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Captive breeding is increasingly being used to create supplies of endangered animals for release into natural habitats, but rearing strategies vary and debates arise over which methods are most efficient. We assessed postrelease behaviors and survival of three groups of black-footed ferrets, each with different prerelease experience. Eighteen ferret kits ≤60 days of age were moved with their dams from cages to 80-m2 outdoor pens with prairie dog burrows. These animals were compared to animals reared in standard cages (n=72), some of which were given experience killing prairie dogs (n=32). Ferrets were released onto white-tailed prairie dog (Cynomys leucurus) colonies in Wyoming, USA, in fall, 1992. Radio-tagged...
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Synopsis: In an attempt to better characterize the influence of human settlement patterns on wolf distribution, this paper examined how radio-collared gray wolves responded to different road types and human presence at the boundaries of Kenai National Wildlife Refuge in south-central Alaska. Wolves tended to avoid oilfield access roads that were open to the public, but were attracted to gated pipeline access roads and secondary gravel roads with limited human use. The low use access and secondary roads likely provided an easy travel corridor for wolves. Prior to intensive trapping and hunting from 1978-1979, wolves demonstrated little territorial adjustment in response to a heavily used highway. However, only after...
Summary The use of biomass to produce bioenergy in order to provide a wide range of energy services (heat, light, comfort, entertainment, information, mobility etc.), and to produce biomaterials as substitutes for those presently manufactured from petro-chemicals, is an integrating response to a number of global problems. These include equity, development, energy supply security, rural employment, and climate change mitigation. Biomass provides fuel flexibility to match a wide range of energy demands and is a renewable energy source that can be stored, which is an advantage over several other forms of renewable energy. It has been identified by the European Union as a significant contributor to its 12% renewable...
An avalanche destroyed the main hydroelectric transmission line to Juneau, Alaska in April, 2008. Diesel-generated electricity was substituted, causing electricity prices to increase 500% for 45 days. Electricity demand fell by 25% during the supply disruption. Most of the reduction occurred before the higher rates were implemented. Some conservation – about 8% of historic consumption – persisted after the transmission line was repaired and prices returned to normal. Consumers reduced energy use through a combination of new habits and technical improvements. A survey of residential consumers indicated that the average household undertook 10 conservation actions, with major changes in lighting, space heating, fuel...
As wind power generation is rapidly expanding worldwide, there is a need to understand whether and how preconstruction surveys can be used to predict impacts and to place turbines to minimize impacts to birds. Wind turbines in the 165-km2 Altamont Pass Wind Resource Area (APWRA), California, USA, cause thousands of bird fatalities annually, including hundreds of raptors. To test whether avian fatality rates related to rates of utilization and specific behaviors within the APWRA, from March 1998 to April 2000 we performed 1,959 30-minute behavior observation sessions (360° visual scans using binoculars) among 28 nonoverlapping plots varying from 23 ha to 165 ha in area and including 10–67 turbines per plot, totaling...
The relevance of econometric studies of ownership and use of private cars for environmental issues is sketched and some recent results are reviewed.
Electricity-generating wind turbines are an attractive energy source because they are renewable and produce no emissions. However, they have at least two potentially damaging ecological effects. Their rotating blades are hazardous to raptors which occasionally fly into them. And wind turbines are very noisy when active, a feature that may interfere with the lives of animals beneath them. We studied California ground squirrels (Spermophilus beecheyi) in the Altamont Pass Wind Resource Area of Northern California. These squirrels emit vocalizations that alert others to the presence of a predator, and so may be forced to compensate for turbine noise by modifying antipredator behavior. We compared the antipredator behavior...
Nine Heloderma suspectum were observed between 1 April and 13 July 1979. In April and May, movements of Heloderma were associated with areas where eggs of ground nesting birds were most abundant. During June and July, Heloderma responded to decreasing egg availability by shifting their diets to small mammals and moving onto areas where these prey were most abundant. These shifts are adaptive as Heloderma continually exploit the most abundant prey. Lizards demonstrated a foraging strategy of rarely backtracking and consuming only an average of 46% of the eggs available at each nest. The number of eggs eaten per day by each lizard was positively correlated with lizard weight. Combinations of lizard satiation, reproduction,...
The management of canid populations has been at the forefront of wildlife management worldwide for much of the last century. Effective management depends on the ability to integrate species biology, the environmental aspects upon which those populations depend, and the factors controlling species abundance. Further, managing canid populations requires consideration of territoriality and dominance, which may have a significant effect on population dynamics. To better understand the effect of social structure on canid populations, we developed an individual-based computer model using Swarm to mimic natural coyote population dynamics. We selected the Swarm simulation environment because it is ideally suited for creating...
Electricity-generating wind turbines are an attractive energy source because they are renewable and produce no emissions. However, they have at least two potentially damaging ecological effects. Their rotating blades are hazardous to raptors which occasionally fly into them. And wind turbines are very noisy when active, a feature that may interfere with the lives of animals beneath them. We studied California ground squirrels (Spermophilus beecheyi) in the Altamont Pass Wind Resource Area of Northern California. These squirrels emit vocalizations that alert others to the presence of a predator, and so may be forced to compensate for turbine noise by modifying antipredator behavior. We compared the antipredator behavior...
Aquatic organisms exposed to endocrine disrupting compounds (EDCs) at early life-stages may have reduced reproductive fitness via disruption of reproductive and non-reproductive behavioral and physiological pathways. Survival to reproductive age relies upon optimal non-reproductive trait expression, such as adequate predator avoidance responses, which may be impacted through EDC exposure. During a predator–prey confrontation, larval fish use an innate C-start escape behavior to rapidly move away from an approaching threat. We tested the hypotheses that (1) larval fathead minnows exposed to estrogens, a primary class of EDCs, singularly or in mixture, suffer a reduced ability to perform an innate C-start behavior...
Fisheries managers have often suggested that survival of trout during the winter is a major factor affecting population densities in many stream ecosystems in the Rocky Mountains. In Wyoming, trout population reductions from fall to spring in excess of 90% have been documented in some reservoir tailwaters. Though biologists have surmised that these reductions were the result of either mortality or emigration from some river sections, the specific mechanisms have not been defined and the factors leading to the trout loss are unknown. This is a review of four studies that were conducted or funded between 1991 and 1998 by the Wyoming Game and Fish Department to understand the extent of overwinter losses, identify some...
    map background search result map search result map Influence of prerelease experience on reintroduced black-footed ferrets (Mustela nigripes) Gray wolf response to refuge boundaries and roads in Alaska. Influence of prerelease experience on reintroduced black-footed ferrets (Mustela nigripes) Gray wolf response to refuge boundaries and roads in Alaska.