December 2011: Season's Greetings from NRCC!
Dear Friends,
Seasons Greetings from NRCC!
We have been very busy this year, and wanted share with you some updates on some of our recent work. Below is a sample of some of things we have been doing this year. Click on the links to learn more about projects of interest to you. We are looking forward to a great year in 2012. Thank you for your support and be in touch!
Happy Holidays!
Sincerely,
Jason Wilmot, Executive Director
photo © Rebecca Watters: Mongolian reindeer
people and carnivores program
In early November field directors Steve Primm and Seth Wilson formally launched People and Carnivores, a project of NRCC, at an intimate gathering in Bozeman, Montana. Almost 75 friends and supporters enjoyed project updates and a description of future projects by Steve and Seth and a guest presentation by acclaimed author Douglas Chadwick on his recent experiences learning about the Gobi Bear. The People and Carnivore program is building on a long and successful track record of reducing human-bear conflict in working landscapes, and is looking forward to maintaining this work in core grizzly bear recovery areas and expanding efforts in front of an expanding grizzly bear population.
keeping grizzlies out of trouble
Steve Primm, NRCC Research Associate & People and Carnivores Field Director
The bells: when you're in grizzly country, you sleep lightly, with an ear open for the bells on the horses. It might be nothing. But if there's stomping and snorting to accompany the ringing, you wake up and reach for the bear spray and the flashlight.
So it goes one October night, high in the headwaters of Wyoming's Wind River. The dogs bark, I holler, whatever is out there moves on. The next morning, the tracks tell the story: a large, lone grizzly walked down the old logging road, not 60 yards away from where the horses stood tied. Read more.
photo © Steve Primm: Bog Lakes road pole
bear poles in the Blackfoot: reducing hunter-grizzly conflicts
Seth Wilson, NRCC Research Associate & People and Carnivores Field Director
As we wind down another hunting season in Montana, it is worthwhile to reflect on a simple tool that helps reduce conflicts for hunters and grizzly bears. During the fall hunt, grizzlies and black bears are working hard to put on extra fat before denning, a phase known as hyperphagia. As many hunters know, elk and deer carcasses and or gut piles are certainly prizes to bears and in rare cases, can result in hunter-bear encounters. One way to avoid these types of problems is to use a "bear pole." Read more.
Slovakia & Montana: an emerging partnership to reduce human-bear conflicts
Seth Wilson, NRCC Research Associate & People and Carnivores Field Director
In mid November, People and Carnivores Field Director, Dr. Seth Wilson, travelled to Slovakia at the invitation of the Slovak Wildlife Society to help the NGO assess their human-bear conflict reduction efforts and to make several public presentations throughout the country
. The trip was an outstanding example of what NRCC does so well—building collaborations to share lessons, learn, and improve our collective conservation practice. Read more.
photo © Seth Wilson: Livestock guard dogs imprint on their host flock of sheep, freely mingle with them, and ultimately chase and deter bears and wolves from killing sheep.
wolverine news
wolverine update
Jason Wilmot, NRCC Executive Director
NRCC continues to partner with the Gallatin National Forest to monitor a wolverine population in southwest Montana near Yellowstone National Park. In spring of 2011, crews found evidence of reproduction by the resident female, the first detection of this type of behavior in over 4 years of monitoring! We are excited to learn more about her young, especially given the apparent low densities of wolverine presence in and around Yellowstone National Park. If this project continues, we may be able to learn about kit survivorship and movements over time. A project summary of this work to date was recently published in Yellowstone Science, Volume 19, issue 3, 2011, and a more complete report is available here.
photo © Jason Wilmot. Looking for a wolverine den.
mongolian wildlife and climate change project
Rebecca Watters, NRCC Research Associate
In winter, hunters set out for months' long expeditions into the deep and wild forested mountains of northern Mongolia. Once the temperature is below freezing, they construct log boxes in which to store the products of the hunt. Occasionally, they will return to a log box after a few weeks to find a hole chewed through the side of the structure. They know what they will find when they open it: empty space, except for the droppings of the culprit, a wolverine. Read more.
research news
Elk in western Wyoming: exploring a hundred-year history of human management
Jonathan Peterson, NRCC Summer 2011 Intern
It makes one hell of a story: during the first winters of the 20th Century in Jackson, Wyoming, you could walk a mile on the backs of dead elk without ever setting foot on the ground. Apocryphal or not, this story marks the origins of elk management in western Wyoming: in the first decade of the 20th Century, Jackson Hole residents began spreading hay to keep elk off livestock feedlines without dooming the elk to starvation. This founding story is marked by unity: out of the local collaboration to protect the iconic elk came the creation, in 1912, of the National Elk Refuge. Yet, in the interceding hundred years, the stories of elk management have been much less harmonious. A seven-year elk management planning process that cost nearly $2 million dollars and a series of lawsuits initiated before, during and after this process suggests that elk management in western Wyoming remains a
fiercely contested and unresolved topic. Read more.
The National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON): monitoring vegetative communities in the greater Yellowstone ecosystem and beyond
Benjamin Chemel, Botanist and Crew Leader
Dave Barnett, NEON Spatial Ecologist
What do the sagebrush steppes of Yellowstone National Park, the mixed hardwood forests of New England, and the sandhills of north-central Florida have in common? These are the ecosystems that the National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON) has chosen to validate and refine its vegetation monitoring techniques before implementing them on a continental scale. Read more.
photo: Harvard Forest
Tracking the elusive Northern goshawk...
Valerie Dobrich, Biologist
YELP! I turned toward my Airedale in time to glimpse the creamy underside of a slate grey hawk as it dove upon my dog and then retreated to a Douglas fir. Once perched, the hawk took up a loud, abrasive call alerting the forest of our presence. "Good dog, Good dog" I praised my partner as he crouched in the brush, head tilted toward the tree and his attacker. Jake had succeeded in the mission I'd been pursuing for hours. He had found the elusive Northern goshawk. Read more.
Finding small frogs in a large landscape
Debra Patla, Research Associate
Boreal chorus frogs lingered in their winter beds in the spring of 2011. As the huge snowpack melted in late May and June, the frogs emerged to fill the landscape with their exuberant calls. The resulting tadpoles showed that chorus frogs voted 2011 'best year for breeding'! One of the great joys, as well as scientific value, of an annual monitoring program come from the revelations provided each year, gradually telling a story that would be incomprehensible with a year or two of data. Since 2006, we have monitored amphibian populations in Grand Teton and Yellowstone National Parks through the Cooperative Amphibian Monitoring Program, supported by National Park Service and the US Geological Survey. Read more.
photo © Erik King. It feels good to take off the waders! Amphibian field crew of 2011. Left to right: Janene Colby, Scot Martin, Erin Hannelly, Deb Patla, Erik King. Not shown: Mary Greenblatt and Char Corkran.