Nongame Wildlife Research Articles

Effects of Loblolly Pine Plantations on Songbird Dynamics in the Virginia Piedmont

Avifauna was sampled in 8 developmental stages of loblolly pine (Pinus taeda) plantations and in 2nd growth pine-hardwood forests during the summer, winter, and spring seasons of 1979-80 in the central Piedmont of Virginia. During summer, the number of birds (N) peaked in the 2and 5-year-old plantations and dropped significantly (P < 0.05) in older plantations. Average N of species/stand (S), total N of species in all stands of a given developmental stage (T), and species diversity (H') followed a similar trend. N, S, and T were significantly (P < 0.05) lower in the 2nd growth forests than in younger plantations. N, S, T, and H' were lower in winter than in other seasons sampled. N, S, and H' values were higher in the 2-5-year-old pine plantations than in the older, 7-24-year-old plantations. Values for 2nd growth forests were comparable to those in the 7-24-year-old plantations. In the spring breeding season, N, S, T, and H' were similar to those found during the later summer period. Species equitability (J') remained relatively high in all stands surveyed. J. WILDL. MANAGE. 50(3):406-413 Loblolly pine is one of the major tree species used by the forest industry in Virginia. Although not native to the study area in the central Piedmont, it was introduced in the early 1930's and has proved more profitable than the native pines (Williston and Huckenpahler 1958, Smally and Pierce 1972). Abandoned farmlands were used as plantation sites until the mid-1950's when this type of land increased in value. Forest industries then were compelled to use lower value, 2nd growth hardwood stands for plantation sites by clearcutting and planting loblolly pine. This conversion practice has created major changes in the composition and structure of the vegetation found in the central Piedmont (Felix et al. 1983) and may have effects on nongame wildlife species. The objective of this study was to determine the effects of establishment and development of loblolly pine plantations on the relative density, abundance, and diversity of breeding and winter resident songbirds. We would like to acknowledge P. T. Bromley and J. D. Fraser for their reviews of earlier drafts of this paper.

Conceiving forest management as providing for current and future social value

This paper emphasizes the role of planning and management in providing for forest social values to current and future citizens. Taking a western-world orientation, it examines how forest values originate in society and are expressed to forest managers. For most of the last 200 years, the social needs of public and private forests in the western world were predominantly utilitarian and their immediate social value was well expressed in market prices. As these countries urbanized, romantic and symbolic forest values increased. Today the social values of forest recreation, landscapes and non-game wildlife are of increased importance. These forest social values are usually expressed by social and political systems. Since utilitarian social values are often in conflict with romantic/symbolic forest values today, foresters increasingly are placed in the role of conflict managers. In what they do, and do not do, foresters can dampen or exacerbate forestry social conflict.

Alternative Mechanisms for Funding Nongame Wildlife Conservation

in Charles H. Levine, ed., Managing Fiscal Stress (Chatham, N.J.: Chatham House Publishers, 1980), 327-342. 20. Ibid., p. 338. Since Behn's article was written-it first appeared in Policy Analysis in 1977-there has been, however, one big bang event: the demise of the Community Services Administration (CSA). After attempting in the early 1970s to abolish the Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO) by the big bang approach (requesting no appropriations for it in the second year of its authorization), and after finding its path blocked by Congress and the courts, the Nixon administration chose the decremental route: Using his executive authority, Nixon scattered OEO's responsibilities and its organizational units throughout the federal government. OEO's successor, the Community Services Administration, picked up what budget pieces were left and was then subjected to a decremental budget attack over the next several years. The agency had a mild comeback in FY 1977, only to see its budget slip away from it once again in the Carter years. By that time, after nearly a decade of the long whimper, President Reagan administered the big bang (though some might call it the coup de grace). No new obligational authority was requested for it in FY 1982 and the last of its outlays were due to be expended in FY 1983. 21. See, for example, W. Henry Lambright and Harvey M. Sapolsky, Terminating Federal Research and Development Programs, Policy Sciences 7 (June 1976), 199-213. Of particular relevance for today's decision makers is Lambright and Sapolsky's examination of the successful attempt during the 1970s to abolish NASA's Sustaining University Program (SUP), a program designed to aid students who were training in doctoral fields relevant to aerospace. A series of decremental budgets, ranging from $46 million to $9 million over four years, finally resulted in the program's abolishment in FY 1970. As the authors noted, Rather than confronting the students and universities with a stark decision that would have affected their interests immediately, the decremental approach gave them time to adjust, to seek new support, or to learn to live with less (p. 203).

Density as a Misleading Indicator of Habitat Quality

Current methods of evaluating wildlife habitat for management purposes can be arranged in a hierarchy of increasing generality. The most general level is evaluation of wildlife habitat for entire com- munities on the basis of inferences drawn from vegetational structure. At the base of the hierarchy the high resolution studies, upon which accuracy at the higher hierarchical levels depends, usually assume that habitat quality for a species is positively correlated with the density of the species. If habitat quality for a wildlife species is a measure of the importance of habitat type in maintaining a particular species, habitat quality should be defined in terms of the survival and production characteristics, as well as the density, of the species occupying that habitat. Situations in which habitat quality thus defined is not expected to be positively correlated with density are described, along with the species and environmental characteristics that are most likely to produce these situations. Examples drawn from the literature in which density and habitat quality are not positively correlated are described. The positive correlation of density with habitat quality in specific instances cannot be assumed without supporting demographic data. J. WILDL. MANAGE. 47(4):893-901 The foundation of any wildlife habitat management plan is the ability to assess habitat quality accurately. Without this key ingredient, the effort put into care- fully prepared objectives and elegant cat- egorizations of habitat types is largely wasted. Yet biologists often dwell on ob- jectives and categories while treating lightly the assumptions implicit in their assessments of habitat quality. For in- stance, they seldom question the assump- tion that the density of a species in a hab- itat is a direct measure of the quality of that habitat. Perhaps this is because any more accurate investigation of habitat quality to truly reflect the importance of that habitat in maintaining wildlife species populations must be intensive, often at the expense of the broader information base that could be achieved by simple surveys. Such surveys are a particularly common means of evaluating nongame wildlife habitat. The objectives of this paper are to pro- vide some examples of situations in which this correlation does not hold, and to make predictions regarding species and envi- ronmental types for which the density- habitat quality relationship is likely to be decoupled. In such cases, management policies based directly on species abun- dance may be misleading and these errors may be amplified when management ap- proaches are restricted to the higher levels of the hierarchy. This paper is dedicated to the late 0. C. Wallmo, who was always eager to dis- cuss ideas and whose refusal to be any- thing but completely honest in evaluating his own ideas, objectives, and research ideas, as well as those of others, set an example for us to follow.

Avian Response to Habitat Management for Northern Bobwhites in Northwest Texas

Wildlife managers are being directed to consider nongame wildlife values by changing social and political attitudes (Crawford 1976). In fact, anti-hunting organizations such as the Fund for Animals, Inc. have criticized game management practices as a threat to other wildlife species (Shaw 1977). According to Friends of Animals, Inc., 'game' animals are 'created'... by self-styled 'wildlife managers, who cut, burn, flood our forests and land in a pattern of ecological havoc that upsets nature's balance and eliminates 'non-

Nongame Wildlife in the Ecosystem Management Scheme: An Example in Missouri

Nongame Wildlife in the Ecosystem Management Scheme: An Example in Missouri

Nongame Wildlife Responses to Chaining of Pinyon-Juniper Woodlands

Nongame wildlife responses to chaining of pinyon-juniper (Pinus edulis-Juniperus osteosperma) woodland were studied in 1977 in the Piceance Basin, Colorado. Vegetation and small-mammal populations were sampled on a mature pinyon-juniper woodland (control) and areas chained 1, 8, and 15 years previously. Breeding-bird populations were studied on the areas chained 8 and 15 years previously, the control area, and on the edge between a mature woodland and an area chained 10 years previously. Ten species of breeding birds were observed on the unchained area, whereas only 3 and 4 species were observed on the 8and 15-year-old chained areas, respectively. Bird densities on the unchained area (29 territories/10 ha) were more than double those on the chained areas (11/10 ha). Five of 17 species breeding on the edge area used both vegetation types. Only 1 species was found exclusively on the edge area. Small mammals were more abundant on chained than unchained areas. Species composition of the catch varied among the chained and unchained areas; species diversity was greatest on the unchained area. Adverse effects on nongame wildlife could be minimized by favoring survival of shrubs and young trees, retaining selected cavity trees, and limiting widths of clearings when chaining pinyon-juniper. J. WILDL. MANAGE. 45(2):381-389 Pinyon-juniper woodlands dominate over 200,000 km2 of the southwestern United States (Lanner 1975). Vast areas of these woodlands have been cleared over the past 30 years to stimulate production of forage for big game and livestock. Chaining (dragging a heavy anchor chain between 2 bulldozers) has been and remains a method widely used for clearing tracts of pinyon-juniper (Short and McCulloch 1977). Major coal and oil shale deposits occur in the pinyon-juniper ecosystem. Mining of these deposits will result in appreciable impacts on local wildlife populations. Pinyon-juniper chaining has been employed in past mitigation efforts associated with energy developments (Voigt and Nagy 1979), and will provide a potential means of mitigating big game losses resulting from mining impacts. Despite the relatively large-scale use of pinyon-juniper chaining in the past, nongame wildlife responses to this habitat manipulation are poorly understood. A number of authors have described avian and small-mammal communities in pinyon-juniper woodlands (e.g., Hardy 1945; Miller 1946; Shepherd, unpubl. rep., Colorado Div. Wildl. Fed. Aid Proj. W-101-R-14, 1972; Austin and Urness 1976). The effects of clearing pinyon-juniper on small mammals have been studied to some extent (Turkowski and Reynolds 1970, Baker and Frischknecht 1973, Turkowski and Watkins 1976), but studies of the responses of bird communities to such habitat alterations are lacking. The objectives of this study were to: (1) describe vegetation, breeding-bird populations, and small-mammal populations on selected chained and unchained areas of pinyon-juniper woodland, (2) evaluate the effects of chaining on these 1 Present address: School of Forest Resources and Conservation, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32611. 2 Present address: Department of Fisheries and Wildlife, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI 48824. 3 Present address: Wyoming Game and Fish Department, Box 6249, Sheridan, WY 82801. J. Wildl. Manage. 45(2):1981 381 This content downloaded from 207.46.13.174 on Sun, 10 Jul 2016 04:51:45 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 382 NONGAME WILDLIFE IN PINYON-JUNIPER. O'Meara et al. populations, and (3) formulate recommendations for maximizing benefits to this fauna when clearing pinyon-juniper for range improvement and wildlife mitigation. We acknowledge the field assistance of J. Gebhard, H. D. Gibbs, R. Kahn, and J. G. Mitchell, Colorado State University. R. F. Labisky, W. R. Marion, and T. E. Rogers, University of Florida, reviewed the manuscript. Funds for the study were provided by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Office of Biological Services, contracts 14-16-0008-2016 and 14-16-0008-

Miscellaneous Summer Records of Birds from Southwestern Kansas

Two summers (1978 and 1979) of field research on nongame wildlife in southwestern Kansas have established several new records for both breeding and migratory species of birds. New breeding records were established for the ferruginous hawk (Buteo regalis), lesser prairie chicken (Tympanuchus pallidicinctus), great-tailed grackle (Quiscalus mexicanus), and the field sparrow (Spizella pusilla) from Morton County; the American avocet (Recurvirostra americana) from Seward and Kearny counties; and the Cassin's sparrow (Aimophila cassinii) from Meade County. Species showing increased summer movements and breeding activities include the curvebilled thrasher (Toxostoma curvirostre), great-tailed grackle, and the Brewers sparrow (Spizella breweri) from Morton County. Sightings of rare species include the ladder-backed woodpecker (Dendrocopos scalaris), northern parula warbler (Parula americana), Blackburnian warbler (Dendroica fusca), and the chestnut-sided warbler (Dendroica pensylvanica) from Morton County; and the rose-breasted grosbeak (Pheucticus ludovicianus) from Grant County. While some species show distributional increases (e.g. great-tailed grackle) others have shown a decline in this region (e.g. ladder-backed woodpecker). Still not enough is known about other species (e.g. rose-breasted grosbeak, field sparrow) to understand their distributional patterns in southwestern Kansas. Several studies describe the status and distribution of summer birds in southwestern Kansas (Rising, 1974; Ely and Thompson, 1971; Graber and Graber, 1951). Recent fieldwork in this region has nevertheless resulted in several new breeding and distributional records. During the summers of 1978 and 1979, while employed by the Kansas Fish and Game Commission, I conducted a nongame research project to 1 Present address: 2924 Lakeside Drive, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma 73120. This content downloaded from 157.55.39.22 on Sat, 16 Jul 2016 05:08:02 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 110 TRANSACTIONS OF THE KANSAS ACADEMY OF SCIENCES determine the status and distribution of some rare and peripheral species of birds in southwestern Kansas. This resulted in new breeding records for the curve-billed thrasher, great-tailed grackle, Brewers sparrow, ferruginous hawk, lesser prairie chicken, and American avocet. Other records for species such as the rose-breasted grosbeak, Cassin's sparrow, and the field sparrow serve to help understand their distributions in this region. Included here are records for such species as the ladder-backed woodpecker, northern parula warbler, Blackburnian warbler, and chestnut-sided warbler which are considered rare in southwestern Kansas. The following species deserve close attention by field ornithologists in the future. Ferruginous Hawk. This hawk is an uncommon summer resident in western Kansas with most of the breeding records coming from counties north of the Arkansas River (Johnston, 1964). On 4 June 1979 a nest with two half grown nestlings was discovered in Morton County in far southwestern Kansas. The nest was 10 ft. up in a small stand of trees (Morus) surrounded by Sand sagebrush (Artemisia filifolia)-grasslands. This constitutes the first breeding record of this hawk for Morton County. Lesser Prairie Chicken. This species is reported to be fairly common in the southwestern counties of Morton, Meade, and Ford but actual breeding records from this region are few (Rising, 1974). Two nests of this species were found 2/2 mi. SE of Wilburton, Morton County, in an area of sandhills covered with sagebrush, forbs, and sparse grasses. One nest, discovered on 18 May 1979, was placed beneath a sagebrush on the ground concealed by tufts of new grass. It held 12 eggs. On 1 June 1979 this nest held 12 recently hatched nestlings no more than a few hours old. A nest discovered on 26 May 1979 contained 13 eggs and was placed only 200 yards from the first

Responses of Game and Nongame Wildlife to Predator Control in South Texas

Responses of Game and Nongame Wildlife to Predator Control in South Texas

Conservation of non-game wildlife in California: A model programme

Public interest prompted the California State Legislature to provide needed authority and precedent-setting mandates for the management and protection of its non-game wildlife resources. Newly established activities and regulations include: research and field surveys on species-specific problems; the introduction of protective categories for threatened or unique species; bag limits and seasons on the taking of any unprotected animal; a moratorium on mountain lion hunting; measures to promote increases in the numbers of the rare Tule elk; curtailment of imported wildlife; a ban on the trade in endangered species; protective measures for intertidal organisms; and land acquisition of areas with important habitats. These constitute a comprehensive programme that merits wider adoption in the USA.

Non-Game Wildlife Research in Megalopolis: The Forest Service Program. Jack Ward Thomas and Richard M. DeGraaf. Northeastern Forest Experiment Station, Forest Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture, 6816 Market Street, Upper Darby, Pennsylvania 19082. 1973. 12p

Non-Game Wildlife Research in Megalopolis: The Forest Service Program. Jack Ward Thomas and Richard M. DeGraaf. Northeastern Forest Experiment Station, Forest Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture, 6816 Market Street, Upper Darby, Pennsylvania 19082. 1973. 12p

Jaguar: Another Threatened Panther

This document is Fact Sheet WEC 167, one of a series of the Department of Wildlife Ecology &amp; Conservation, Florida Cooperative Extension Service, Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences, University of Florida. Originally published in cooperation with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission's Nongame Wildlife Program. Publication date: May 2003.&#x0D; WEC 167/UW176: Jaguar: Another Threatened Panther (ufl.edu)