Graham Red Squirrel Research Articles

The Fish and Wildlife Job on the National Forests: A Century of Game and Fish Conservation, Habitat Protection, and Ecosystem Management. By Theodore Catton and Lisa Mighetto. Washington, D.C.: USDA Forest Service, 1998. vii + 455 pp. Notes, bibliography, index, illustrations

Although the management of wildlife and fish did not become a statutory responsibility of the Forest Service until the passage of the Multiple-Use Sustained Yield Act in 1960, at least since its organization in 1905 national forest employees have managed fish and game. This excellent survey places specific stories of wildlife management in the context of changing national forest policy and practice. Specific cases include the Kaibab deer, grizzly bear, anadromous fish, California condor, bald eagle, Kirtland's warbler, Mount Graham red squirrel, red-cockaded woodpecker, marbled murrelet, northern spotted owl, and peregrine falcon. Unlike much of the environmental history written in recent years, Catton's and Mighetto's history is progressive rather than declensionist. They argue, rightly I believe, that since the 1970s and especially since 1990, the methods of wildlife management have improved, and the Forest Service has experienced notable successes in rescuing animals and restoring habitats. The successes they document contrast sharply with conditions in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In the nineteenth century, hunters eradicated the passenger pigeon, drove the American bison to the brink of extinction, and eliminated elk from much of the central Rockies. In the early twentieth century, the Forest Service, the states, and other agencies muddled along in ignorance and indifference. The service harvested little timber, so it managed grazing and watersheds. Tragicomic experiences like the 1920S Kaibab deer episode were the consequence. By contrast, in recent years these agencies have succeeded in retrieving certain species from the brink of extinction. In part, these successes resulted from changes in national forest policies and practices. These included the hiring of biologists since the early 1970s and especially since 1990, the implementation of the Endangered Species and National Forest Management Acts, and the adoption of ecosystem management. A major setback occurred during the 1980s when the Reagan administration and Congressional conservatives mounted attacks on the efforts to restore and maintain healthy ecosystems. These actions resulted in reduced funding for biologists, increases in the Allowable Sale Quantity (ASQ) of timber, and habitat destruction. Forest Service resistance to the conservative agenda surfaced especially in the 1989 Sunbird Conference and in the forced resignation of John Mumma as Northern Regional Forester. The authors analyze a number of conditions that led to salutary changes. These include the hiring of biologists, the publication of significant studies, the work of Jack Ward Thomas and Michael Dombeck, and the efforts of Ecosystem Management Teams. Nevertheless, the authors do not, I believe, give sufficient attention to the process and results of the drafting the first round of forest plans, which were generally approved after 1987. These plans contributed to a decline in ASQ from 12 to 14 billion board feet in 1987 to less than 5 billion board feet in 1992 and most importantly to

Distinguishing Characteristics of Mount Graham Red Squirrel Midden Sites

The Mount Graham red squirrel (Tamiasciurus hudsonicus grahamensis) was listed as endangered in 1987 because its population was small and declining, its range was restricted, and its remaining habitat was threatened by human activities. We measured vegetational and other physical features around middens of the Mount Graham red squirrel (n = 215) and at random locations (n = 201) in Engelmann spruce (Picea engelmannii)-cork-bark fir (Abies lasiocarpa var. arizona) and transition-zone forests to identify characteristics that distinguish midden sites from random sites. Foliage volume, canopy closure, basal area, tree density 40 cm in diameter at breast height (dbh) were greater (P < 0.005) at midden sites than at random sites in both forest types

A multiple criteria decision-making approach to GIS-based land suitability evaluation

Abstract Land suitability evaluation in a raster GIS environment is conceptualized as a multiple-criteria decision-making (MCDM) problem. A combination of MCDM techniques selected for implementing the methodology included value and priority assessment techniques for scaling the interval and ordinal data respectively, and compromise programming (CP) to aggregate the unidimensional evaluations. The contribution of the proposed methodology to handle problems of scaling and dependence that often affect expert-based suitability analyses is discussed. A case-study of habitat evaluation for the endangered Mount Graham red squirrel is presented. The multiple-criteria models resulting from the CP analysis of an expert's perception of the habitat preference structure of the red squirrel are compared with data of actual habitat use. The predictive power of the models is good and sensitivity analysis based on the distance-metric parameter p of CP reveals some interesting differences between alternative strategies for data aggregation.

GIS-based habitat modeling using logistic multiple regression: a study of the Mt Graham red squirrel: J. M. C. Pereira & R. M. Itami, Photogrammetric Engineering & Remote Sensing, 57(11), 1991, pp 1475–1486

Multivariate statistical techniques were applied to the development of habitat suitability models for the Mt. Graham red squirrel, an endangered species. A digital map database and a Geographic Information System (GIS) were used to support the analysis and provide inputs for two logistic multiple regression models. The models attempted to predict squirrel presence or absence, the dichotomous dependent variable. Independent variables were a set of envi- ronmental factors in the first model, and locational coordinates in the second case, where a logistic trend surface was developed. Bayesian statistics were then used to integrate the models into a combined outcome. Potential habitat losses resulting from development of an astronomical observatory were assessed using the environmental model and were found to represent about 3 percent of the currently available habitat.