More Mountain Lions

Where are there more mountain lions? There are increases Puma concolor sightings just about everywhere, recent news reports say.

An article in The New York Times focuses on mountain lions’ expansion east from their strongholds in the Rocky Mountains and Texas. The article says that mountain lion sightings are now common in the Midwest, and it includes a map that shows recent sightings, including several in New England.

Read The New York Times article here.

In Arizona, an abundance of mountain lions in the Catalina Mountains has some folks worried about a planned release of bighorn sheep there, says an Arizona Daily Star article. A management plan calls for killing mountain lions that kill the bighorns, although the mountain lions should have plenty of other prey, the article quotes Jim Heffelfinger, regional game specialist for the Arizona Game and Fish Department as saying.

An increase in deer in the area likely lead to the increase in mountain lions, the article says.

Read the Arizona Daily Star article here.

Mountain lion populations have been going up in California for at least 20 years, with hundreds of sightings annually, but that doesn’t mean the sight of two mountain lions in Redlands, California isn’t news. Redlands is near the San Bernardino Mountains, east of Los Angleles.

Read the Los Angeles Times article here.

Photo: One of the increasing number of Midwestern mountain lions, courtesy Missouri Department of Conservation

New Sierra Bighorn Herd in California

“Our recovery goals are both numeric and geographic,” said Tom Stephenson, California Department of Fish and Wildlife bighorn recovery program leader, in an article in The Los Angeles Times about the recent establishment of a new herd of federally endangered Sierra Nevada bighorn sheep.

“This is the first reintroduction effort of a new herd of Sierra Nevada bighorn sheep since 1988,” he said in a CDFW press release. The release explains:

During the week of March 25, 2013, ten female and four male bighorn sheep were captured from two of the largest existing herds in the Sierra Nevada and reintroduced to the vacant herd unit of Olancha Peak at the southern end of the range in Inyo County.

The newly created herd is the tenth herd of Sierra bighorn between Owens Lake and Mono Lake, the release says. Three additional herds are needed to meet recovery goals. There are now 500 Sierra bighorns, which as an increase from the low of just over 100 of them.

Read more in The Los Angeles Times, here.
Read the CDFW press release here.

Photo: A Sierra bighorn is released in a new area to create a new herd. Courtesy CDFW.

Wyoming Bighorn Down and Up

A bacteria that often signals a pneumonia outbreak in bighorn sheep was found in 10 of the 14 bighorn sheep tested, says an article in the Jackson Hole News and Guide. The sheep were tested, the article says, because of a high mortality rate in bighorn sheep in the region. Scientists couldn’t test the dead sheep, the article notes.

The Jackson Hole bighorn sheep herd was struck by pneumonia in 2002, the article says, and dropped to just half its number.

There are lots of details in the Jackson Hole News and Guide article, here.

Just to the east, in Dubois, Wyoming, the news for bighorn sheep is better. According to County 10, Greg Anderson, wildlife biologist with the Wyoming Game and Fish Department reported that the local bighorn herd’s numbers are stable and there was good lamb survival this year. The report was part of an annual meeting at the National Bighorn Sheep Interpretative Center.

Read the County 10 article here.

Photo: Bighorn in Montana. by Ryan Hagerty, courtesy US Fish and Wildlife Service

Overpasses Top Underpasses?

Do bighorn sheep like highway wildlife overpasses better than underpasses? Arizona sports three wildlife overpasses over Highway 93 which were specifically designed for bighorn sheep. It also has three wildlife underpasses under Highway 68.

The Arizona Game and Fish Department recently reported that there were 229 bighorn sheep crossings at the three overpasses in a single month. There have been only 32 crossings at the underpasses in two years.

The Highway 93 overpasses also have a higher cuteness quotient than the underpasses. A bighorn ewe and her lamb were recently photographed crossing one of the overpasses.

Read the report from the Arizona Game and Fish Department, here. (Second item from the top.)

Photo courtesy Arizona Game and Fish Deparment.

Research on the Hoof

Colorado Parks and Wildlife has announced surveys of bighorn, pronghorn and elk, and Washington State is examining the health of its elk herd.

A Colorado Division of Wildlife press release describes the bighorn and elk surveys as major research projects. The aim of the elk study is to get a better idea of the population and to find elk migration patterns. The bighorn study will investigate the decline of one of the three populations of sheep in the survey area.

Read the whole press release for more details about the Colorado bighorn and elk study, including survey methods.

The pronghorn study will investigate why fawn survival is so low in a population introduced into western Colorado about 10 years ago, another Division of Wildlife press release says. In related news, on March 1, 74 pronghorns were released to supplement a population in the Gunnison Basin.

Read the pronghorn press release here, for more details, including survey techniques.

Biologists from the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife are examining elk organs and teeth submitted by hunters to determine the health of the herd, says an article in the Eugene Register-Guard. The teeth were used to determine the age of each animal. The organs are examined for fat, the article says. There’s a formula that converts the amount of fat observed on the organs to a percentage of fat on-the-hoof.

The fatter the better, since fat reserves are needed to get through the winter.

Read the whole article here.

Photo: A pronghorn antelope is release March 1, 2012, by Colorado Parks and Wildlife. The pronghorn was captured in Limon earlier in the day and released near Delta to supplement a small herd in that area. Photo: Colorado Parks and Wildlife

Mountain Goats Threaten Bighorns in Tetons

Mountain goats were introduced to the greater Yellowstone region decades ago, say articles in the Missoulian and the Jackson Hole News & Guide.

Since then, the goats have popped up in various locations around Jackson Hole, Wyoming Game and Fish wildlife biologist Doug Brimeyer said in an article in the Missoulian.

“In the Tetons, the bighorn sheep winter habitat is a relatively few isolated wind-swept slopes at high elevation, because they’ve lost their migration,” Wyoming Game and Fish habitat biologist Aly Courtemanch said in the Missoulian article. “They’re already surviving on this marginal winter habitat up there.

“It’s reasonable to expect that mountain goats, if they became established, would out-compete bighorn sheep for that very limited winter range.”

Researchers from Idaho, Montana and Wyoming are studying the situation, lead by Bob Garrott, of Montana State University’s Fish and Wildlife Ecology and Management Program.

The team will collar 12 goats with a GPS system that will send location data every six hours for two years. A second collar will activate when the GPS collar falls off and will provide less detailed information.

Read the Missoulian article here.
Read a shorter version of the story in the Billings Gazette, here.

There’s no link to the Jackson Hole News & Guide story that kicked off this flurry of coverage, because it doesn’t appear to be available on the newspaper’s website.

Photo: Bighorn in Montana. By Ryan Hagerty, courtesy US Fish and Wildlife Service

Winter Research Roundup

In New York State, a recent survey of the spruce grouse population revealed that there are not many of the birds left in that state. A revised management plan seeks to restore the population.
An Albany Times-Union article about the survey and results
A link to download the spruce grouse management plan.

New York State has also released a management plan for bobcats. The plan includes a survey of the state’s current bobcat population. Comments on the plan are being accepted until February 16.
Read an article about the plan in North Country News, here.
Here’s the state’s bobcat page, with a link to the management plan.

In California, the Department of Fish and Game is looking for volunteers over 16 years old and in good health to help count bighorn sheep in the San Gabriel Mountains on March 4. There is an orientation on March 3.
Read an article from KPPC, southern California public radio, here.
Go to a website dedicated to the count, here.

Also in California, the US Fish and Wildlife Service will review the status of the San Bernardino flying squirrel. It’s soliciting information about the flying squirrel and its habitat from state and federal natural resource agencies until April 2.
Read the article in the Riverside Press-Enterprise
The US Fish and Wildlife service press release is here.

Bobcat photo courtesy of the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation.

Bighorn Vaccine Can’t Cure Sheep Lease Controversy

A year ago the Payette National Forest, in west-central Idaho, announced it was going to cut back on leases to domestic sheep ranchers to reduce the risk of a pneumonia-like disease spreading from the domestic sheep to the local, native bighorns.

Earlier this year a Washington State University researcher announced that he had developed a vaccine to protect the bighorns from the disease. That was wonderful news to an Idaho congressman, who introduced a rider to an appropriations bill that would delay the revocation of the sheep grazing leases for five years.

But in a letter to his funders, the WSU researcher said the bighorn vaccine is still 10 years from practical application. (Read more in the Lewiston Tribune.) This week a consortium of wildlife groups urged the congressman to withdraw his rider. (Read about it in the Idaho Statesman.)

The implications are bigger than Payette National Forest. The congressman has said that his rider merely stops other national forests from cutting back on their domestic sheep leases to protect bighorns from disease. (Read about it, again, in the Idaho Statesman.)

Photo by  Ingrid Taylor (http://www.flickr.com/photos/taylar/) Colorado bighorn sheep

Bighorn Sheep Pneumonia May Be From Smoke

“Another pneumonia outbreak has killed bighorn sheep in the Skalkaho area, and a veterinarian thinks smoke from wildfires may be to blame,” says an article in the Montana newspaper the Ravalli Republic. “If it spreads, the outbreak would be the 7th major die-off of bighorn sheep in western Montana since 2009.”

Read the rest of the story in the Ravalli Republic here. 

Photo: A healthy bighorn sheep in Montana. Ryan Hagerty photo courtesy of US Fish and Wildlife Service.

Bighorn sheep use overpass

Photo: Arizona Game & Fish

Bighorn sheep have already been photographed using a wildlife highway overpass in Arizona, south of Hoover Dam. The overpasses were completed in January.

Arizona Game and Fish officials were concerned when they heard that Highway 93, in northwest Arizona, was going to be widened. The area is home to the nation’s largest contiguous population of bighorn sheep. Experience had shown that big horn sheep are wary of wildlife underpasses, which are much more popular with the sheep’s predators. Since bighorn sheep like to stay high, and were approaching the highway from the ridgelines anyway, four overpasses were incorporated into the 15-mile-long highway expansion project.

For more information about the project and the results, read this article in the Prescott Daily Courier. You can find information on the project from the Arizona Game and Fish Department here, and includes video.