Journal of the Southeastern Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies

The Louisiana black bear (Ursus americanus luteolus) was listed under the U.S. Endangered Species Act as Threatened in 1992. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service cites loss of habitat as the primary cause of population decline, along with human-related mortality as a secondary cause. One of the delisting criteria in the Recovery Plan for the Louisiana black bear is that two of the three subpopulations must be viable, one in the Tensas River Basin and one of the two in the Atchafalaya River Basin. To determine population viability, accurate estimates of basic population parameters including abundance, growth rate, density, and apparent survival are necessary. My study will assess the status of the subpopulation located in the Upper Atchafalaya River Basin based on non-invasive DNA mark-recapture techniques. Hair samples were collected beginning in summer 2006, and I will continue to collect data annually through 2011 using barbed-wire sampling sites.

Common mid-rotation forest management practices in intensively-managed pine (Pinus spp.) stands include thinning, fertilization, herbicide use, and prescribed burning. However, greater herbicide use and less prescribed fire have generated questions regarding treatment effects on biological diversity within these systems. Therefore, we determined biodiversity response (songbirds, rodents, reptiles, amphibians, carabid beetles, understory vegetation) to factorial combinations of dormant season prescribed fire and imazapyr herbicide in thinned and fertilized, mid-rotation intensively managed pine stands in Kemper County, Mississippi. We used a randomized complete block design with six pine stands (blocks) divided into four 10-ha experimental units to which we applied randomly one of four treatments (burn only, herbicide only, burn + herbicide, control).

Many studies have reported that imported fire ants can have negative impacts to property, wildlife, and ecosystem integrity. Depredation by fire ants can reduce native insect diversity and survival of hatchling birds and reptiles, including gopher tortoises. Because of the potential impacts of fire ants on gopher tortoise recruitment, we assessed infestation levels of red imported fire ants on public and private forest lands in south Mississippi. Our study design focused on surveys for estimation of densities of fire ant mounds on suitable and priority soils for gopher tortoises. We surveyed 16 land bases and five forest cover types during summer 2010. Forest cover types included in our study were planted longleaf and loblolly pine ≤5 years of age, planted longleaf pine >5 to ≤15 years of age, longleaf and loblolly pine forests >15 years of age, and mixed pine hardwood forests >15 years of age.

In some regions used by nonbreeding waterfowl, conservation planners assume that food may be a limiting factor for waterfowl populations, and carrying capacity estimates are based on food availability. Conservation planners require precise estimates of parameters used in carrying capacity models, including characterizations of waterfowl diets, temporal trends in food availability in response to management actions, and estimation of a food availability threshold (FAT; i.e., food density when foraging becomes unprofitable because energy expended during or risk of continued searching exceed potential benefits gained from obtaining foods). We experimentally estimated FAT and identified factors that likely affect foraging thresholds and food depletion in moist-soil wetlands.

Conservation easements provide an important tool for agencies and organizations to protect environmentally sensitive areas and improve environmental quality. The Food, Agriculture, Conservation, and Trade Act of 1990 (i.e., Farm Bill) established the Wetlands Reserve Program (WRP) with goals to “protect, restore, and enhance the functions and values of wetland ecosystems.” Since 1990, WRP objectives have expanded to include 1) provision of habitat for migratory birds and other wetland-dependent wildlife, 2) protection and improvement of water quality, and 3) floodwater attenuation and groundwater recharge. Currently, WRP includes approximately 1.9 million acres of permanent easements and 0.4 million acres of longterm contracts that protect wetlands and associated upland habitats, making WRP the largest USDA-Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) easement program.

In recent decades, coyote have greatly expanded their range and numbers in the eastern United States. Increasing populations of coyotes can affect ecological communities directly by predation or through competition with other carnivores, making their impact a potentially significant one that must be understood for effective management. Identifying and quantifying items in coyote diets is an important part of understanding the role of coyotes in newly inhabited ecosystems, such as the Central Appalachian region. Our objective was to determine the diets of coyotes in West Virginia. We examined stomachs (n = 326) and scat (n = 693) from throughout West Virginia from November 2009 to May 2011. Preliminary findings indicated that deer, at 61%, was the most commonly occurring item in samples followed by plant material (39%), small mammals (19%), and fruit and seeds (16%).

Harvest vulnerability is an important consideration for the proper management of a black bear population. To assess harvest vulnerability, we must first understand black bear and bear hunter spatial characteristics. Global positioning system (GPS) technology allows us to record this information with more accuracy and efficiency than previous methods used by researchers. We used GPS and a geographic information system (GIS) to examine the spatial characteristics of bears and bear hunters in Garrett County, Maryland during the 2005-2007 bear hunting seasons. We fitted 94 hunters and 8 female bears with GPS transmitters during the three hunting seasons. We examined data from these transmitters using GIS to compare the following variables for bears and hunters: distance to roads, distance to streams, elevation, habitat type, and slope. We also calculated total distance traveled and maximum distance traveled from starting points for hunters.

Although fire is recognized as an important disturbance in longleaf pine uplands of the southeastern United States, less is known about the importance of fire or other disturbances in the wetlands embedded in this system. Reticulated flatwoods salamanders (Ambystoma bishopi), a federally endangered species, breed in the grassy understory of ephemeral pine flatwoods wetlands. These areas contain water in the winter, but are dry by April or May in most years, making it possible for them to burn during the summer lightning season. Years of fire suppression allowed a dense mid-story of shrubs to develop in these wetlands, and the disappearance of a grassy understory not only removed a component of larval salamander habitat, but removed the fine fuels important for carrying a fire through the dry wetland in summer. Prescribed burns applied in winter rarely burn through ponds because of the presence of standing water at this time of year.

The American black duck (Anas rubripes) has been declining throughout its range since the 1950s, especially in the Mississippi Flyway. Loss of quality wintering habitat and competition and hybridization with mallards (A. platyrhynchos) have been suggested as factors contributing to black duck decline. Tennessee and Cross Creeks National Wildlife Refuges (NWRs) are two primary wintering areas for midcontinent black ducks recording long-term population declines. To better understand habitat selection and habitat-related survival of black ducks at Tennessee NWR (TNWR), we radio marked 64 female black ducks with harness-type, VHF transmitters on the Duck River Unit (DRU) of TNWR in winter 2010-2011. From December-March 2010-2011, we located radio marked ducks 1345 times on the DRU: moist soil (44.7%), open water (33.5%), forested/scrub-shrub (14.0%), agriculture (6.5%), and other (1.2%) habitats.

Hatchery-tagged rainbow trout (Oncorynchus mykiss, n = 3,867) were stocked from March to November 2009 in the Toccoa River tailwater, Georgia. Data from electrofishing and angler recaptures were used to assess mortality, growth, condition, and dispersal of stocked rainbow trout. Total annual mortality (A) as calculated using catch-curve regression was high (A = 96.7%). Annual angler catch rate was moderate (34.1%), but release rate was high (62.8%). As a result, angler harvest was only 12.7%. Growth of stocked trout was slow in terms of both length (5.0 mm/mo) and weight (4.6 g/mo), and stocked trout remained close to their stocking site. Body condition declined significantly between stocking and recapture. Slow growth and poor condition of stocked trout suggest that the Toccoa tail water's trout community is at or above carrying capacity. The apparent high density of stocked trout likely contributes to low survival over the first year post-stocking.

Lewis Smith Lake is an 8,853-ha recreational fishery within the Black Warrior River basin near Jasper, Alabama. A recent study found that striped bass Morone saxatilis do not significantly impact largemouth bass Micropterus salmoides and Alabama bass M. henshalli through competition and predation, though many anglers still believe this to be true. Costs incurred by the Alabama Division of Wildlife and Freshwater Fisheries annual striped bass stocking efforts on Lewis Smith Lake are compared with the regional economic gain from the existence of this fishery. The objectives of this study were to: 1) estimate total fishing effort and trip expenditures by target species; 2) estimate distribution of striped bass expenditures and tax revenue into local communities; and 3) understand the socioeconomic characteristics of striped bass anglers. Effort was estimated at 233,756.31 hours for all species.

In 2001, a cooperative effort was begun to restore native fish populations to the Pigeon River, once so polluted that all mollusks and many fish species were extirpated. Volunteers from federal and state agencies, industry, and private organizations created the Pigeon River Recovery Project to begin re-introduction of fish and other aquatic species. Early successes in Tennessee led to the expansion of the project into western North Carolina. More than 29,000 individuals representing 20 species of fish and 220,000 snails (six species) collected from the French Broad basin and the upper reaches of the Pigeon River have been re-introduced into the Pigeon River at selected sites in the two states. The first three candidates were the gilt, bluebreast and blueside darters, followed by the stripetail darter in 2003. Reproduction was first documented in gilt darters in 2003.

Historically, many Kentucky rivers had native walleye populations with fish that grew to impressive sizes and supported popular sport fisheries. Due in part to reservoir constructions and a variety of other factors, these populations gradually declined. By the 1970s, the huge spring walleye runs in these rivers had disappeared, so the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources (KDFWR) began stocking walleye from northern origins in some of these same rivers and the new reservoirs. In 1995, after learning of anglers still catching large walleye in the Rockcastle River, KDFWR biologists collected eight walleye from this Cumberland River drainage tributary. The fish were later confirmed as a different genetic strain than walleye that had been stocked by the KDFWR around the state. The fish from this population would thus serve as broodstock for a native walleye restoration program in the state.

The importance of floodplain habitats to biotic communities has long been acknowledged. Many large river systems, however, are heavily regulated by dams that alter natural flood pulses and restrict large volumes of water from entering floodplains. We were interested in determining how alterations in flow regime may affect communities of fishes and invertebrates in floodplains along the Savannah River. To do so, we monitored floodplain fish and invertebrate community responses across three flow regimes: 1.) unregulated pulses (in the adjacent and free-flowing Altamaha River); 2.) controlled, released pulses in the Savannah from 2005-2006, and; 3.) the lack of released flood pulses in the Savannah from 2007-2009. We hypothesized that fish and invertebrate communities of the non-pulsed Savannah floodplains would be distinct from communities within the Altamaha floodplains, and that the pulsed Savannah floodplains would host intermediate communities.

Adaptive management is a form of structured decision-making designed to guide management of natural resource systems when their behaviors are uncertain. The basic elements of adaptive management include a setting in which a recurring decision is to be made, a stated objective of management, a set of predictive models that represent competing hypotheses about system behavior, and a program of monitoring to repeatedly assess relative credibility of the models. Thus, management itself is used to inform future management and to consequently improve conservation delivery through time. Where decision-making can be replicated across units of a landscape, learning can be accelerated, and biological processes can be understood in a larger spatial context. Cooperative conservation endeavors, where multiple partners collaborate to develop the decision making design and execute the elements, can be ideal vehicles for implementing such strategies.

The problem we addressed was how to design a national policy that provides for effective management of Double-crested Cormorant (DCCO) populations within the United States. Primary management objectives surrounding DCCOs are at times in conflict and include protecting DCCO populations as required under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act while resolving DCCO conflicts with impacts to private property, the aquaculture industry, and natural resources. Ultimately, the USFWS will decide on a national management strategy by 30 June 2014, at which time existing regulations expire. We developed a framework to characterize decisions at the national scale, with explicit consideration of the process by which such decisions are linked hierarchically to those made at other scales. We identified a list of fundamental objectives, the potential means for achieving each objective, and attributes with which to measure progress.

In recent years, Florida's pine flatwoods, which provide habitat for numerous Lepidopteran species (butterflies and moths), have exhibited considerable declines in quantity and quality. These declines are primarily attributed to changes in historic fire regimes which have resulted in excessive shrub growth and loss of herbaceous vegetation. Prescribed burning and roller chopping are being promoted as a means to improve these areas of degraded pine flatwoods. However, impacts of these practices on pine flatwoods-associated Lepidopterans, many of which are important herbivores and pollinators, are largely unknown. The objectives of this study were to 1) compare diurnal Lepidopteran species richness and abundance on treated (management activities such as prescribed burning implemented) and untreated (no management activities implemented) pine flatwoods sites and 2) compare species richness and abundance of nectar-producing forbs and shrubs on treated and untreated sites.

Longleaf pine forests have declined precipitously throughout the southeastern United States, partially because of reductions in prescribed burning. Populations of species associated with longleaf forests, such as Bachman's sparrow (Aimophila aestivalis), also have declined at alarming rates. Efforts to restore longleaf systems are ongoing throughout the region, and involve varying fire-return intervals. We assessed whether Bachman's sparrow detection probabilities and site occupancy were associated with differences in microhabitat caused by variations in fire regimes. The fire regimes we assessed were conducted within stands that averaged 3.5 ha. Our occupancy models suggested that the most suitable habitat for Bachman's sparrows in longleaf pine stands included a monoculture of longleaf pine overstory with limited intrusion of hardwood species and greater herbaceous layers for nesting cover.

The two most common methods for determining home ranges, minimum convex polygon (MCP) and kernel analyses, can be affected by sampling intensity. Despite prior research, it remains unclear how high-intensity sampling regimes affect home range estimations. We used datasets from 14 GPS-collared, white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) to describe the size and location accuracy of home range estimates calculated from different sampling regimes. We compared monthly home range estimates from seven sub-samples (480, 360, 180, 90, 60, 30, and 15 locations) to the home range estimates of the complete datasets (720 locations). Minimum convex polygon (MCP) home range size estimates calculated from datasets with > 180 locations were not statistically different. Areas calculated with 60-90 locations may underestimate MCP size by 50% or more. As demonstrated in past studies, we found that kernel home range analyses accurately estimated home range size for all sampling regimes.

Georgia's Bobwhite Quail Initiative (BQI) has been a proactive effort to restore, improve and maintain habitat for northern bobwhite (Colinus virginianus; hereafter bobwhite) on private lands across 15 counties of Georgia's Upper Coastal Plain. Secondary objectives included improving habitat for certain songbirds and improved bobwhite hunting and wildlife viewing. Funding was provided through state appropriations, the sale of BQI vehicle license plates (tags) and matching grants. Landowners received over US$1.7 million of financial incentives, and technical assistance was provided to 1646 landowners on 264,395 ha. Incentive cost was $78.90/ha directly managed and $31.88/ha impacted. Research, monitoring, and incidental observations showed positive response of bobwhites and songbirds to BQI practices at the farm scale.

We captured 60 wild turkey (Meleagris gallopavo) hens from 1998-2001 on the U.S. Department of Energy's Savannah River Site (SRS) in South Carolina to assess nesting success, identify characteristics of successful and unsuccessful nests, and determine survival rates and mortality factors of hens. Hen nesting success varied greatly among years, ranging from 0-80% and was strongly correlated (r = 0.998) with the number of poults per hen observed during brood surveys. Woody stem densities (F30 = 5.1; P = 0.03) and nest concealment (F30 = 4.69; P = 0.04) both were greater at successful than at unsuccessful nest sites. The mean annual survival rate for hens on SRS was 0.74 ± (0.02), and bobcats (Lynx rufus) were the primary predator of marked hens. The dynamics of the long-established, unhunted population at SRS were apparently similar to those of recently established or hunted populations elsewhere.

Graduates from fisheries and wildlife programs in the Southeast need to know what qualifications are necessary to successfully attain entrylevel biologist positions with state agencies, and state agencies and university programs share a responsibility for preparing students for these positions. Despite much literature devoted to the discussion of what should be included in academic curricula, little work has been done to identify how agencies are communicating with students and what types of experiences will best prepare potential applicants for employment with these agencies. We used Internet survey responses from professionals in 15 member agencies of the Southeastern Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies (SEAFWA) to determine their recruiting and hiring processes.

The white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) population on Bald Head Island has increased, threatening a unique maritime forest in southeastern North Carolina. Bald Head Island is ~620 ha and is characterized by live oak (Quercus virginiana) maritime forest, dunes, tidal marsh, and urban development. Preservation of maritime forest is important for barrier island conservation. Maritime forests are important coastal habitats that are under significant threat from development, and in the absence of reproductive controls, white-tailed deer can negatively impact ecosystems through over-browsing. Therefore, our objectives were to determine emigration, home range, cover type use and selection, and population density of whitetailed deer on Bald Head Island to provide baseline information which could impact deer management decisions.

Capture and relocation is commonly used to reintroduce Rio Grande wild turkeys (Meleagris gallopavo intermedia). However, isotonic muscle contraction during the capture and restraint process reduces blood flow to muscles and may induce the stress related disease, capture myopathy. The goal of this study was to determine if intramuscular injections of vitamin E and selenium could be an effective treatment for capture myopathy. Survival rates and enzyme levels did not differ between the control and treatment group. Results suggest that vitamin E and selenium injections do not significantly improve survival of wild turkeys when trapped and relocated under conditions experienced in this study. Factors such as handling time relative to rate of enzyme secretion, trapping techniques employed, and possible nutrient deficiencies may have influenced the results of this study.