Type:Text

Subject:Rio Grande cutthroat trout

Description:This letter is intended to summarize the 2017 range-wide activities for the conservation of the Rio Grande cutthroat trout (RGCT) and to provide that information to conservation team leaders. The activities below are divided into eight main categories identified in the RGCT Conservation Agreement. [show more]

Type:Text

Subject:Rio Grande cutthroat trout

Description:This letter is intended to summarize the 2018 range-wide activities for the conservation of Rio Grande Cutthroat Trout (RGCT) and to provide that information to conservation team leaders. The activities below are divided into eight primary categories identified in the RGCT Conservation Agreement. [show more]

Type:Text

Subject:Rio Grande cutthroat trout

Description:This letter is intended to summarize the 2018 range-wide activities for the conservation of the Rio Grande cutthroat trout (RGCT) and to provide that information to conservation team leaders. The activities below are divided into eight main categories identified in the RGCT Conservation Agreement. [show more]

Type:Text

Subject:Rio Grande cutthroat trout

Description:This letter is intended to summarize the 2020 range-wide activities for the conservation of Rio Grande Cutthroat Trout (RGCT) and to provide that information to conservation team leaders. The activities below are divided into eight primary categories identified in the RGCT Conservation Agreement. [show more]

Description:In this video, CPW Terrestrial Biologist Kevin Blecha provides a detailed summary regarding the status of big-game herds in Gunnison, CO. To comment on this presentation, contact: kevin.blecha@state.co.us

Type:Text

Subject:Adaptive management
Chronic wasting disease (CWD)
Conservation
Hunting

Description:Recreational hunting has been the dominant game management and conservation mechanism in the United States for the past century. However, there are numerous modern-day issues that reduce the viability and efficacy of hunting-based management, such as fewer hunters, overabundant wildlife populations, limited access, and emerging infectious diseases in wildlife. Quantifying the drivers of recreational harvest by hunters could inform potential management actions to address these issues, but this is seldom comprehensively accomplished because data collection practices limit some analytical applications (e.g., differing spatial scales of harvest regulations and harvest data). Additionally, managing large-scale issues, such as infectious diseases, requires collaborations across management agencies, which is challenging or impossible if data are not standardized. Here we discuss modern issues with the prevailing wildlife management framework in the United States from an analytical point of view with a case study of white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) in the Midwest. We have four aims: (1) describe the interrelated processes that comprise hunting and suggest improvements to current data collections systems, (2) summarize data collection systems employed by state wildlife management agencies in the Midwestern United States and discuss potential for largescale data standardization, (3) assess how aims 1 and 2 influence managing infectious diseases in hunted wildlife, and (4) suggest actionable steps to help guide data collection standards and management practices. To achieve these goals, Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources disseminated a questionnaire to state wildlife agencies (Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution 01 frontiersin.org Brandell et al. 10.3389/fevo.2022.943411 Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Ohio, Wisconsin), and we report and compare their harvest management structures, data collection practices, and responses to chronic wasting disease. We hope our “call to action” encourages reevaluation, coordination, and improvement of harvest and management data collection practices with the goal of improving the analytical potential of these data. A deeper understanding of the strengths and deficiencies of our current management systems in relation to harvest and management data collection methods could benefit the future development of comprehensive and collaborative management and research initiatives (e.g., adaptive management) for wildlife and their diseases. [show more]

Type:Text

Subject:Aural detections
Availability process
Avian point counts
Detection probability
Field tests
Perception process
Time-of-detection method

Description:The time-of-detection method for aural avian point counts is a new method of estimating abundance, allowing for uncertain probability of detection. The method has been specifically designed to allow for variation in singing rates of birds. It involves dividing the time interval of the point count into several subintervals and recording the detection history of the subintervals when each bird sings. The method can be viewed as generating data equivalent to closed capture–recapture information. The method is different from the distance and multiple-observer methods in that it is not required that all the birds sing during the point count. As this method is new and there is some concern as to how well individual birds can be followed, we carried out a field test of the method using simulated known populations of singing birds, using a laptop computer to send signals to audio stations distributed around a point. The system mimics actual aural avian point counts, but also allows us to know the size and spatial distribution of the populations we are sampling. Fifty 8-min point counts (broken into four 2-min intervals) using eight species of birds were simulated. Singing rate of an individual bird of a species was simulated following a Markovian process (singing bouts followed by periods of silence), which we felt was more realistic than a truly random process. The main emphasis of our paper is to compare results from species singing at (high and low) homogenous rates per interval with those singing at (high and low) heterogeneous rates. Population size was estimated accurately for the species simulated, with a high homogeneous probability of singing. Populations of simulated species with lower but homogeneous singing probabilities were somewhat underestimated. Populations of species simulated with heterogeneous singing probabilities were substantially underestimated. Underestimation was caused by both the very low detection probabilities of all distant individuals and by individuals with low singing rates also having very low detection probabilities. [show more]

Type:Text

Subject:Argos
Bayesian model
Canada lynx
Functional data analysis
Movement modelling
Splines
Telemetry

Description:

Summary

1. Advancements in wildlife telemetry techniques have made it possible to collect large data sets of highly accurate animal locations at a fine temporal resolution. These data sets have prompted the development of a number of statistical methodologies for modelling animal movement.
2. Telemetry data sets are often collected for purposes other than fine-scale movement analysis. These data sets may differ substantially from those that are collected with technologies suitable for fine-scale movement modelling and may consist of locations that are irregular in time, are temporally coarse or have large measurement error. These data sets are time-consuming and costly to collect but may still provide valuable information about movement behaviour.
3. We developed a Bayesian movement model that accounts for error from multiple data sources as well as movement behaviour at different temporal scales. The Bayesian framework allows us to calculate derived quantities that describe temporally varying movement behaviour, such as residence time, speed and persistence in direction. The model is flexible, easy to implement and computationally efficient.
4. We apply this model to data from Colorado Canada lynx (Lynx canadensis) and use derived quantities to identify changes in movement behaviour.

[show more]

Type:Text

Subject:Social groups
Infectious disease
Metapopulation
Yellowstone

Description:The population structure of social species has important consequences for both their demography and transmission of their pathogens. We develop a metapopulation model that tracks two key components of a species’ social system: average group size and number of groups within a population. While the model is general, we parameterize it to mimic the dynamics of the Yellowstone wolf population and two associated pathogens: sarcoptic mange and canine distemper. In the initial absence of disease, we show that group size is mainly determined by the birth and death rates and the rates at which groups fission to form new groups. The total number of groups is determined by rates of fission and fusion, as well as environmental resources and rates of intergroup aggression. Incorporating pathogens into the models reduces the size of the host population, predominantly by reducing the number of social groups. Average group size responds in more subtle ways: infected groups decrease in size, but uninfected groups may increase when disease reduces the number of groups and thereby reduces intraspecific aggression. Our modeling approach allows for easy calculation of prevalence at multiple scales (within group, across groups, and population level), illustrating that aggregate population-level prevalence can be misleading for group-living species. The model structure is general, can be applied to other social species, and allows for a dynamic assessment of how pathogens can affect social structure and vice versa. [show more]

Type:Text

Subject:Automated
Baiting
Capture
Capture techniques
Collaring
Fawn
Handling
Mule deer
Noninvasive
<em>Odocoileus hemionus</em>

Description:Wildlife biologists capture deer (Odocoileus spp.) annually to attach transmitters and collect basic information (e.g., animal mass and sex) as part of ongoing research and monitoring activities. Traditional capture techniques induce stress in animals and can be expensive, inefficient, and dangerous. They are also impractical for some urbanized settings. We designed and evaluated a device for mule deer (O. hemionus) that automatically attached an expandable radiocollar to a ≥6-month-old fawn and recorded the fawn's mass and sex, without physically restraining the animal. The device did not require on-site human presence to operate. Students and faculty in the Mechanical Engineering Department at Colorado State University produced a conceptual model and early prototype. Professional engineers at Dynamic Group Circuit Design, Inc. in Fort Collins, Colorado, USA, produced a fully functional prototype of the device. Using the device, we remotely collared, weighed, and identified sex of 8 free-ranging mule deer fawns during winters 2010–2011 and 2011–2012. Collars were modified to shed from deer approximately 1 month after the collaring event. Two fawns were successfully recollared after they shed the first collars they received. Thus, we observed 10 successful collaring events involving 8 unique fawns. Fawns demonstrated minimal response to collaring events, either remaining in the device or calmly exiting. A fawn typically required ≥1 weeks of daily exposure before fully entering the device and extending its head through the outstretched collar, which was necessary for a collaring event to occur. This slow acclimation period limited utility of the device when compared with traditional capture techniques. Future work should focus on device modifications and altered baiting strategies that decrease fawn acclimation period, and in turn, increase collaring rates, providing a noninvasive and perhaps cost-effective alternative for monitoring mid- to large-sized mammal species. [show more]