Journal of the Southeastern Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies

The Southeast Aquatic Resources Partnership (SARP) has taken a lead role in the development of a regional Aquatic Habitat Plan as part of the National Fish Habitat Initiative (NFHI). SARP has been working with its partners, including 13 southeastern states fisheries management agencies, Gulf and Atlantic marine councils and commissions, the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the U.S. Geological Survey, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and other public and private stakeholders, in development of the Southeast Aquatic Habitat Plan. A SARP Habitat Planning Team first met in March of 2006 to develop a vision and guidance for completing a regional plan during 2007. A workshop to draft the regional plan was set for October 2006. The Southeast Aquatic Habitat Plan is on schedule to be the first regional plan associated with the NFHI, and may serve as a model for other areas of the country.

Schools across the nation are facing increasing challenges in addressing and meeting requirements of the federal No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act, standardized testing schedules, and increasingly stringent state curriculum standards. These challenges, coupled with traditionally-restrictive school district budgets and a mind-set that field trips are “vacations from school,” result in outdoor education programs being considered superfluous activities. Aligning outdoor education programs to state curriculum standards can be used to promote these programs as a tool in curriculum adherence as opposed to an unnecessary trip away from school. This session provided a basic introduction to curriculum standards and assessment and evaluation methods. Using Georgia Performance Standards as examples, the session also explored quick methods to align existing outdoor education programs with state learning standards.

Outdoor expositions (expos) are high visibility outreach and education events put on by fish and wildlife agencies and others as a way to thank supporters and to engage potential clients in conservation efforts by introducing them to fun, lifelong outdoor pursuits. The Texas Parks and Wildlife Expo is an annual education and outreach event coordinated and conducted by the agency as an open house to its statewide programs and efforts. Begun as a one-day event in 1992 to thank hunters for their contributions to conservation, Expo grew quickly into an annual two-day affair to recognize hunters, anglers, boaters, park goers, and others involved in conservation of the state's natural and cultural resources. Expo also has attracted a high percentage of non-traditional customers and families to Texas Parks and Wildlife's mission, people, programs, and places.

The Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries (VDGIF) and Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) offer a teacher education course that promotes awareness of Virginia's significant wildlife and fishery resources. Virginia Waters, Woods, and Wildlife focuses on middle- and high-school science teachers. The 40-hour, hands-on program introduces 20 teachers each year from across the Commonwealth to the wealth of Virginia's biodiversity, including birds, mammals, fishes, and invertebrates, and the principles and technologies used to manage and conserve these populations. Professional wildlife biologists and environmental scientists present the ecology and life histories of Virginia wildlife through field experiences as well as effective AV and IT technology.

A PowerPoint presentation is provided as an instructional supplement for the Virginia Basic Hunter Education Course. The PowerPoint slides were designed utilizing the public school competency-based and experiential learning models. It allows instructors to adequately cover the required instructional material in the allotted time frame for each topic and allows instructors to be creative in their delivery to students while addressing all styles of learning. The slides were designed to cover the three areas of instruction: 1.) informational slides provide specific information for the students; 2.) demonstration slides provide an opportunity for the students to view proper techniques and demonstrate them; and 3.) cognitive slides are designed to promote active participation through topic discussion between instructors and students.

While falls from treestands when hunting may cause serious or fatal injuries, little is known about such accidents because they are not usually reported to natural resource department officials. The limited data that is obtained is helpful, but does not fully represent the exposure factors experienced by hunters involved in treestand accidents. This presentation summarized the findings of a study of treestand-related injuries occurring over the period 1993 to 2005. Since 1993, there have been 13 fatal injuries involving Virginia hunters. The presentation highlighted data related to these incidents and gives examples of how they could have been prevented. Falls from treestands are a serious and growing concern for Virginia hunters, particularly among older hunters.

The Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries incorporated various training components and opportunities for local agencies to expand adult and youth interest and exposure to their local natural resources. Workshop participants developed skills and obtained knowledge to enhance their programs and services along with expanding their own personal interests. These training sessions supported a statewide training requirement for many agencies and increased interest to a wider market for the development of a connected and committed audience for the preservation of natural resources. Funding support for collaboration equipment purchase assisted local partners in meeting their needs and developing expanded program offerings to serve larger populations.

The Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries (DGIF) Outdoor Education Program offers several species-specific youth educational hunting workshops designed to offer youth continuing skill sets needed to successfully go afield and engage in successful hunting endeavors. In 2004, the Outdoor Education Program designed a template for these youth hunting workshops enabling staff and volunteers a simple plan to follow for planning and managing youth hunting workshops. DGIF youth educational hunting workshops promote: youth the opportunity to develop and hone skills related to hunting; ethics relating to the principles of fair chase, and stewardship; habitat, ecology, and game biology education; marksmanship and range safety; and game laws review and an opportunity to meet and question a Virginia game warden.

Safari Club International Foundation (SCIF) offers a Wildlife Ecology and Conservation Workshop at four sites around the country during the summers. School teachers and other interested adult educators seeking outdoor education skills and techniques can attend one of six eight-day workshops at the American Wilderness Leadership School (AWLS) at the West site near Jackson, Wyoming. Additional sites are also used on an annual basis for five- and eight-day workshops at the Maine Conservation School, Bryant Pond, Maine; Springbrook Conservation Center, Guthrie Center, Iowa; and Laurentian Environmental Center, Britt, Minnesota. Graduate credit is available as an option at all AWLS sites. This presentation focused on the Jackson, Wyoming, location. A course outline, tentative summer 2007 schedule, and program brochure were available to all participants in this session. Sample curriculum resources will also be available for review.

Virginia was the 29th state to offer the National Archery in the Schools Program (NASP) to students in elementary, middle, and high schools. The Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries conducted its first training of Level I and Level II trainers in August 2005. Embracing NASP and conducting the educational training of the program provided an opportunity for trainers and school educators to be certified to instruct archery programs to youth in the schools. NASP provides training for educators in Olympic-style archery and promotes safety with standardized curriculum that is congruent with Virginia Standards of Learning (SOLs). NASP promotes: youth the opportunity to develop archery skills; an opportunity to develop archery skills; learning of lifelong leisure skills in a structured setting; an avenue for youth to increase skills individually as opposed to team sports; and an opportunity for after-school programs.

Antler restrictions, intended to protect younger, male white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) from harvest and increase harvest of older bucks, are prevalent throughout the Southeast. Mississippi's statewide regulation, initiated in 1995, protects bucks with less than four antler points. We quantified the regulation's effects on age composition, harvest rate, and antler size by analyzing harvest data collected prior to (1991-1994) and after (1997-2001) the regulation was initiated on 22 public areas encompassing 240,000 ha. Relative composition of harvest shifted (P<0.001) from 59% 1.5-year males prior to the regulation to 83% 2.5- and ≥ 3.5-year males 3-8 years later, primarily due to a reduction in harvest of 1.5-year males. Harvest rate of 2.5-year males did not change and there was only a small increase (P<0.05) in harvest of ≥3.5-year males. Total harvest decreased (P< 0.01) from 3.1 to 1.8 males per 405 ha.

Loss of pine-grassland communities has contributed to declines in populations of northern bobwhites (Colinus virginianus; hereafter, bobwhite) and red-cockaded woodpeckers (Picoides borealis; RCW). However, evolving land management priorities on publicly-owned lands managed by the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) increasingly emphasize restoration of historic cover conditions and habitat for endangered species such as the RCW. These land use changes should benefit pine-grassland species, including bobwhite, but effects are not well understood. Therefore, we monitored abundance and distribution of breeding bobwhites on the Homochitto National Forest of southwestern Mississippi during 1994-1999. We quantified abundance of breeding bobwhites using call counts in three landscapes that differed in extent of land under management for RCWs (low = 7.5%, intermediate = 46.7%, and high = 66.2%). Bobwhite abundance was closely tied to intensity of management.

Changes in land use that reduce habitat availability and quality for northern bobwhite (Colinus virginianus) are primarily responsible for a significant bobwhite population decline in the Southeast. Establishment of densely stocked pine plantations (Pinus spp.) on agricultural lands, encouraged by federal assistance programs of the 1980s, likely adversely affected northern bobwhite. To understand how bobwhite habitat my be improved on such land, we examined habitat selection by northern bobwhite (N = 61) during 1997-2000 in the Upper Coastal Plain of Georgia in a forest- and agriculture-dominated landscape. Selection of habitats (l = 0.35, P ≤ 0.001) indicated northern bobwhite preferred early-successional habitats within the study area. Northern bobwhite preferred open canopy planted pine and fallow field habitats over closed canopy planted pine and agricultural areas.

The declining bobwhite populations evident throughout the Southeast are cause for concern. Whereas habitat loss and/or intensified agriculture have been implicated as two potential causal mechanisms for these declines, few studies have directly compared bobwhite demographics between agricultural and managed bobwhite plantation landscapes. Therefore, we monitored northern bobwhite (Colinus virginianus; hereafter, bobwhite) via radiotransmitters (N = 472) on a center-pivot irrigated agricul-tural landscape (N = 154) and an adjacent, intensively-managed bobwhite plantation (N = 318) to evaluate differences in home range, habitat use, survival, and nest survival between these two landscapes. Winter covey home ranges were larger during fall-winter 1998-99 on the agriculture site (P < 0.001). Coveys on the agricultural landscape used young planted pines (Pinus spp.) greater than expected (P < 0.05) during both years.

Conservation buffer practices implemented under U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Farm Bill programs offer opportunities for enhancing breeding season habitat for farmland birds. Recently, CP33 (Habitat Buffers for Upland Birds) was added as a new continuous Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) practice designed to address habitat goals for northern bobwhite (Colinus virginianus) under the Northern Bobwhite Conservation Initiative. However, it is presumed that this practice will also benefit other birds. To evaluate potential benefits of CP33 field borders for farmland birds, we established a total of 89.0 km of experimental field borders (6.1-m wide) along agriculture field edges on three 405-ha farms in Clay and Lowndes counties, Mississippi. We used 200-m x 20-m strip transects to measure abundance and diversity of birds inhabiting bordered and non-bordered field edges.

Morning covey call counts are popular for estimating fall abundance of northern bobwhite (Colinus virginianus). However, veracity of the technique's abundance estimates are questionable with numerous assumptions inherent to the technique. Therefore, we used captive bobwhites to test ability of three groups of observers to plot calling bobwhite locations on an aerial photo. We found no difference (P < 0.05) between observer groups when plotting calling bobwhites from within a grid cell. Accuracy was generally poor (x¯ = 75.0 m, SE = 10.9) regardless of where in the grid cell the calling bird was located. We also compared accuracy in plotting captive birds and recorded calls and found that recorded calls can be used as a substitute for captive bobwhites when testing observer groups. However, there are potential sources of error including time of day and possibility of observer group accuracy changing as number of attempts to plot coveys increases during the day.

In the southeastern United States, food plots are often used to compensate for annual fluctuations in forage quantity and quality. We evaluated forage production, seasonal use by white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus), and seasonal crude protein levels of MaxQ fescue (Festuca arundinacea), Regal ladino white clover (Trifolium repens), and Durana white clover (T. repens) planted alone or in combination. We planted two 1-ha food plots in the Coastal Plain, Piedmont, and Blue Ridge physiographic regions of Georgia in November 2002. We measured forage production (kg/ha) and use every 30 (±3) days over one year. MaxQ fescue had greatest amount of standing crop across regions throughout most of the study period. Forage production and standing crops of Durana and Regal were similar throughout the study except during the second spring in the Coastal Plain, when Durana had greater standing crops than Regal.

Although chronic wasting disease (CWD) has not been documented in any samples (N = 2,447) collected in North Carolina, the potential biological, economical, and sociological implications associated with this disease are significant. Discovery of CWD in Wisconsin prompted the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission (NCWRC) to implement a preventative disease management strategy in May 2002. Revisions to administrative rules pertaining to captive cervids were implemented, including testing, tagging, and inspection requirements. A short-term buyout program was established to compensate individuals voluntarily relinquishing their cervid herd and captivity license to NCWRC. Minimizing occurrence of illegally-held cervids was also a goal. Monitoring and surveillance of CWD were expanded for free-ranging whitetailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus), including a statewide, systematic sampling of hunter- and road-killed deer and free-ranging deer located around captive cervid facilities.

Eastern wild turkeys (Meleagris gallopavo silvestris) are an important recreational resource throughout their range. Previous research has shown that intensively managed pine forests can sustain huntable populations of eastern wild turkeys. However, little research has examined patterns of spatial use of turkeys within these systems. An expected increase in acreage of intensively managed pine forests over the next half century requires a basic understanding of wild turkey ecology in these systems. Therefore, we used a long-term (1986-1993) data set to estimate annual and seasonal home range size of female eastern wild turkeys from a landscape dominated by intensively managed pine forests in east-central Mississippi. Mean seasonal home range size was 406 ha ± 20 ha (mean ± SE; N = 268). Home ranges were larger during fall-winter (524 ± 43.5 ha) than preincubation (326 ± 23.2 ha) and summer (392 ± 32.5 ha).

Importance of invertebrates to growth and development of eastern wild turkey (Meleagris gallopavo silvestris) poults has been well documented. However, few studies have investigated direct invertebrate use by poults, specifically in relation to alternative forest management regimes. Therefore, we measured invertebrate selection by turkey poults in thinned, mid-rotation loblolly pine (Pinus taeda) plantations, treated with factorial combinations of prescribed burning and a selective herbicide, in east-central Mississippi in 2000 and 2001. Using suction sampling and humanimprinted turkey poults, we quantified invertebrate use by poults relative to availability. Turkey poults exhibited heterogeneous use of invertebrate Orders among broods across all treatments and years of study (P < 0.001). Additionally, poults did not select invertebrates relative to availability across all treatments and years of study (P < 0.001).

Significant losses to bottomland hardwood forests have occurred throughout the southeastern United States, and considerable efforts are ongoing to restore bottomlands. Understanding ecology of wild turkeys (Meleagris gallopavo) in these systems will become increasingly important as distribution and availability of these forests continues to change through time. Although considerable research has examined space and habitat use of wild turkeys in upland forests, information is lacking for bottomland hardwood systems. We captured and radiomarked 32 female wild turkeys in a bottomland hardwood forest in south-central Louisiana. We used radiotelemetry to estimate patterns of space use and habitat selection during 2002-2004. Space use was greatest during preincubation when females typically search for suitable nest sites and was least during brood-rearing.

Survival of female wild turkeys (Meleagris gallopavo) influences turkey productivity. Although patterns of survival and productivity have been extensively researched in most forested landscapes, little information is available for female turkeys in bottomland hardwood systems, although importance of these systems is widely recognized. Therefore, we captured and radiomarked 39 female wild turkeys in a bottomland hardwood forest in south-central Louisiana during 2001-2004. Mean annual survival was 0.67. Survival was greatest during preincubation (1.00) potentially because of increased habitat sampling and movement during this period. Fall-winter survival was high (0.93), likely attributable to stable foraging resources and a lack of illegal and legal harvest during this period. Lowest survival occurred during incubation (0.75) and brood-rearing (0.83), primarily as a result of increased risks of predation associated with nesting and brood rearing.

We studied ruffed grouse (Bonasa umbellus) drumming behavior in the southern Appalachian Mountains of North Carolina. We conducted drumming counts from late March through mid-April 2002-2004. Concurrent with drumming counts, radio-tagged males (N = 30) were monitored to determine proportion of males drumming. Drumming activity increased from late March (20% of males drumming) to a peak in mid-April (56%-69% of males drumming). Consistent drumming coincided with mean nest initiation date by females (12 April, N = 44). Drumming count results were related to fall trapping success on the study area. Drumming counts appear to be an effective tool to monitor grouse population trends in the southern Appalachians. In our area, we recommend planning drumming counts during the peak drumming period of 9-16 April. Key words: Appalachians, Bonasa umbellus, drumming, North Carolina, population index, ruffed grouse.