). Some biologists had also concluded that through trophic cascades, wolves were improving populations of everything from beetles to trout in the Yellowstone ecosystem (Hebblewhite and Smith 2010), and the popular media had greatly publicized those findings. (After a recent review of the literature, however, I concur with several other scientists who question those findings [Mech 2012].)

In any case, wolf aficionados took great umbrage at states for instituting wolf harvesting. In Minnesota, for example, some 15 anti-wolf-taking billboards appeared along major highways; protests and vigils were regularly held in front of Governor Mark Dayton’s home; new websites were launched; and the ad-hoc group “Howling for Wolves” filed a suit to stop the hunt. When that failed, a lawsuit was filed against the FWS by the Humane Society of the United States and three other groups to relist the wolf in the Upper Midwest.

Delisting had clearly opened the floodgates to action by constituents with strong pro and anti-wolf feelings. It turns out that the 1978 Eastern Timber Wolf Recovery Team had been prescient when it wrote the following: “It is important to remember that the wolf is controversial, so there will be local opposition to any attempt to re-establish the animal or afford it any measure of protection. Similarly there will be opposition from other quarters to any effort to control the animal, although control may be necessary for the good of the animal itself in certain areas. If re-establishment of the wolf is accomplished, regulated taking of the animal undoubtedly will be necessary in the restored range sooner or later” (FWS 1978).

Similarly, NorthernRockyMountain team members wrote, “We predict that controversy will continue well beyond the time when wolves are recovered and removed from federal protection, although the focus will shift from whether and how wolves should be restored to how wolves should be managed (Mech 1995), particularly in relation to state-regulated ungulate hunting programs” (Bangs and Fritts 1996).

Biologists collar and assess a breeding male (formerly alpha male) of Yellowstone’s Blacktail Pack, which was immobilized by helicopter darting. Up to 30 percent of wolves in Yellowstone are collared, says Douglas Smith, wolf project leader for the park. “What we know about wolves,” he says, “hinges on having a marked population.” (Credit: Dan Stahler/NPS)

Special Case in Wyoming

Those predictions typify Wyoming’s situation. Yellowstone National Park forms about half of the planned Wyoming recovery zone for wolves. However, the area outside that zone comprises some 80 percent of Wyoming and is intensively grazed by livestock. Wolves in that massive area — which Wyoming named the Predator Zone — regularly prey on livestock, causing problems for area ranchers. From 2003 through 2012, agencies authorized the killing of 70 depredating wolves in the Predator Zone, which resulted in no packs ever being able to persist there. Nevertheless, this area for years has been a special zone of contention for wolf advocates, and still is.

The FWS had mandated that each state develop a management plan showing how it would achieve and sustain wolf recovery. By 2008 the Service had approved recovery plans for Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Montana, and Idaho, but it had rejected Wyoming’s plan partly because it proposed unrestricted taking of wolves in the extensive non-wilderness Predator Zone — long a prominent feature of the state’s various wolf management plans. Very few wolves inhabit that area because of their constant conflict with livestock, so biologically nearly all of that portion of Wyoming is inconsequential to Wyoming’s wolf population. However, in principle (wildlife management is primarily people management, remember?), the idea that wolf taking would be unrestricted in such a large portion of Wyoming has been unacceptable for many wolf advocates.

Media became complicit in this controversy by failing to note that relatively few wolves inhabit the Predator Zone. That “oversight” appears deliberate. For example, in several phone interviews with the media, other biologists and I have regularly pointed out this key fact, but seldom was that included in a story. The overall impression was that Wyoming intended to wipe out most of its wolves. One widely circulated account stated that eight groups suing the FWS claimed that Wyoming’s management plan classified wolves as “predators that can be shot on sight in most of the state” (Denver Post 2012).

In any case, FWS refused to approve Wyoming’s plan for years, and it was that plan that figured prominently in lawsuits and even in the Congressional 2011 delisting of the wolf in Montana and Idaho but not Wyoming. In 2012, however, the FWS approved a new Wyoming Gray Wolf Management Plan, which had some modifications that addressed the Service’s biological concerns but still allowed open, year-around taking of wolves in the Predator Zone. The FWS delisted the wolf in Wyoming in August 2012 (FWS 2012). The state promptly opened a regulated take of 52 wolves in a “Trophy Zone” (which held about 450 wolves, at least 224 of which were outside of Yellowstone National Park) and unlimited take in the Predator Zone. Some 41 wolves were taken in the trophy area and 20 or so in the Predator Zone. As of this writing, two groups of animal-protection organizations are suing the FWS to relist wolves in Wyoming. Thus Wyoming wildlife managers, who had never before had to contend with controversy over public wolf harvests, suddenly were faced with conflicting views of the Wyoming legislature, big-game hunters, and livestock producers on one side versus wolf advocates on the other. The controversy continues to simmer.

Other Challenges over ‘Take’

Once wolf populations recovered in the Lower 48, several states began to allow public wolf trapping (in addition to shooting) and faced new controversy over that method of take. A graphic photo of a legally trapped wolf in Idaho went viral on the Internet in March 2012 and brought worldwide protest. In addition, the Wisconsin legislature passed a law in 2012 allowing hunters to use dogs to hunt wolves in keeping with that state’s long tradition of using dogs to hunt bears (Ursus americanus), coyotes (Canis latrans), and bobcats (Lynx rufus). Animal-protection groups  successfully sued to postpone that on the grounds that it would be cruel to the dogs, fearing that the wolves would turn on the dogs and eat them! (After the season closed, the court ruled that use of dogs would be legal.)

Wisconsin has also had to deal with two other new wildlife management issues—tribal interests and night hunting—that have arisen since it assumed wolf management responsibility in 2012. Some tribes, including Ojibwes in the Upper Midwest, view the wolf as sacred. “The Ojibwe have always understood the wolf to be their brother. They look at wolves as teachers, showing … how to live on the landscape, how to raise young using family units, how to persevere under persecution — all the traits necessary to survive in this often-harsh environment” (Johnston 2012). Thus Wisconsin reserved 85 wolves of its planned quota of 201 for the Ojibwe, who then vowed not to kill them. Likewise, in Minnesota, tribes have prohibited public wolf harvest on tribal lands.

A regulation in Wisconsin that allowed night hunting of wolves spawned another new problem and lawsuit. The Ojibwe reasoned that if the state allowed night hunting of wolves, then the natives should be allowed night hunting of deer (Odocoileus virginianus). Thus the Great Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife Commission recently authorized Wisconsin tribes to hunt deer at night with lights. According to one news account, Sue Erickson, a spokeswoman for the Commission, said, “The DNR said it’s safe to have hunters in the woods at night hunting wolves and using a light at the point of kill … The tribes are simply instituting the same thing” (Star Tribune 2012). The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources has now sued the tribes to stop their night hunting of deer.

Clearly the varied issues related to public harvest of wolves will be a challenge for all the states with recovered wolf populations — an idea recently captured by Tom Ryder of the Wyoming Game and Fish Department. “Wolves represent every facet of wildlife management and the North American Model of Wildlife Conservation,” he says, “touching on public ownership of wildlife, how science must be brought to bear, predator-prey relationships, the challenges of managing a charismatic species, politics, and human dimensions.”

Given all those complexities, there are no easy answers to the dilemma facing states trying to responsibly manage such a controversial creature as the wolf. One approach that might help pacify wolf advocates would be for each state to set aside special wolf sanctuaries free from public wolf taking. Such sanctuaries could provide buffer zones around national parks and perhaps reduce the number of park wolves killed just outside the park. (So far in 2012, eight radio-collared Yellowstone Park wolves valuable for research have been killed, drawing much media attention and public condemnation.) Sanctuaries might also help satisfy some of the tribal concerns and would be favored by at least some of the animal protection-groups, although setting aside sanctuaries certainly would not end all the controversies.

In summary, wolf recovery in the Midwest and NRM was easy—for the wolves—but just the opposite for the states. Similar endless and expensive controversy also pervades the ongoing Mexican wolf recovery program in the southwestern U.S. and the red-wolf (Canis rufus) program in the Southeast. Such controversy probably ensures that wolf restoration will never be undertaken in other areas.

After that weary phone call from Mike Jimenez, I did submit the legal declaration he requested for the Wyoming court cases. The wolf population is secure in that state today, but only time will tell whether all the legal technicalities were followed in the delisting process. One wonders if all this controversy and litigation by both sides — which began in 1994 and likely will persist into the foreseeable future — might cause some future wildlife-management students to start wondering whether to change their major to pre-law.

Author Bio: L. David Mech, Ph.D., is Senior Research Scientist with the U.S. Geological Survey’s Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center, Adjunct Professor at the University of Minnesota-St. Paul, and Founder of the International Wolf Center in Ely, Minnesota.

 

 

The fisher (Martes pennanti) is a cat-sized carnivore found in coniferous and mixed conifer and hardwood forests across Canada and in four regions of the United States, including New England, the Great Lakes, the northern Rockies, and the Pacific Northwest. Now a candidate species for listing under the Endangered Species Act, fishers in California are falling victim to rodenticides used on illegal marijuana crops scattered throughout the state’s public and tribal lands. (Credit: John Jacobson/Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife)

Another mortality signal on the radio collar of a fisher (Martes pennanti) pulses on a wet spring morning, and fear of a repeat of the previous spring’s mortalities looms in the backs of our minds. Hoopa tribal biologists scramble to recover the fisher quickly so that a necropsy can be performed to determine cause of death. The field crew reports back that the fisher is not dead but lethargic and lurching on the ground when it attempts to seek cover from approaching biologists. A conference call among researchers, a wildlife pathologist, and a veterinary toxicologist follows to determine the next course of action. Unfortunately, the con- sensus is humane euthanization. Though testing is ongoing, this is likely the sixth monitored fisher in California that has died from second-generation an- ticoagulant rodenticide (SGAR) toxicosis since 2009.

Linking SGARs to multiple deaths of a rare forest carnivore has been an alarming discovery. Even more unsettling: We’ve learned that these deaths appear to be linked to illegal marijuana cultiva- tion on community and public lands — a finding that raises serious concerns for the health of many species of wildlife including fishers, an Endangered Species Act candidate.

A Growing Concern
Beginning in 2008, full necropsies including toxicological screens—done at the University of California-Davis School of Veterinary Medicine and the California Animal Health and Food Safety Laboratory (CAHFS)—have been conducted to determine proximate and ultimate causes of mortality for fishers from the Hoopa Valley Reservation Fisher Project (HVRFP), Sierra Nevada Adaptive Management Project (SNAMP), and the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) Kings River Fisher Project (KRFP). These ongoing, long-term demographic projects encompass both tribal community forests within the HVRFP and public lands including Yosemite National Park and Sierra National Forest in the SNAMP and KRFP study areas.

Toxicology screening of 58 fishers from these community and public lands revealed that nearly 80 percent of the fishers had been exposed to anticoagulant rodenticide (AR) poisons, with 96 percent of those exposures being SGARs — results that we published recently in PLoS ONE (Gabriel et al. 2012). Concerned about this trend, we led an interdisciplinary collaboration including multiple stakeholders from the Hoopa Tribe, Integral Ecology Research Center, USFS, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, CAHFS, UC-Davis, SNAMP, and California Department of Fish and Wildlife, pooling together resources and expertise for a comprehensive approach to evaluate this emerging threat.

Spatial modeling suggested that fishers were exposed to SGARs ubiquitously throughout the study areas, contradicting current thought that wildlife are at greatest risk to these toxicants near agricultural, urban, or peri-urban settings, where the pesticides are legally used to eradicate or suppress rodent pest populations. However, lifetime monitoring of the California fishers showed that most of the exposed or poisoned individuals never overlapped any of those land-use types. In addition, the use of SGARs within the study areas, in adjacent timberlands, or within campgrounds would violate current state and federal regulations. As a result, our suspicions gravitated towards undiscovered illicit uses throughout the project areas. These suspicions were essentially confirmed after federal, state, and local law enforcement officers verified that the poisons were present at most marijuana cultivation sites found on public and tribal lands.

Watch a video of a suspected toxicosis case in a fisher.

All of our documented SGAR fisher mortalities occurred from late April through early June, which is prime-time for marijuana seedling planting in California and likely the period of heaviest toxicant use to protect young plants from rodent damage. Regrettably, this is also a key time for female fishers to rear their kits. That unfortunate timing materialized when we discovered a lactating female fisher dead from SGAR poisoning in the Southern Sierra Nevadas. (California currently has two isolated native fisher populations, one within the northwestern coastal mountains, where population estimates are unknown, and another within the Southern Sierra Nevadas, where estimates sug- gest fewer than 300 adults [Spencer et al. 2011]). Presumably, the dead mother’s kits also died due to den abandonment.

In a separate instance, a rescue attempt on an abandoned fisher kit still dependent on its mother’s milk was unsuccessful, and the kit was found dead of starvation. Most disconcerting was that SGARs were detected in the kit’s tissues. This unexpected finding verified a transplacental or milk transfer of a SGAR from mother to kit, raising concern about fetotoxic or bioaccumulation effects of these pesticides, which are currently unknown.

These findings underscore the need to understand not only the direct impacts of these toxicants, but other possible indirect impacts that fishers and other wildlife may face at the population level. For example, we detected an average of 1.6 different types of ARs per fisher, with some fishers testing positive for four different toxic compounds. There are no data on the possible interactions of two, three, or even four different ARs, or the effects they might have on animal health. Furthermore, we cannot yet determine whether a threshold level of exposure exists beyond which an animal cannot recover, since some fishers died with low levels of SGARs while others displayed no clinical signs even with much higher exposures. We wonder if these toxicants at sub-lethal doses lower resistance to environmental stressors, as seen in other studies, and whether the distribution of SGARs within the landscape will limit prey availability and create sink habitats near cultivation sites. This is just the beginning of a long list of potential cascading impacts now being discussed in California.

Dots scattered through California’s Sierra and Sequoia National Forests represent some 600 illegal marijuana grow sites reclaimed by crews who removed trash, hazardous chemicals, water diversions, and rudimentary shelters left by growers. Blue shading represents current range of the fisher within the southern Sierra Nevadas, where the population is estimated at fewer than 300 adults. (Credit: Greta M. Wengert)

Problem Spreading Like Weeds
Illegal marijuana growing is not just a problem for wildlife. The High Sierra Volunteer Trail Crew is a nonprofit trail-maintenance crew that has spent the past seven years maintaining and cleaning trails throughout the Sierra Nevadas’ national forests. In the mid-2000s, the group realized that risks associated with large-scale marijuana production throughout most, if not all, California national forests threatened backcountry use of public lands. Since then, the trail crew’s Environmental Reclamation Team (ERT) has remediated more than 600 large-scale marijuana cultivation sites on public lands. The numbers are daunting, especially when considering that these 600 sites were in only two of California’s 17 national forests and may constitute only a fraction of the actual marijuana cultivation sites that exist in these forests. Tommy Lanier, Director of the National Marijuana Initiative, a White House supported program, states that “60 percent to 70 percent of the national marijuana seizures come from California annually, and of those totals, about 60 percent comes from public lands.”

Based on data from ERT-remediated sites, at least 50 percent of them have SGARs. Beyond finding anticoagulant rodenticides, the team and other remediation groups frequently find and remove restricted and banned pesticides including organo- phosphates, organochlorines, and carbamates as well as thousands of pounds of nitrogen-rich fertilizers. Many of the discovered pesticides have been banned for use in the U.S., Canada, and the European Union, specifically certain carbamates, which gained notoriety worldwide after an explosion of public awareness about their use to kill African wildlife. Unfortunately, these same malicious uses are occurring in California, where marijuana cultivators place pourable carbamate pesticides in opened tuna or sardine cans in order to kill black bears, gray foxes, raccoons, and other carnivores that damage marijuana plants or raid food caches at grow-site encampments.

In many cases, law enforcement officers approaching grow sites observe wildlife exposed to what officers call “wildlife bombs” due to their high potential for mass wildlife killing. For example, as federal and state officers approached a grow site in Northern California, they discovered a black bear and her cubs seizing and convulsing as they slowly succumbed to the neurological effects of these pesticides. Because toxicants are usually dispersed throughout cultivation sites, it is remarkably difficult to detect and remove all pesticide threats.

Funding to document, quantify, and remediate the damage caused by illegal marijuana cultivation on public and tribal lands has been difficult to secure through state or federal agencies or even private foundations, possibly due to the common misperceptions that illegal marijuana cultivation is not an environmental but rather a social issue, and that it is not a significant threat to wildlife. Yet we propose that funding is strongly warranted to help researchers investigate toxicant exposure and implications throughout the forests’ trophic levels, and to study impacts on all species of conservation concern, including fishers and the northern spotted owl.

Another common misperception is that it is the re- sponsibility of law enforcement to not only protect our natural resources at illegal marijuana sites, but also to remove pesticides and remediate the sites. In truth, there is currently no standardized system for grow-site remediation. Recently, for example, we encountered more than 10 pounds of SGARs and 20 pounds of metaldehyde and carbamates from a single site that law enforcement officers had dismantled within fisher and northern spotted owl territories. Most of these toxicants were left untouched out of concern for the safety of the officers, who are not trained to handle and transport these highly toxic chemicals, especially in the frequent situation where these chemicals are unlabeled. Accordingly, without documentation of the environmental damage and threats from toxicants, and without funding for properly trained personnel, most poisons will continue to be left at grow sites, where they remain a catastrophic threat to wildlife.

Effects Extend beyond Poison
Environmental threats from large-scale marijuana cultivation are certainly not limited to toxicant contamination. At most grow sites, it is standard practice to clear patches of forest within riparian corridors in order to provide enough sunlight for growing plants. The cumulative impact of these practices across the California landscape is unknown, but disheartening in its potential. Last year, at a site within the Hoopa Valley Indian Reservation in northern California, where 26,600 marijuana plants were removed, several acres of hardwood-conifer and alder forest had been cleared along one of the most productive Chinook and Coho salmon-bearing streams in the area. Under no circumstance would this clearing be allowed under the Tribe’s management plans or current state or federal regulations established to protect habitat for the salmon.

Because growers prefer areas with a constant and abundant water supply, it is these sensitive habitats that suffer the greatest impacts from marijuana cultivation. Water diversions and pesticide-filled cisterns within streambeds feeding miles of plastic irrigation lines are all-too-familiar a sight. Human waste throughout these sites is also widespread, and because many of the sites on public and tribal lands are inhabited for several months of the year by drug-traffic organizations, extensive camp systems are set up with associated trash dumps and human latrine sites just meters away from water sources.

The camps and plantations are often guarded by armed drug traffickers, so concern for the safety of field crews, students, and biologists working on these lands is ever pressing. Wildlife professionals are fearful of unwittingly running into armed growers at active grow sites, with good reason. Recently, a federal biologist in the southern Sierra Nevadas was chased by armed growers for 40 minutes through the national forest. “When we lost radio contact at one point for 10 minutes, we feared that the biologist was captured or possibly dead,” says project supervisor Jodi Tucker of Sequoia National Forest. In another incident in the 2012 field season, biologists surveying for north- ern spotted owls on the Hoopa Reservation were shot at by suspected illegal growers with high- caliber assault rifles. Luckily, no one was injured, but biologists avoided the survey area until the threat was addressed.

Due to heighted safety concerns and emerging patterns like these over the past several years, wildlife crews now are often composed of two individuals, whereas before, biologists worked independently in the field. The effects of these changes have not been fully ascertained, but it can be assumed that increased labor costs coupled with increased equipment and vehicle expenditures are affecting the size, duration, and thoroughness of data for many studies on California’s public and tribal lands.

Because wildlife biologists are also avoiding some study areas due to safety concerns, study designs are now being altered to avoid known grow sites, thus further impacting quality and completeness of data. Research ecologist Craig Thompson from the USFS Pacific Southwest Research Station estimates that during each field season, 10 to 25 percent of the Kings River Fisher Project area becomes inaccessible due to safety concerns. In another telling example during the 2010-2011 field season, two radio-collared fishers in this study area pulsed mortality signals but could not be recovered due to their locations near known grow sites. Eventually, under escort by armed law enforcement officers, biologists recovered the collars, yet the carcasses — and any evidence of cause of death or rodenticide toxicosis — were long destroyed.

In his Science editorial “The Tragedy of the Commons,” Garret Hardin lamented the loss of our public resources due to the greed and inconsid- eration of some individuals (Hardin 1968). We believe the vast and ever-growing misuse of our public and tribal forests for the financial benefit of a few individuals is an enormous threat to these resources and a deplorable tragedy of the com- mons. Our public and tribal land and agencies are being hit on two fronts: first by having to endure the illegal use, take, and destruction of natural resources without our permission, then having to support the financial burden of renewing these lands from the disastrous ecosystem degradation that illicit cultivation produces. Regrettably, most of this is occurring without the knowledge of the public, whose land it is. Though this is a sad story that often brings surprise, disgust, and a feeling of helplessness in those hearing it for the first time, in the words of Rachel Carson, “The public must decide whether it wishes to continue on the present road, and it can do so only when in full possession of the facts.”

Author Bios
Mourad W. Gabriel is a Doctoral Candidate at the Veterinary Genetics Laboratory at the University of California-Davis and President of the Integral Ecology Research Center.

Greta M. Wengert is a Wildlife Ecologist with the Integral Ecology Research Center.

J. Mark Higley is a Wildlife Biologist with Hoopa Tribal Forestry.

Shane Krogan is Executive Director of the High Sierra Volunteer Trail Crew.

Warren Sargent is a Forensic Engineer with the High Sierra Volunteer Trail Crew.

Deana L. Clifford, DVM, Ph.D., is a Wildlife Veterinarian with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife.

The larvae of marbled salamanders (above) were among several amphibian species — including spotted salamanders, wood frogs, and spring peepers — that died due to a ranavirus outbreak in Cades Cove, Great Smoky Mountain National Park. (Credit: Matt Niemiller)

Ranaviruses have been called “cold-blooded killers” (Chinchar 2002) for good reason — they are capable of causing illness and death in three ectothermic vertebrate classes (amphibians, reptiles, and fish). Experiments have also demonstrated that the virus can be passed among these groups (called interclass transmission; Bandin and Dopazo 2011), likely facilitating its persistence in aquatic systems. Ranaviruses were discovered in the 1960s (Granoff et al. 1965), yet their role in widespread die-offs of ectothermic vertebrates wasn’t realized until the 1990s (Gray et al. 2009). Researchers are now racing to determine what makes ranaviruses so virulent and capable of infecting so many hosts (Lesbarrères et al. 2012).

We’ve been in that race for eight years after detecting ranavirus in frog communities in Tennessee farm ponds. We found that green frog (Lithobates clamitans) tadpoles in ponds with cattle access were 4.7 times more likely to be infected with ranavirus than those in ponds with no cattle (Gray et al. 2007). Although many factors may have contributed to this trend, we suspect that poor water quality (a stressor) and minimal vegetation (which increases contact rates among individuals) in cattle-access ponds played a role.

Since then, we’ve tested thousands of amphibians across Tennessee and other states and performed dozens of experiments to learn about ranavirus-host interactions. From our experience, ranavirus exists typically at low prevalence (less than 5 percent of individuals infected in a population), then emerges rapidly over a two-week period, with mortality exceeding 90 percent in multiple species. Amphibian tadpoles are most often affected, but other cold-blooded animals (such as freshwater turtles) that come in contact with the virus in water or by eating live or dead infected individuals may also succumb to the disease.

After a ranavirus outbreak, aquatic community composition and ecosystem function can change drastically as thousands of omnivorous herpetofauna die and rot at the bottom of a wetland or lake. In more than 40 years of contemporary research on pathogens affecting ectothermic vertebrates, few pathogens have been found to have as great an ability to transform aquatic ecosystems as ranaviruses.

Ominous Body of Evidence
With one in three amphibian species and over 40 per- cent of turtles at risk of extinction (Stuart et al. 2004, Buhlmann et al. 2009), ranavirus represents a significant threat to herpetofaunal biodiversity. An emerging pathogen is one whose distribution, prevalence in a population, or host range is increasing. Efforts to search for ranavirus in ectothermic vertebrates has increased, and there is a growing body of research that suggests this pathogen is emerging. Consider:

• Through the use of modern genetic analyses, Andrew Storfer at Washington State University found that novel ranaviruses were located in the central United States, possibly resulting from the transport of infected tiger salamanders (Ambystoma tigrinum) used for fishing bait (Storfer et al. 2007).
• Jason Hoverman at Purdue University (formally at the University of Tennessee) tracked the seasonal emergence of ranavirus in amphibian populations at 40 breeding sites in Tennessee, and documented a die-off involving several hundred green frog and American bullfrog (L. catesbeianus) larvae at one of these sites (Hoverman et al. 2012). During this study, about one-third of the sites were classified as having abnormally high prevalence of ranavirus.
• Numerous cases of amphibian die-offs caused by ranaviruses have been reported in the past 15 years, with 94 percent of reported cases occurring since 1998 (Green et al. 2002, Miller et al. 2011), which may suggest increasing geographic distribution.
• Recent emergence of a Frog Virus 3 (FV3)-like ranavirus in eastern box turtle populations (Terrapene carolina carolina) in Maryland, West Virginia, and Kentucky could indicate that host range is increasing (Ruder et al. 2010, Seigel and Farnsworth 2012, The Charleston Gazette 2012).

To our knowledge, ranaviruses are capable of infecting amphibians from at least 14 families and over 70 indi- vidual species (Miller et al. 2011), 15 reptile species (Marschang 2011), and dozens of fish species (Whittington et al. 2010). Considering this unusually broad host range, this emerging pathogen represents a serious threat to global populations of ectothermic vertebrates.

Life History of a Killer
Ranaviruses belong to the virus family Iridoviridae, and six species of Ranavi- rus are currently recognized (Chinchar et al. 2011). It is believed that ranaviruses evolved in fish and subsequently jumped to herpetofaunal hosts (Jancovich et al. 2010). The virus enters a cell by binding to it and injecting its DNA (Chinchar 2002). The cell receptor that ranavirus targets for binding is very generalized and its genetic sequence is conserved (Chinchar and Hyatt 2008), which likely contributes to its broad host range. In the laboratory, ranaviruses can infect fish, reptilian, amphibian, and mammalian cells. Because ranaviruses replicate between 12oC and 32oC (Chinchar 2002), the higher body temperature of birds and mammals precludes them from being suitable hosts (Chinchar and Hyatt 2008).

Transmission of ranavirus can occur quickly by skin-to-skin contact or exposure to the virus in water (Gray et al. 2009). Jesse Brunner of Washington State University demonstrated that ranavirus was transmitted between an infected and uninfected salamander by merely touching them together for one second (Brunner et al. 2007). Jacques Robert at the University of Rochester Medical Center detected viral transcription in the skin, intestines, and kidneys of African clawed frogs (Xenopus laevis) only three hours after exposure to ranavirus in water (Robert et al. 2011). He found that the most common route of entry is likely via the epithelial cells of the intestines followed by the kidney then other organs (e.g., liver, spleen), culminating with systemic infections.

The virus enters host cells and commandeers cellular processes (e.g., DNA replication, mRNA synthesis) for its own replication (Chinchar et al. 2011). Cell death can be rapid, occurring in just nine hours (Chinchar 2002), and result in significant organ necrosis and loss of function (Miller et al. 2011). In highly susceptible species such as the wood frog (L. sylvaticus), mortality can be as quick as three days (Hoverman et al. 2011).

It’s not a pretty death. Ranaviral disease has been likened to Ebola or epizootic hemorrhagic disease for amphibians because their bodies swell and hemorrhage. Hemorrhagic lesions are a key sign in fish and can occur in reptiles. Because ranaviruses infect multiple cell types, tissue necrosis is often extensive in terminal cases. Non-lethal infections have been documented (Grayfer et al. 2012), but their role in ranavirus persistence and emergence is unclear.

In amphibians, necrosis is most prevalent in the liver, spleen, and kidney but can be found elsewhere (Miller et al. 2011). In fish, the hematopoietic tissue is generally most severely affected. In terrestrial turtles, ranaviral lesions primarily include necrosis of the oral cavity and internal organs (usually respiratory and gastrointestinal tracts), but also may include ocular and nasal discharges. In aquatic turtles, lesions mainly include hemorrhages and ulcerations, with the latter occurring along respiratory and gastrointestinal tracts. Death is likely a consequence of organ dysfunction. Secondary infection by other pathogens also is possible.

Roberto Brenes, a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Tennessee, performs a necropsy on a black-bellied salamander as part of a long-term ranavirus surveillance study. (Credit: Matthew J. Gray)

Emergence and Its Impacts
The persistence of ranavirus in the environment is a mystery, but likely involves an interaction of high viability outside the host (Nazir et al. 2012), ability to infect multiple host species and age classes (Hoverman et al. 2011, Haislip et al. 2011), and ability to persist in some hosts as latent infections (Morales et al. 2010). Many factors that encourage ranavirus persistence exist in permanent wetlands, but die-offs are also observed in wetlands that dry annually (e.g., Harp and Petranka 2006). Jesse Brunner surmised that sublethally infected adults likely serve as carriers and shed the virus into the water when amphibians return to wetlands for breeding (Brunner et al. 2004). Other ectothermic vertebrates, such as turtles, could serve a similar role. The persistence and emergence of ranavirus in aquatic ecosystems is a cutting direction in research.

Few studies have followed populations with reoccurring ranavirus die-offs, but researchers at the Zoological Society of London report ranaviruses as the likely culprit of common frog (Rana temporaria) declines in England (Teacher et al. 2010). Jim Petranka at the University of North Carolina in Asheville documented that recruitment of wood frogs and spotted salamanders (Ambystoma maculatum) was nonexistent during several years when ranavirus outbreaks occurred at the Tulula Wetland Complex in Graham County, North Carolina (Petranka et al. 2003). In the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, repeated die-offs involving multiple amphibian species have been occurring for over 10 years (Green et al. 2002, Todd-Thompson 2010), although the effects on population size are unknown. Sites with reoccurring die-offs are a conservation concern due to the possible effects on recruitment and population persistence.

Given that ranavirus infection and mortality tend to be strongly correlated (r > 0.85; Haislip et al. 2011, Hoverman et al. 2011, 2012), high prevalence in a population can be an indicator of emergence. Natural resource agencies should consider conducting surveillance studies to identify “infection hotspots,” where population size, and 95 percent confidence level for detection (Green et al. 2009). For example, testing 30 individuals for ranavirus will ensure detection if prevalence is >10 percent. Testing 60 individuals will ensure detection if ranavirus prevalence is >5 percent. However, if the goal is to obtain a precise, unbiased estimate of ranavirus prevalence, the sample size should be larger. If you are willing to tolerate a 10 percent error in estimating ranavirus prevalence, at least 96 individuals should be tested; 384 individuals should be tested for a 5 percent estimation error.

The reasons for ranavirus emergence at a site vary, but often are related to stressors that can be natural or anthropogenic in origin (Gray et al. 2009). A common stressor is rapid drying of a wetland, which causes amphibian larvae to undergo metamorphosis. During metamorphosis, the immune system is endogenously suppressed (Rollins-Smith 1998), which can increase the likelihood of pathogen infection and disease. Brunner and colleagues documented that the likelihood of wood frog tadpoles dying from ranavirus increased 1.7-fold with each stage of development closer to metamorphosis (Warne et al. 2011). Agricultural pesticides and livestock usage of wetland areas also may stress hosts and increase the likelihood of ranavirus emergence (Gray et al. 2007, Kerby and Storfer 2009). A study in Arizona found that tiger salamanders were 4.3 times more likely to be infected with ranavirus in cattle-access wetlands (Greer and Collins 2008), which the authors attributed to greater contact rates because the salamanders clustered more due to less vegetation.

In addition to external stressors, virus evolution may contribute to ranavirus emergence. Several studies have documented that ranaviruses isolated from cap- tive facilities such as bullfrog farms and bait stores tend to be more virulent than ranaviruses in wild populations (Majji et al. 2006, Storfer et al. 2007, Hoverman et al. 2011). For example, 15 out of 19 amphibian species tested experienced greater mortality when exposed to a ranavirus from an American bullfrog ranaculture facility compared to a ranavirus isolated from a wild northern leopard frog (L. pipiens, Hoverman et al. 2011). If such captive-evolved ranaviruses are released into the wild, the effects on populations could be devastating. The emergence of ranavirus in Japan may be a case of a virulent ranavirus from American bullfrogs being released into wild populations (Une et al. 2009).

Another mechanism of ranavirus emergence is pathogen pollution — the transport of a pathogen across large geographic distances by humans and release of it into a naïve population (Cunningham et al. 2003). It is unclear what constitutes a “large geographic distance,” but it’s probably related to both the dispersal distance of the host and population isolation. If host populations interact through dispersal, host immune systems co-evolve with natural changes in viral DNA. However, in isolated populations or populations separated by a geographic barrier (such as a mountain range), it is possible for viruses to evolve differently (Ridenhour and Storfer 2008). These slight changes in the virus’ genome could result in enhanced virulence in a different population. Thus, if humans transport and release infected hosts over large distances, it could result in emergence of a novel ranavirus (Ridenhour and Storfer 2008). Emergence of ranavirus in some areas of the central U.S., for example, was attributed to moving tiger salamanders for the bait trade (Storfer et al. 2007, Ridenhour and Storfer 2008).

Preventing Spread, Learning More
Ranavirus can persist outside the host for greater than 30 days (Nazir et al. 2012) and be transported on objects such as sediment, boots, and nets. Recreationists and biologists can contribute to pathogen pollution if they contact contaminated water or sediment and do not disinfect footwear or equipment. Such may be the case with the spread of the amphibian chytrid fungus (Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis), where high occurrence has been associated with high human access (Pauza et al. 2010). We found that ranavirus prevalence in salamander communities tended to be higher at sites in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park with high access by recreationists (Gray et al. 2009b).

All biologists who work in aquatic systems or handle fish, amphibians, or reptiles should disinfect equipment and supplies that come in contact with these animals or water (Green et al. 2009). Solutions of 3 percent bleach, 0.75 percent Nolvalsan® (chlorhexidine diacetate) and 1 percent Virkon S® (potassium peroxymonosulfate) are effective at inactivating ranavirus with one-minute contact duration (Bryan et al. 2009), and can be applied easily using a pump sprayer. We recommend use of Nolvasan® because it is considered less toxic to amphibians (Hadfield and Whitaker 2005). Additionally, when handling amphibians, biologists should wear disposable vinyl or nitrile gloves rinsed with distilled water and changed before handling different animals (Cashins et al. 2008, Greer et al. 2009, Green et al. 2009).

Ranavirus Symposium 
From July 27-29, the Second international Symposium of Ranaviruses will be held in Knoxville, Tennessee, just before the annual international Conference of the Wildlife Disease Association (WDA). The symposium will feature presentations and posters highlighting recent research on ranavirus. During two field trips, amphibians and turtles will be captured and sampled for ranavirus testing. To learn more, visit ranavirus.com/ranavirus/welcome.html.

Beyond these precautions, researchers who plan to release amphibians or other ectothermic vertebrates as part of repatriation projects should test a subset of individuals (up to 30) to verify that they are not infected with ranavirus unless captive isolation protocols are followed (Pessier and Mendelson 2010). Tissue types that can be collected for non-lethal testing of ranavirus infection using polymerase chain reaction (PCR) include toe and tail clips; blood also can be used (Green et al. 2009, Gray et al. 2012). Tissues that are collected can be stored in 90 percent ethanol or frozen at -80oC prior to testing. If animals are euthanized, we recommend that infection is tested from a homogenate of the liver and kidneys, which increases detection. We found that tail clips resulted in a 20 percent false negative rate when testing for ranavirus with PCR (Gray et al. 2012). If individuals destined for translocation or repatriation test positive for ranavirus infection, we recommend they not be released. There is no current treatment (e.g., vaccine) available for ranaviral disease.

Guidance on design of surveillance studies, tests used for detecting ranavirus, laboratories that specialize in diagnosing ranaviral disease, and biosecurity precautions are available from the Global Ranavirus Consortium (GRC), a coalition of more than 30 international scientists with expertise in ranaviruses. The group’s mission is to facilitate communication and collaborative research on ranaviruses among scientists, veterinarians, and field biologists. To that end, the GRC hosts a LISTSERV and convenes a symposium on ranaviruses every two years, with the next scheduled for July 2013.

It’s essential that wildlife biologists understand the threat of ranavirus and act quickly to address its spread. Many herpetofaunal species of great conservation concern are very susceptible to this pathogen, including the Chinese giant salamander (Andrias davidianus), California tiger salamander (Ambystoma californiense), gopher tortoise (Gopherus polyphemus), Carolina gopher frog (L. capito), and dusky gopher frog (L. sevosus). Several freshwater and marine fish important to global markets are also highly susceptible to infection. In the U.S., for example, Thomas Waltzek of the University of Florida attributed a 2009 die-off of endangered pallid sturgeon (Scaphirhynchus albus) fingerlings in Missouri’s Blind Pony Fish Hatchery to an FV3-like ranavirus.

Clearly, ranaviruses can impact many ectothermic vertebrate species in the wild and in captivity. We recommend that natural resource agencies and zoological facilities take a proactive role in documenting the presence of ranavirus in populations and take measures to thwart its spread. If we sit idle in the face of this lethal, emerging pathogen, our springs truly may become silent.

Author Bios
Matthew J. Gray, Ph.D., CWB, is an Associate Professor of Wildlife Ecology in the Center for Wildlife Health in the Department of Forestry, Wildlife, and Fisheries at the University of Tennessee.

Debra L. Miller, D.V.M, Ph.D., CWB, is a Professor of Veterinary Pathology in a split position between the Center for Wildlife Health in the Department of Forestry, Wildlife, and Fisheries and the College of Veterinary Medicine Department of Biomedical and Diagnostic Sciences at the University of Tennessee.

Learn more about the impact of ranavirus on turtles, tadpoles, and amphibians.

• Wildlife disease ecologist Mourad Gabriel airlifted to a remote site with Law Enforcement within a National Forest in northern California to collect data at an illegal marijuana cultivation site.
• Collection of a Steller’s jay carcass with armed law enforcement escort within an illegal marijuana cultivation site on Hoopa tribal Lands.
• Hoopa Tribal wildlife ecologist J. Mark Higley documenting additional habitat damage like corn cultivation to support individuals tending illegal marijuana cultivation.
• Hoopa Tribal wildlife ecologist J. Mark Higley and Integral Ecology Research Center ecologist Greta Wengert assessing one of several clear cuts where illegal marijuana was cultivated on Hoopa Tribal Lands.
• Armed individuals from a drug trafficking organization with a poached female black-tailed deer at an illegal marijuana cultivation site in California’s National Forest.
• Two male black-tailed deer poached at an illegal marijuana cultivation site in California’s National Forest.
• A deer fetus found at an illegal marijuana cultivation site in California’s National Forest after armed drug trafficking individuals poached the doe carrying the deer fetus.
• The volunteer team from Environmental Reclamation Team with thousands of pounds of material composing of garbage, plastic piping, an d chemicals after reclaiming an illegal marijuana cultivation site in California’s National Forest.
• Hemorrhaging seen in one of the fisher mortalities attributed to anticoagulant rodenticides.
• Anticoagulant rodenticide bait pellets freely distributed witin a marijuana grow site within occupied fisher habitat.
• Wildlife disease ecologist Mourad Gabriel assessing damage from clear cuts around marijuana grow sites.
• Packages of second generation anticoagulant rodenticides found within a marijuana grow site in occupied fisher and Northern spotted owl habitat.
• Water bottle containing pourable carbamates discovered at a marijuana grow site in a California National Forest in the Sierra Nevada Mountains.

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The Wildlife Society announces candidates for positions on TWS Council. Electronic ballots will be sent in May to all members with an email address. If you do not have an email address you will receive a mail ballot. Newly elected members of TWS Council will be installed at the 19th Annual Conference, October 5-10, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Candidate statements are provided below. You can also view all candidates’ bios.

Vice President

Daniel Edge
My vision for TWS is that it will become the preeminent organization in world in providing the scientific information needed to resolve the many challenging issues related to wildlife and natural ecosystems facing our global society over the next 50 years. TWS will also play an increasingly important role in training and educating the career professionals that society will need to resolve these issues.

Most of my work with TWS has been focused on education and professional development and I believe I can make important contributions in these areas. I would hope to increase membership to 13,000 by further engaging student chapters.

Recently TWS’ Blue Ribbon Task Force and Ad hoc Committee on University Trends have done significant work in the area of understanding what future professionals need to be able to do and know. I would hope to be able to put into action many of the recommendations in those reports by engaging state and federal agencies and university programs in developing regional educational cooperatives.

These cooperatives would provide university programs with direct input on curricula that will deliver the knowledge, skills, and abilities needed for career professionals, and would provide universities direct access to mentors for experiential learning and internships. I would also hope to resolve issues associated with the evolution of our certification program and to increase adoption of this program as a standard of training for wildlife professionals.

Gary Potts
I am honored to be a candidate for Vice President of TWS; a privilege that I know entails great responsibility. Today, we live in a rapidly changing world with numerous issues providing immense challenges for the wildlife profession. TWS has been at the forefront of the leadership role in support of the wildlife profession and is the respected voice on issues pertaining to the conservation of wildlife in North America.

TWS has experienced many changes in recent years including membership growth, publications, our website, and toolkits for subunits. For TWS to remain relevant and effective we must be cognizant of the needs of our membership and subunits, continue with quality workshops and conferences, and maintain high standards for our publications and our Wildlife Policy Program.

My vision for TWS is to:

1. Increase opportunities for students and student chapters;
2. Improve tool kits for and communication with subunits to illustrate the value of all levels of membership;
3. Work with AFWA and agencies to illustrate the relevance of TWS to agency biologists;
4. Expand and improve the Leadership Institute;
5. Expand the outreach of TWS Policy and Government Affairs; and
6. Promote our publications.

My leadership skills have been honed over three decades by working with colleagues and partners on numerous conservation issues throughout North America. I have served as an officer and member at the student, state and section chapter levels and served two terms on TWS Council and chaired or co-chaired more than 15 committees.

My passion is mentoring and networking with students and early career professionals on leadership skills and career development. I am excited about the opportunity to work with members, officers and staff to position TWS to be a more effective leader in wildlife and wildlife habitat.

North Central Section Representative

David Anderson
With a long-time interest in wildlife and having grown up tromping through the woods and along the streams of southwestern Wisconsin, I began a graduate program at the University of Wisconsin Madison in 1981. I entered graduate school in the Department of Wildlife Ecology that fall and began working on a project focused on population ecology of raptors in the context of managing natural resources on military property in Colorado.

Shortly after beginning graduate school, I vividly remember Robert McCabe telling me that research in the Department of Wildlife Ecology wasn’t solely for the sake of research, but, in the tradition of Aldo Leopold, research needed to be in the context of conservation. My graduate advisor, Orrin Rongstad, encouraged me to become involved in a professional society, and one of my mentors, Don Rusch, advocated that I “dance with the one who brought you,” meaning, of course, The Wildlife Society.

Based on that advice and my own commitment to wildlife, I joined TWS as an M.S. student, and have been a member ever since. I participate regularly in chapter and national meetings, and chaired an ad hoc joint TWS/RRF committee charged with reviewing a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service listing decision. I would be honored to represent the North Central Section of TWS, to help further the mission of TWS to advance science in the conservation of natural resources, to represent the professional community that furthers conservation of wildlife and their habitats, and to help further the mission of the “one who brought me.”

John H. Schulz
Our societal and professional cultures are rapidly changing due to global economic forces, demographic shifts, unequal distribution of natural and financial resources, cuts in public services, and a smaller-faster-cheaper workforce; each of these forces directly impact our efforts to manage wildlife. Due to these external forces, we stand at the threshold of numerous professional, cultural, and personal pathways that will ultimately affect management of our natural resources. Future decisions affecting the future health of our natural resources will require leadership from The Wildlife Society by fostering the development of new science-based knowledge for use in crafting natural resource policy and helping improve the reliability of management decisions.

I have been involved with TWS student chapters, numerous state chapters across the country, and worked at the section and national levels on a wide range of issues. While NCS-TWS President I instituted the first electronic newsletter in 2004 along with the Section’s first email-based election of officers saving the section thousands of dollars annually. I’ve demonstrated leadership by chairing multiple committees at the section level; e.g., nominations committee, operations manual review committee, and preparing a proposal for board member travel support to carry the Section’s message out to the state chapters. In cooperation with others, I helped established two new student awards for graduate and undergraduate students and continue to chair the selection committee for these awards. These few examples demonstrate my commitment and willingness to being an effective representative of your TWS North Central Section.

Northwest Section Representative

Harriet Allen
I have spent my career working on recovery of endangered and threatened species in Washington, Montana, and Idaho, in both research and management. During that time, I have viewed participation in chapter, section and national levels of The Wildlife Society as an important component of being a professional wildlife biologist.

I view the position of Northwest Section Representative to Council to be one that facilitates the vital connection between TWS and the Northwest Section members. This position offers the opportunity to bring the perspectives of Alaska, Washington, Idaho, Oregon, and Montana members to the Council and to link the important and ongoing work of the TWS Council to the section and chapter members.

The Council representative conveys important Northwest Section conservation and wildlife management perspectives to the Council and brings important TWS information to the wildlife professionals in the Northwest. Professional development, wildlife policy, development of position statements, use of science to inform decision-making, relevance of TWS in emerging national and global wildlife issues, recruitment and mentoring of new professionals, and sound strategic management of TWS are key aspects of TWS.

The Northwest Section Representative can provide input on these issues from a northwest regional perspective and can facilitate the communication from national to regional and state chapters. I have enjoyed the opportunity to be involved with the Washington Chapter and the Northwest Section in the past and would be honored and welcome the opportunity to continue to work for TWS as the Northwest Section Representative on Council.

Jim Hayden
I’ve seen huge advances in our understanding of natural systems and in the development of field and analytical techniques over the course of my 29 year career. Wildlife management sure isn’t getting any easier though! As we look further and further into the future, it quickly becomes obvious that our need for reliable, scientific knowledge can only become more profound for decision-making in the future. The Wildlife Society has been the stalwart in providing access to scientific information for wildlife management, and this service is at the core of the Wildlife Society.

I tremendously enjoy the networking that we have through the Society, and we have some great networking opportunities with our meetings, The Wildlife Professional, and with our various social media outlets. Communication with the general public is also very important if we are to effectively promote sound science in decision-making. Our Technical Reviews and Position Statements are excellent, and we need to further develop avenues to promote a scientifically sound understanding of natural resource issues for the general populace.

There are many facets to conducting business within The Wildlife Society. I’m honored to be nominated as the Northwest Section’s representative and am very excited to help bring the perspectives of the Northwest Section to Council decisions if given the opportunity to serve.

Western Section Representative

Jeffrey L. Lincer
Flyfishing aside, I’m generally a centrist. I do, however, have strong views on how a professional society should function to properly represent and serve those who study, manage, and conserve wildlife and its habitats and how I might be able to assist.

1. I enjoy sharing what I’ve learned during the last four decades with young people. My view is that we haven’t completed our professional contributions until we have actively mentored the scientists of tomorrow.

2. Spending 15 years in local government, working closely with the public, gave me a valuable perspective: If we don’t have an informed citizenry, even getting the attention of societal decision-makers, much less convincing them to support science-based policy/law, is unlikely. Importantly, without constituent support, there’s little political will; and without will, proper funding will infrequently materialize.

3. Conservation of wildlife and their habitats is high on most of our minds but that should be extended to the way we set priorities, as a profession. Much needs to be done in the wildlife arena but, given the limited time, energy, and funds, any form of wastage, like the unintentional duplication of research or capricious environmental litigation, should be avoided. Clearly, we all have all the time there is; but no more-no less. So, it’s a matter of how effectively we use our time. Importantly, we need to encourage cooperation not competition.

4. Finally, successful sharing of research, science-based policy information, and practical tools depends on good and consistent communication.

Cynthia Perrine
I appreciate the opportunity to be considered for Western Section Representative to TWS Council. Through service, I hope to build on my experience with professional development and K-12 outreach, and encourage “scientist citizen” member contributions. Scientist citizens use their knowledge and expertise to inform policy, to mentor peers and students, and to increase the public’s understanding of science.

The public can be a great ally, but misinformation, misinterpretation, and misunderstanding can easily spread among the public through social media fueled by readily available technologies. The active voice of wildlife professionals and ingenuity of student perspectives can strategically educate on divisive issues like animal welfare, game management strategies, and land use in an effort to influence public opinion and inform legislators.

I hope to contribute to TWS’ outreach efforts. Relating to wide-ranging public interests of conservation, collaboration, and technology helps our organization connect to a broader demographic and engage them in our work. By partnering with organizations that serve youth and their families, we have great potential to build awareness about getting outside, looking closely at nature, and cultivating a land ethic within persons of all cultures and backgrounds.

While our organization has diversified by gender and strives to build a membership more reflective of a diverse human population, we have work to do. I recognize that although every TWS member possesses unique perspectives shaped by regional, educational, vocational, and cultural experiences, we are united by common objectives to serve wildlife conservation and management through science-based initiatives.

Since joining The Wildlife Society (TWS) as a graduate student in 1973, I have appreciated it as a major shaping force in my own career and the wildlife profession overall. A meeting I attended inWashington D.C. last month brought this vividly to mind.The meeting was a gathering of the Wildlife and Hunting Heritage Conservation Council (WHHCC), established under the authority of the Federal Advisory Committee Act to provide advice to the Secretary of the Interior and the
Secretary of Agriculture on matters concerning wildlife conservation and the hunting heritage.

The WHHCC includes 18 members selected to represent a wide spectrum of interested communities. All are senior-level representatives of their organizations and/or have the ability to represent their designated constituency. There are six additional ex officio members from federal government and the Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies.

In my first face-to-face meeting, I was very impressed with the Council’s level of engagement on key issues of national significance, and also that both the Secretary of the Interior and the Secretary of Agriculture took time in their crammed schedules to meet with us.

I have the privilege of serving on the WHHCC because TWS put my name forward during the most recent call for nominees. My role is not to represent TWS alone, but also the broad constituency of “wildlife and habitat conservation/management organizations.” It’s my first opportunity to weigh in at such a high level on matters that are critical to the future of America’s wildlife, habitats, and hunting heritage — a real high point in my natural resources career.

Looking back, however, I see that experiences and opportunities enabled by my TWS involvement have been prominent throughout my career. These include serving on TWS committees and working groups, helping to draft the Society’s strategic plan, organizing conferences and workshops, hands-on leadership development gained as a Council member, immersion in the scientific peer-preview process, weighing in on policy decisions, and on and on.

As a federal employee with the U.S. Forest Service, I often felt at a loss when filling out my individual development plan (IDP), a yearly requirement. While the concept of professional development is extremely important, the list of suggested short courses and training sessions seemed lame. Time management? Team-building 101? Leadership skills? I did not regard such training as a promising pathway to professional advancement. Rather, one advances through personal engagement in challenging, real-world experiences that develop higher-order skills and abilities.

It’s impossible to say how much of my professional development and career advancement came from being an active member of TWS. I know the following to be true, however: Without my TWS involvement I may have held the same jobs, but I certainly would not have had the same career.

I share this perspective to encourage those entering the wildlife profession, or those TWS members whose engagement has been limited, to think of TWS as the most significant opportunity you may ever have for unleashing your own potential and advancing your career. No matter what your job is, the experiences afforded by TWS’s diverse committees, working groups, subunits, publications programs, conferences, mentoring and communications networks, government affairs activities, and leadership positions offer unparalleled opportunities for personal and professional development.

I suspect you’re thinking that your employer views TWS involvement as something apart, and possibly detracting from, your “real job.” It’s true that many employers do not recognize the skills, contacts, knowledge, and experiences offered by TWS involvement as priceless opportunities from a professional development standpoint. How can wildlifers help turn this around?

Here is where the IDP comes in, or whatever your agency, organization, or company calls its training and development form. Midway through my Forest Service career I began filling out the IDP’s “Development Objectives” line with such items as “Stay at the leading edge of science and policy issues in the wildlife field.” And for the next line, “Proposed Training,” I would enter “Attend The Wildlife Society Annual Conference” or “Serve as an Associate Editor for the Wildlife Society Bulletin.” I was always careful to elaborate on these experiences in my year-end evaluation, showcasing the benefits provided to me and my agency.

Later on, as a senior manager, I encouraged my employees to build meaningful development experiences into their IDPs, and increasingly these took the form of engagement with professional societies such as TWS. A signed IDP is like a contract, so in effect it allowed employees to plan attendance at key conferences and workshops rather than scrambling at the last minute for travel approval.

Perhaps your situation is different, and you find it difficult to sell the professional development benefits to your employer. But because those benefits are substantial and real, it is well worth pursuing them on your personal time as an investment in yourself. I continue to invest uncounted hours and weekends in voluntary work for TWS and other conservation-focused organizations, and feel the richer for it.

Back to the WHHCC meeting in Washington D.C. last month. The second observation I wanted to share is about how out-front TWS is on the leading national issues affecting wildlife, and how well-regarded our efforts are in the conservation arena. The meeting agenda included a strong emphasis on wildlife health, including such issues as lead toxicity and management, chronic wasting disease, white-nosed syndrome, and the transmission of diseases between wildlife and livestock.

The meeting materials provided to all Council members included the special issue of The Wildlife Professional (Spring 2012) focusing on wildlife diseases. The TWS Technical Review titled Sources and Implications of Lead Ammunition and Fishing Tackle on Natural Resources was repeatedly referred to during experts’ presentations and discussions on the lead issue. And Council members’ binders included Jim Miller’s recent article in The Wildlife Professional (Winter 2012) addressing wildlife disease threats and other serious problems associated with the intensive deer-breeding industry.

A particularly proud moment came during the update on wild horse and burro management on public lands. This has been one of the most intractable issues for the federal land management agencies, and a great source of concern and frustration for all who care about the health, wildlife, and habitats of western rangelands. A significant new development is the formation of the National Horse and Burro Rangeland Management Coalition, a partnership of wildlife conservation, hunting, agriculture, and natural-resource organizations seeking to identify proactive and comprehensive solutions for horse and burro management. (For more information visit wildhorserange.org).

The diversity of the member organizations, including some “powerhouses” of conservation influence, may be just what is needed to make headway on this most difficult issue. Why am I so proud? Terra Renz, TWS’s Deupty Director for Government Affairs, is a leader in this effort, providing vision and considerable “horsepower” to get the coalition going. This is one more example of TWS at the leading edge, bringing science to bear on even the most political issues.

Contributed Papers and Posters Deadline
The deadline for contributed papers and posters for The Wildlife Society Annual Conference is Friday, April 12 at midnight CST. View more information.

Associated Meetings and Working Groups
We are accepting requests for Associated Meetings for Working Groups, alumni groups, and special interest groups. Reserve your space today by filling out this form.

Staff Changes
The Wildlife Society welcomes Byron Kenneth (Ken) Williams, Ph.D. as our new Executive Director. Upon taking the position with TWS, Ken retired as Co-Director of the Science and Decisions Center in the U.S. Geological Survey Ken’s first day in the office was March 4.

Katherine Edwards was hired as the Professional Development Coordinator. She will be in charge of the TWS certification program in addition to working with chapters, section, and working groups. She started on February 7 and has been a wonderful addition to TWS team. You can reach Katie at katie.edwards@wildlife.org.

Crowdfunding The Wildlife Society Leadership Institute

Have you ever said to yourself, I wish I could support a program that supports wildlife conservation and the next generation of wildlife leaders? Now you can by supporting The Wildlife Society Leadership Institute. Check out our Crowdfunding campaign on Crowdrise. Every bit counts.

Drupal Websites Released for Subunits
The long migration from Joomla to Drupal for our subunit websites is over! After many years of unreliable service and outdated versions, we’re “retiring” Joomla as our content management system of choice. So we’ve spent considerable time setting up new Drupal sites for every subunit that was already using Joomla. Our web producer, Jeremiah Patterson, sent an email to all subunit officers in mid-February announcing the change and providing instructions. If you didn’t receive that email, you can view it now.

If your subunit is currently using Joomla, you’ll want to make sure your actively migrating to the new Drupal site, as we will eventually shut down all Joomla websites. If your subunit doesn’t have a website but would like one, you can request that too. Follow the instructions in the email.

Retirees Center on TWS Website
Retirees, check out the TWS home page, under Centers, for our new Retirees Center where you can see photos of gatherings, join the retiree listserv, read about opportunities to participate in special projects, and access In Memory pages. These are just a few of the items we want to post for our TWS retirees to use and enjoy. We hope to share some historic items from our archives. For example, check out excerpts Tony Peterle’s acceptance speech as TWS President in Mexico City in March 1972. You’ll be surprised at both how many of his goals been accomplished and how much there’s still left to do. If you have any suggestions for other material you would like to see in the Retiree Center, please send them to Yanin Walker at yanin@wildlife.org.

Human Dimensions Textbook
The 2nd edition of the Human Dimensions of Wildlife Management is available for purchase. Whether you are a student or a seasoned wildlife professional, you must add this book to your collection. TWS members receive a 25% discount when using code HTWS. Order yours today!

Wildlife News Brief
Are you receiving the Wildlife News Brief? This weekly publication comes out every Friday and provides the latest in wildlife related news. You can subscribe today for free.

Note from Ken Williams, TWS Executive Director
This is my first communication through The Wildlifer since joining The Wildlife Society (TWS). As many of you know, I began as the Society’s Executive Director on March 4, following retirement from the federal government after some 34 years with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, National Biological Service, and U.S. Geological Survey. As of this writing, I have been on the job for four working days, and I am still learning about the challenges and opportunities in leading TWS. The good news is that I have been associated with the Society for the better part of my professional career, so there is a fair amount of experience and understanding on which to build.

By way of an introduction, let me give a thumbnail sketch of my background. In my most recent position I served as co-Director of the USGS Science and Decisions Center and Chief of the Cooperative Research Units. Previous positions include Executive Director of the North American Waterfowl and Wetlands Office in the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Leader of the Vermont Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit at the University of Vermont, Chief of the Office of Migratory Bird Management at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and several science and management positions at the Patuxent Wildlife Research Center in Laurel, Maryland. Over the years I have been involved in research and application of adaptive management, biological modeling, vertebrate mapping, waterfowl management, habitat conservation, population monitoring, scientific method, and dynamic optimization in natural resources management. In recent years my focus has been on the integration of science into natural resources conservation and management for the U.S. Department of the Interior.

I share with all of you a concern for the uncertain and potentially difficult times we are facing, as Congress and the Administration establish national priorities and struggles to limit growth of the federal budget. Recent negotiations on the fiscal cliff, the sequestration, and ongoing negotiations on the looming crisis as the FY2013 Continuing Resolution expires, all suggest the potential for near-term reductions in support for natural resources conservation. Under these circumstances it is more important than ever for natural resources organizations in general, and The Wildlife Society in particular, to continue to share information and make the case for science-based conservation. We’re in this together, for the future of our environment, our society, and future generations, and for my part I promise to work as hard as I can for our wildlife heritage.