Environmental Indicators and Impact Assessment Commons^™

Management Of Invasive Vertebrates In The United States: An Overview, Gary W. Witmer, Patrick W. Burke, Will C. Pitt, Michael L. Avery

Managing Vertebrate Invasive Species

At least 161 introduced/invasive vertebrates have become established in the United States and its territories, including at least 81 mammalian, 94 avian, and 86 reptilian/amphibian species. Particularly problematic species include feral cats and dogs; feral pigs; commensal rats and mice; starlings, pigeons, and house sparrows; and bullfrogs, brown treesnakes, and coqui frogs. We briefly review these introductions and the types of damage they cause. We review the basic types of methods used for control or eradication of each taxonomic group, including physical, chemical, biological, and cultural methods. We also discuss some of the challenges in managing these species, including issues …

Welcome And Opening Remarks, Richard L. Bruggers

Managing Vertebrate Invasive Species

Greetings and welcome to Fort Collins. We at the National Wildlife Research Center (NWRC) have had the privilege of organizing and hosting four international symposia since 1993. The first three were on the topics of contraception and wildlife, repellents in wildlife management, and the economics of wildlife damage management.

Today, it is my pleasure to welcome you to our fourth symposium: the International Symposium on Managing Vertebrate Invasive Species. I know our Symposium’s organizing committee has strived to bring you a diverse group of international speakers….all of whom are working on the cutting edge of invasive species research, management, and …

Landscape Genetics Of Feral Swine And Implications For Management, Johanna Delgado-Acevedo, Randy W. Deyoung, Tyler A. Campbell

Managing Vertebrate Invasive Species

The management of the invasive feral pig (Sus scrofa) has been the subject of intense study in recent years. Feral pigs are also susceptible to diseases (e.g., brucellosis, pseudorabies) that can be transmitted to livestock, humans, and wildlife. Feral pigs clearly represent a threat to the sustainability of multiple agriculture products. Population reduction (trapping or shooting) is the best current alternative for controlling pig damage. However, reduction is crude and inefficient in terms of manpower and resources because pigs from neighboring areas quickly recolonize managed areas. We used a panel of 9 microsatellite loci to study broad-scale population …

Wildlife Contraception: Targeting The Oocyte, Richard E. Mauldin, Lowell A. Miller

Managing Vertebrate Invasive Species

The USDA’s National Wildlife Research Center (NWRC) has successfully researched and developed a number of chemical and immunologically-based wildlife contraceptives. Diazacon™ interferes with cholesterol metabolism and disrupts steroidogenesis, while nicarbazin (registered as OvoControl-P® and OvoControl-G®) disrupts the structure of the vitelline membrane of bird eggs. Immunologically-based agents act to stimulate targeted antibody production. GonaCon™ causes the host’s immune system to bind gonadotropin releasing hormone, preventing ovulation, while SpayVac™ prevents fertilization of the postovulatory oocyte. This kind of target specificity can be highly advantageous. A number of oocyte-only control contraceptive strategies are currently being researched at the NWRC. 4-Vinylcyclohexene diepoxide (VCD) …

Reducing Risk And Enhancing Efficiency In Non-Native Vertebrate Removal Efforts On Islands: A 25 Year Multi-Taxa Retrospective From Santa Cruz Island, California, Scott A. Morrison

Managing Vertebrate Invasive Species

Effective conservation of native biodiversity on islands often requires the eradication of destructive non-native vertebrates. There are risks in conducting an eradication project, however, including the risk that the effort will fail to remove all the individuals, and the risk that the removal of the species will trigger ecological cascades with unanticipated and undesired consequences. Managers must plan to reduce such risks, and also maximize the return on investment of the limited conservation resources available for restoration programs. I discuss four vertebrate removal projects implemented on Santa Cruz Island, CA, over the past 25 years: sheep, golden eagles, pigs, and …

A “Community” Approach To Invasive Species Management: Some Pacific Case Studies, Alan Saunders, Henri Blaffart, Craig Morley, Joape Kuruyawa, Vilikesa Masibalavu, Elenoa Seniloli

Managing Vertebrate Invasive Species

Conservation is essentially a social activity – it is about, by and for people. Managing invasive species on islands to reduce their “community effects” (that is, effects on communities of people as well as on communities of plants and animals) makes good sense. Consequently, many demonstration projects supported as part of the Pacific Invasives Initiative involve social and economic objectives as well as biological ones. In New Caledonia, for example, dialogue between conservation agencies and local tribes about a proposed pest mammal control project on Mont Panié has been taking place for nearly 10 years. As well as being involved …

Eradicating House Mice From Islands: Successes, Failures And The Way Forward, James W. B. Mackay, James C. Russell, Elaine C. Murphy

Managing Vertebrate Invasive Species

The house mouse (Mus musculus) has been spread throughout the world by the actions of humans. It causes severe impacts to native ecosystems, especially in areas where there are no native mammals. It is possible to eradicate mice from islands but they are harder to eradicate than rats. A review of reported eradication attempts found that 17 attempts on 45 islands worldwide failed; a failure rate of 38%. The effect of operational factors on eradication success was examined, but no significant model was formed. Brodifacoum is the most widely used toxicant and has a 49% success rate. Mouse …

Climate Matching As A Tool For Predicting Potential North American Spread Of Brown Treesnakes, Gordon H. Rodda, Robert N. Reed, Catherine S. Jarnevich

Managing Vertebrate Invasive Species

Climate matching identifies extralimital destinations that could be colonized by a potential invasive species on the basis of similarity to climates found in the species’ native range. Climate is a proxy for the factors that determine whether a population will reproduce enough to offset mortality. Previous climate matching models (e.g., Genetic Algorithm for Rule-set Prediction [GARP]) for brown treesnakes (Boiga irregularis) were unsatisfactory, perhaps because the models failed to allow different combinations of climate attributes to influence a species’ range limits in different parts of the range. Therefore, we explored the climate space described by bivariate parameters of …

Alaska’S Rat Spill Response Program, Steven M. Ebbert, Arthur Sowls, G. Vernon Byrd

Managing Vertebrate Invasive Species

The introduction of rodents on an island as a new predator usually interferes with natural island biodiversity, particularly on islands without any native mammalian predators. Many Alaskan islands, and most islands in the Aleutian Island region of the Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge (AMNWR), are free of mammalian predators and are vulnerable to invasion by rodents. Rat introduction to islands can put ground-nesting birds, such as seabirds and endemic landbirds, at risk of extirpation. The refuge is also concerned about additional introductions of house mice. As far as we know, the introduction, or “spilling,” of rats onto refuge islands from …

Managing Vertebrate Invasive Species: Proceedings Of An International Symposium, Gary W. Witmer, Will C. Pitt, Kathleen A. Fagerstone, Cynthia A. Clark

Managing Vertebrate Invasive Species

Acknowledgments:
Many people worked behind the scenes to make the symposium a success. The organizing committee would like especially thank Sue Brungardt, Patrick W. Burke, Marilyn J. Howell, Susan M. Jojola, Nicole N. Lorimer, Michael E. Pierce, John D. Eisemann, Jeanette R. O’Hare, Barbara L. Messineo, and Laurie A. Paulik for their help at the symposium. We also thank Colorado State University’s Conference Services for assisting with registration and other logistics of the symposium. We thank the staff of the Hilton Hotel, Fort Collins, for providing all the on-site needs of the symposium. We also thank Hilda Diaz-Soltero, USDA Liason …

Droughtscape, Summer 2007, National Drought Mitigation Center

DroughtScape: Quarterly Newsletter of the National Drought Mitigation Center (2007–2023)

Summer 07 Outlook

Hayes Named Director of NDMC

NDMC & UN Plan for Drought

Book Review: The Worst Hard Time

Drought Tools Workshops Underway

U.S. Drought Monitor Forum October 10-11, 2007 Portland, Oregon

Benthic Biological Monitoring Program Of The Elizabeth River Watershed (2006), Daniel M. Dauer

Elizabeth River Reports

Executive Summary

Macrobenthic communities of the Elizabeth River watershed have been quantitatively sampled since summer 1999. This report presents the data from the eigth year of sampling in 2006. The three objectives of the Benthic Biological Monitoring Program of the Elizabeth River watershed are: (1) To characterize the health of the tidal waters of the Elizabeth River watershed as indicated by the structure of the benthic communities. (2) To conduct trend analyses on long-term data at 14 fixed-point stations to relate temporal trends in the benthic communities to changes in water and/or sediment quality. Trend analyses will be updated annually …

Lake Mead National Recreation Area Monitoring And Evaluation Of Sensitive Wildlife: Quarterly Progress Report, Period Ending June 30, 2007, Margaret N. Rees

Wildlife Monitoring

Project 1. Relict Leopard Frog Monitoring, Management, and Research

• Nocturnal surveys completed at all natural and translocation sites – the most striking finding was the lack of frogs observed at Rogers Springs and lower Blue Point despite repeated survey efforts.
• Relict leopard frog annual translocation effort completed – a total of 1957 tadpoles and juvenile frogs released at six translocation sites.
• Potential translocation sites within Gold Butte assessed during site visits in late March.
• Coordination and assistance provided to UNLV research efforts on habitat improvements at Blue Point and Rogers Springs, and with proposed FWS actions to construct a tadpole …

Session 7 - A Comparative Geographic Analysis Of The Impact Of Scale On Hazards And Vulnerability In Industrialized Continental Lands And Small Pacific Islands, William J. Smith Jr.

International Symposium on Technology and Society

Geography, specifically scale, has significant impacts in terms of hazards and vulnerability. Small islands, such as those found in the Pacific, experience the impacts of their relatively unique geography and scale in terms of hazards and vulnerability in at least five ways: 1) Perception and communication; 2) Impact and escape from impact; 3) Technology; 4) Recovery; and 5) Socio-environmental justice. Comparative analysis in these five areas between the Pacific’s small islands and industrialized continental regions illuminates differences regarding the way hazards and vulnerability should be conceptualized in the under-treated small islands of the world. Lessons from this analysis will aid …

Session 6 - The National Environmental Policy Act (Nepa): Is It All That It Can Be? The Case For Evaluating Stigma Effects, Dennis Bechtel

International Symposium on Technology and Society

The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) has long been regarded as the“Magna Carta” of environmental policy legislation. The government in implementing its requirements on NEPA is required to evaluate potential environmental impacts from “significant” projects, to examine alternatives to proposed actions, and to enable the public to provide meaningful input to decision-makers. Despite the significance of NEPA there is evidence to suggest that environmental impact analyses may in fact be understating potential negative effects to citizens and communities. In particular potential impacts associated with stigma have been almost universally ignored in documents prepared under NEPA. The proposed high-level nuclear waste …

Tumbleweed Exploratory Drilling Environmental Assessment, United States Deparment Of The Interior, Bureau Of Land Management

All U.S. Government Documents (Utah Regional Depository)

This Environmental Assessment (EA) has been prepared to analyze Stewart Petroleum Corporation’s (Stewart) proposed exploratory natural gas drilling on their Federal leases within the Tumbleweed Oil and Gas Unit (Tumbleweed Unit). This EA is a site-specific analysis of potential impacts that could result with the implementation of Alternative - the Proposed Action; Alternative B – Buried Pipelines; or Alternative C - the No Action Alternative. The EA assists the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) in project planning and ensuring compliance with the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), and in making a determination as to whether any “significant” impacts could result …

A Comprehensive Wetland Program For Fringing Salt Marshes In The York River, Maine, Pamela A. Morgan, Jeremy Miller, Christopher Cayce Dalton, Michele Dionne

Environmental Studies Faculty Publications

The overall goal of this project was to assist the Town of York, Maine, in its efforts to monitor and protect the fringing salt marshes along the York River. In particular, the project focused on potential impacts to the marshes due to shoreline development pressures. Specific objectives included (1) gathering baseline data about the marshes (2) developing a set of indicators to be used in future monitoring, and (3) generating management recommendations.

Case Studies Of Urban And Rural Lakes In Minnesota, Lisa M. Becker

Honors Capstones

Capstone submitted as a graduation requirement for the BSU Honors Program.

Droughtscape, Spring 2007, National Drought Mitigation Center

DroughtScape: Quarterly Newsletter of the National Drought Mitigation Center (2007–2023)

2007 Spring Drought Outlook & Winter Summary

VegDRI Expands to 15 States, Refines Views

DroughtScape

State Spotlight: Utah

International Panel Foresees Drought as Part of Climate Change

NIDIS Portal Advancing

Extensions Of Local Domains With Trivial Generic Fiber, William Heinzer, Christel Rotthaus, Sylvia Wiegand

Nebraska Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit: Staff Publications

We consider injective local maps from a local domain R to a local domain S such that the generic fiber of the inclusion map R -> S is trivial, that is P R (0) for every nonzero prime ideal P of S. We present several examples of injective local maps involving power series that have or fail to have this property. For an extension R -> S having this property, we give some results on the dimension of S; in some cases we show dim S = 2 and in some cases dim S = 1.

Colorado College State Of The Rockies Report Card, Walter E. Hecox, Matthew K. Reuer, Christopher B. Jackson

Publications (SD)

No abstract provided.

Unlv Magazine, Grace Russell, Gian Galassi, Shane Bevell, Karyn S. Hollingsworth, Jennifer Lawson, Lori Bachand, Cate Weeks, Erin O'Donnell, Peter Starkweather

UNLV Magazine

No abstract provided.

Dynamics Of A Eutrophic Lake (Wilgreen Lake, Madison County, Kentucky): A First Step In Cleansing A Lake System Impaired By Nutrient Loading, Erin C. Jolly, Walter S. Borowski

EKU Faculty and Staff Scholarship

Wilgreen Lake (Madison County, Kentucky) is a eutrophic lake formed by damming Taylor Fork, part of the Silver Creek watershed. The lake is listed “nutrient impaired” by the Commonwealth and the EPA, and it is likely that nutrient input from human activities is affecting water quality. Our study aims first to characterize the physical characteristics and water quality of the lake (2006), and then to determine the specific proportion of nutrient inputs (2007) to the lake with the ultimate aim of improving its water quality.

Research started in May 2006 with work occurring throughout the 2006 field season with the …

Lake Mead National Recreation Area Monitoring And Evaluation Of Sensitive Wildlife: Quarterly Progress Report, Period Ending March 31, 2007, Margaret N. Rees

Wildlife Monitoring

Project 1. Relict Leopard Frog Monitoring, Management, and Research

• Spring-time diurnal surveys for relict leopard frogs were conducted at all sites.
• Relict leopard frog annual translocation effort was initiated. Currently, 2,153 tadpoles are being reared at the Hill Top and Willow Beach Fish Hatchery facilities. Quagga mussels found at the hatchery might not be as problematic for this program as originally thought. Current prophylactic protocols for disease treatment in tadpoles and frogs are being evaluated for their ability to kill quagga mussel larvae.
• Coordination and monitoring was provided to EPMT crews conducting tamarisk control at relict leopard frog sites in …

Polar Research: School Of Rock, Alexandra Witze

ANDRILL Research and Publications

As Antarctica’s ice teams continue to hunt for the oldest ice their drills will reach, a smaller band of rockhounds is on a similar quest to plug the gaps in the geological record. The team now has a core that promises fresh insight into how Antarctica’s ice waxed and waned over the past few million years. On December 26, 2006, a US$30-million international project called ANDRILL pulled up the final piece of a core from beneath the Ross ice shelf. Previous coring efforts have offered peeks into Antarctica’s deep history — back as far as 34 million years when the …

Lake Mead Complex Final Gather Plan: Environmental Assessment, U.S. Department Of The Interior, Bureau Of Land Management

All U.S. Government Documents (Utah Regional Depository)

This Environmental Assessment (EA) has been prepared by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) Las Vegas Field Office (LVFO) to analyze the environmental effects of a gather to remove approximately 195 resident wild burros from National Park Service-administered lands adjacent to the El Dorado Mountains, Gold Butte and Muddy Mountains Herd Management Areas (HMAs) within the Lake Mead Complex (LMC) in March 2007. The LMC is located in southern Nevada in Clark County. The BLM Las Vegas Field Office and National Park Service coordinate management activities for wild burros on these public lands within their individual administrative responsibilities through a …

Preliminary Results Of A Fecal Microbe Survey In An Eutrophic Lake, Wilgreen Lake, Madison County, Kentucky, Walter S. Borowski, Michael S. Albright

EKU Faculty and Staff Scholarship

Wilgreen Lake is a small (~14 mi²) eutrophic lake formed by damming several tributary streams to Silver Creek, Madison County, Kentucky. The lake receives runoff from industrial and urban areas (Richmond) that comprise ~10% of the total watershed area; most runoff is from cattle pasture or human developments encircling the lake. Present and past developments are on septic systems, and effluent from these systems is known qualitatively to seep into lake waters.

Our research group is currently conducting a study of the lake in order to identify major nutrient sources, and one possible tracer method is to quantitatively …

Residence Times And Temporal Variations Of 210Po In Aerosols And Precipitation From Southeastern Michigan, United States, Daphne Mcneary, Mark Baskaran

Environmental Science and Geology Faculty Research Publications

Daughter products of ²²²Rn (such as ²¹⁰Pb, half-life = 22.1 years, and ²¹⁰Po, half-life = 138 days) have been widely used as tracers to determine the removal rates of aerosols as well to obtain analog information on the behavior of other chemical species in the lower atmosphere. To establish the first data set on the depositional fluxes of ²¹⁰Po in bulk precipitation and concentrations in air samples from the midwestern United States, we measured the depositional fluxes of ²¹⁰Pb and ²¹⁰Po in the bulk (wet plus dry) and dry fallout by deploying a rain …

Stratification Of Southern Georgia Streams For Rapid Bioassessment Focusing On Differences In Structure And Function Of Black Water And Clear Water Streams, Salini Pradeep Pillai

Theses and Dissertations

As part of a rapid bioassessment project for the state of Georgia, relatively unimpaired reference streams and impaired sites were sampled for biological, chemical and physical parameters, and macroinvertebrates were identified. The metrics, biological, physical and chemical metrics, were selected using Ecological Data Application System Version 3.3.2k (EDAS). Discrimination efficiency and correlations were performed to determine the best metrics that separated impaired streams from reference streams and later on to form the index of stream water quality. Principal components analysis of the selected metrics showed that some of the blackwater reference streams and clearwater reference streams are randomly placed over …

Allagash Wilderness Waterway Working Group On Structure, Management And Oversight: Choosing Common Ground And Moving Ahead, Allagash Wilderness Waterway Working Group

Maine History & Policy Development

In his June 19, 2006, Executive Order, Governor John E. Baldacci directed the Working Group to “offer its best guidance and advice to the Governor respecting the long-term governance, management, and oversight structure for the Allagash Wilderness Waterway” (AWW). In the intervening six months the members of the Working Group have engaged in an examination of the forty-year history of the Waterway and an analysis of the conditions and circumstance that led to the Governor’s Executive Order. We have reviewed documentation of the AWW history, taken testimony at numerous public meetings and hearings, conducted correspondence with members of the several …