Spring 2018 Fish & Wildlife News
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U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service Spring 2018 Fish & Wildlife News Join us online fws.gov/home/fwn SPOTLIGHT Science in the Field / 12 Too Much Sugar / 16 Follow that Pigeon / 20 what’s inside SPOTLIGHT: Science in the Field / 12 features Making History / 13 Lahontan cutthroat trout returning to Fallen Leaf Lake 12 by DAN HOTTLE Too Much Sugar / 16 Researchers work on a sweet solution to a sticky problem by LAURI MUNROE-HULTMAN 13 Follow that Bird! / 20 Using old technology in new ways to study band-tailed pigeons by AISLINN MAESTAS Science in the Stream / 24 Looking for signs of life for Lake Champlain salmon by BRIDGET MACDONALD A War in the Water / 28 On the cover: Invasive Asian carp threaten native fish Northern in the Southeast and spark a battle for survival 16 20 leopard frog. by DAN CHAPMAN COURTNEY CELLEY/USFWS MORE FEATURES Behind the Headlines / 32 Proactive partnerships in Texas address endangered species issues by ADAM ZERRENNER Seeing the Tree, Not Just the Lion / 34 A botanist’s mission to save our natural landscapes by ASHLEY SPRATT 24 From the Directorate / 1 Life After the Service / 39 departments News / 2 Our People / 40 Curator’s Corner / 38 32 34 from the directorate Strong Science Helps Us Overcome Real Problems The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is a science-based Apparently, biologists in New England, including agency, and each one of us should be proud of that Dr. Susan Adamowicz at Rachel Carson National description—I know I am—and work to uphold that Wildlife Refuge in Maine. They are testing their Greg Sheehan, Principal ideal. idea now. Deputy Director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife We use the best science available to make the best And that’s just one of the stories you will read in Service decisions that we can. And I expect us to always do this issue of Fish & Wildlife News about science this to ensure we are doing the best job we can for in the field. wildlife and the American public. Counting butterflies with lasers, using transponders Will that always make everybody happy? Of course commonly used in fish to help track birds, tracking not. We will be accused of kowtowing to industry or fish with sound...the list goes on. Quite frankly, alternatively adhering to unrealistic conservation what our people are doing is mind-boggling. ideals, or both! I hope you take some inspiration from these stories: But science remains, and will remain, a cornerstone Science and scientists are thriving at the Fish and of the Service. Wildlife Service! We need good science to identify the needs of wildlife and habitat systems, and how we can meet those needs most effectively. We need to ensure that the scientific and scholarly information that the Service considers in its public decision-making is accessible, robust, of the highest quality, and the result of the rigorous scientific and scholarly processes. In other words, that it is the best science available. We need strong partnerships within the greater scientific community that will help generate good information and help grow the next generation of Service scientists. You see across the nation—in refuges, field offices and hatcheries—that science hasn’t disappeared. Our scientists are hard at work identifying and solving issues that stand in the way of conservation. Often in innovative ways. GARY PEEPLES/USFWS For instance, Mary Poppins sings about “a spoonful Biologists tag an Eastern hellbender. of sugar” making the medicine go down. Who’d have thought it might be the answer to controlling the invasive Phragmites? Winter 2018 Fish & Wildlife News / 1 news SCIENCE IN THE FIELD it’s just a matter of downloading the data, clipping the receiver to another concrete block and Listening for Fishes sending it back into the abyss. at the Bottom of Lake No matter how often they do it, the biologists always hesitate an Ontario extra beat before letting go and watching their gear sink from or generations, the Great view. FLakes have supported local communities and the world Through the use of such cutting- with fish for good eating, but edge technology, biologists are overfishing, pollution and invasive examining and unraveling the sea lamprey have taken a toll on mysterious year-long movement many native fishes, especially patterns of fishes in the vast, lake trout. USFWS deep, dark lake environment. This research will make a future of Several decades of hard work to was part of an effort to better A freshly tagged lake trout ready self-sustaining lake trout popula- control sea lamprey, in concert understand fish movements in for release. tions thriving in restored habitats with strategic stocking of lake Lake Ontario. possible. trout in lakes Ontario and Erie, is helping the trout, which is good For years these biologists have nearly all the fish disappear ERIC BRUESTLE, Lower Great Lakes news for anglers. Indeed, the been tracking lake sturgeon from the river. It is clear they are Fish and Wildlife Conservation Office, second most angled fish in Lake and lake trout movements in moving out into the lake, and new Northeast Region Ontario in 2016 was lake trout. But and around the lower Niagara research seeks to find out where lake trout still have a long way to River. Now, in coordination with they go and, eventually, why. go before they are self-sustaining Canadian research partners, without help from hatcheries. the project has expanded in The more we know about where scope to track fish as they move fishes go in the lake, the better To restore the lake trout throughout Lake Ontario proper. we can protect and restore them. population to a self-sustaining Identifying the chemical, physical level, scientists need to know To accomplish this, they strategi- and biological characteristics of how well the fish are reproducing cally place acoustic receivers areas of high use will provide a in the wild, if there is enough on the bottom of the lake in a blueprint for re-creating these suitable spawning habitat and very large grid formation that conditions through restoration if they are finding it, and where will eventually blanket the projects. It will also make it they are spending most of their whole lake. The receivers listen possible to identify and protect time feeding and growing. for sonic signals emitted from areas at specific time periods tagged lake sturgeon, lake trout, that are critical to these species. Scientists are using high-tech cisco, Atlantic salmon and other techniques, including acoustic species. When a tagged fish So, how do you recover scientific telemetry, to answer these swims near a receiver, its unique equipment (and the precious data questions and help restore ID and date/time are recorded. within) resting 500 feet below the Great Lakes fishes. With this lake-wide monitoring surface? The receivers are tied system, scientists can continue to a small buoy and attached to On a clear day in July 2017, fish to unravel some of the mysteries an 80 lb. concrete mooring block biologists from the Service’s of fish migration. For instance, to hold them in place. To retrieve USFWS Lower Great Lakes Fish and with lake sturgeon in the lower them, biologists drive a boat to The moment before sending the receiver Wildlife Conservation Office Niagara River, high numbers the deployment site and send down to the lake bottom. ventured out to the middle of Lake of fish move into the river in down a signal that causes the Ontario and sank $20,000 worth the spring to spawn and then receiver and buoy to detach from of scientific equipment. Not to congregate just outside the river the concrete and begin the long worry, this was no accident. It in the summer/fall. In the winter, journey up to the surface. Then 2 / Fish & Wildlife News Spring 2018 news SCIENCE IN THE FIELD Informative Waterbird Monitoring Means Moving Beyond Bird Counts. ore than a million snow WILLIAM R. COATNEY Mgeese stop off at Missouri Some wetlands seem to be objectives, making efficient More than 50,000 northern pintails River wetlands at Loess Bluffs overlooked by the birds, perhaps management decisions, and can be found in a single lake. National Wildlife Refuge in just by chance or because of using research and monitoring Missouri each fall and spring, some subtle missing ingredient to assess accomplishments while 50,000-plus northern of the habitat. The factors behind and inform future management dabbling duck abundance. pintails can be found in a single the patterns of nonbreeding actions. This approach has Data were also used in local- backwater lake at Two Rivers waterbirds aren’t always clear to been labeled Strategic Habitat scale projects at Mattamuskeet National Wildlife Refuge in Illinois managers. And with resources Conservation (SHC). National Wildlife Refuge in on a November morning. Up to 50 at a premium, leaving things to North Carolina and Clarence percent of the Atlantic population chance with the Field of Dreams Applying SHC to wetland Cannon National Wildlife Refuge of tundra swans can be found on “build it and they will come” management is definitely easier in Missouri to make refuge- refuges in eastern North Carolina approach is no longer a viable said than done, but progress is specific decisions related to during the winter. management strategy. being made via the Integrated managing multiple waterbirds. Waterbird Management and More recently, refuge staff in These spectacular waterbird To help unravel this uncertainty Monitoring (IWMM) approach. the Service’s Midwest Region concentrations are just a few surrounding how nonbreeding IWMM is a nationally approved evaluated dabbling duck densities examples of amazing natural waterbirds respond to monitoring protocol and across 12 units using a cost- events occurring at refuges management efforts, refuge associated online database benefit analysis.