SEAFWA Journal Volume 11, March 2024

Southern fox squirrels (Sciurus niger niger) have been declining due to habitat fragmentation, cover type conversion, and fire suppression in the Southeast. A decrease in growing season burns has led to hardwood encroachment and forest mesophication that benefit the competing eastern gray squirrels (S. carolinensis). In the southern Coastal Plain and Piedmont of Virginia, these pattern raises the question of whether gray squirrels are competitively excluding southern fox squirrels in these altered landscapes. From October 2019 to October 2020, we conducted continual...

Throughout much of the eastern U.S., many forested ecosystems have lost large amounts of core forest areas due to land-use change, isolating wildlife in forest fragments. The eastern spotted skunk (Spilogale putorius) is considered a species of conservation concern in Virginia, where populations are restricted to spatially disjunct forest patches in the central Appalachian Mountains. We caught and radio-tagged eastern spotted skunks in the Appalachian Mountains of Virginia to assess whether current habitat fragmentation restricts skunk movements and hence distribution, potentially...

Understanding the relationships of biotic and abiotic factors to seasonal activity at hibernacula is important for the conservation of bats impacted by white-nose syndrome (WNS). Research on the relative and probable activity patterns of the federally endangered northern long-eared bat (Myotis septentrionalis) primarily has focused on summer maternity colonies, whereas surveys at hibernacula have traditionally relied on external capture and internal counts. We used passive acoustic monitoring to assess the relative and probable activity of northern long-eared bats at 13...

Conservation of bats declining from white-nose syndrome (WNS) impacts requires an understanding of both temporal and landscape-level habitat relationships. Traditionally, much of the research on bat ecology has focused on behavior of summer maternity colonies within species’ distribution cores, including that of the endangered northern long-eared bat (Myotis septentrionalis). To further our knowledge of this species, we evaluated multi-season activity patterns in eastern North Carolina and Virginia, including areas where populations were recently discovered. We used passive...

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service allows acoustical surveys and automated identification software to determine the presence of the endangered northern long-eared bat (Myotis septentrionalis) and Indiana bat (Myotis sodalis). Analytical software is required to assess presence probability on a site-night basis using a maximum likelihood estimator (MLE) that accounts for interspecific bat misclassification rates. The current standard for occupancy is a returned MLE P-value < 0.05 at the nightly level irrespective of the number of files identified as either northern long-...

Wild pigs (Sus scrofa) are arguably one of the greatest wildlife management challenges facing natural resource professionals and landowners in the U.S., and lethal removal by trapping is often the most cost- and time-effective means for managing populations. Whereas numerous studies have examined the effects of trap type, trap activation designs, and baits on trapping effectiveness, no studies utilizing a conditioning period and accounting for unique individuals/sounders and wild pig social structure have examined the effects of trap door width on wild pig entrance into corral-...

Grain-based attractants (e.g., corn) are standard among most wild pig (Sus scrofa) trapping and non-invasive sampling efforts (e.g., genetic spatial capture/recapture, camera trapping), but their use is not always feasible due to cost, deployment restrictions (e.g., difficulty of transporting grain into remote areas, property rules), and potential disease concerns associated with concentrating non-target species at bait sites. Attractant deployment and efficacy should be considered by biologists, private landowners, and researchers given the ultimate need to use attractants to attract wild...

Animal body mass can be used to estimate age, determine health status, or guide dosage when administering sedatives. Because it can be difficult to weigh live large animals, using morphometric measurements to estimate body mass is sometimes used in field studies. Several statistical models exist for estimating domestic pig mass from morphometric measurements, but models based on domestic animals are likely unreliable estimators of wild pig (Sus scrofa) body mass due to known hybridization between domestic and wild pigs, and variable environmental conditions. The goal of this...

Management of wild pigs (Sus scrofa) typically employs some form of population survey methodology, and trail cameras are the most common tool for conducting these surveys. Identification of individual sounders is generally at the foundation of these population surveys. Pelage characteristics and relative age distribution of individuals within the sounder coupled with total sounder size are common characteristics used to identify unique sounders. However, in many populations, the pelage of many wild pigs is either black or wild/grizzled, making pelage characteristics unreliable for...

Wild pigs (Sus scrofa) are a highly destructive invasive species and reported to be present in 77% of counties in the southeastern U.S. Wild pigs may negatively affect white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus; hereinafter, deer) and eastern wild turkeys (Meleagris gallopavo silvestris; hereinafter, turkey) via competition over forage or exclusion from preferred areas. To explore effects of wild pigs on spatial distribution of these species within a mixed agriculture-forest landscape, we developed models predicting camera trap detections of deer and turkeys as a...