horridus habitat mgt paper

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Jimi
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Joined: December 3rd, 2010, 12:06 pm

horridus habitat mgt paper

Post by Jimi »

Hi guys,

Just a shout-out from an occasional lurker at your chapter. I just received the latest edition of Journal of Wildlife Management (75(1), Jan 2011). One article stands out as probably of interest to many here - "Response of timber rattlesnakes to commercial logging operations", by Reinert and others. Maybe some of you participated - again, I'm just an occasional lurker, not part of your community.

So the summary is something like "adult annual and study-long survival was high and didn't appear to be impacted by timber harvest operations in a demographically important way", "habitat and space use of adult males and non-gravid females was unchanged by short-term industrial activity, or its habitat effects", and "gravid females selected the microhabitat variables favored by harvest units". Sort of a "big duh!" outcome, as many of these studies are, but like I said, some of you may want to look it up.

I'd be interested to see an investigation/quantification of reproductive-output and individual growth-rate changes post-logging. My suspicion is adult females might be able to lay on enough fat to go from e.g. a 4-year cycle to a 3-year one, for the first decade or so post-logging. That's the kind of thing largely beyond the attention span of our "academic-industrial complex" but which I have come to see some of your chapter members could help with. Particularly in partnership with academia, to help with design, analysis, and publication. There might also be some grant opportunities to help with travel costs and supplies. Bioenergetics labs like Steve Beaupre's might be interested.

Pardon the aggressive hinting. But I think some of you guys might bite, and it would be great applied research. If timbers are on the ropes in places it would sure be nice to know the best ways to help them out. A pure "hands off the snakes" management approach is probably necessary but insufficient to recover them where they are on shaky ground.

Cheers,
Jimi Gragg
Utah, formerly Florida
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billysbrown
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Re: horridus habitat mgt paper

Post by billysbrown »

That is an interesting study - I had heard about it, and it is heartening that short-term, limited logging like that doesn't impact them too much.

The bigger problem now, however, is the gas drilling. Leaving aside the direct impacts of drilling (and land clearing for drilling) on aquatic habitats and our amphibian species (final blow for the hellbenders?), what the PA rattlesnake people seem to be really concerned about are increased road mortality from all the traffic up in the mountains where there hadn't been trucks driving around before, and a lot of Southwesterners (apparently a lot of the drilling jobs are going to guys with experience drilling out West) running around rattlesnake habitat, guys even more inclined to kill rattlers on sight than our native PA ridgerunners.

Now, on the point of collaborating with rattlesnake researchers, I have found researchers in PA to be extremely, extremely wary of cooperating with amateur herpers like most of us. I think I've made some headway myself, but folks are really cautious about bringing too much attention to dens and the risk of leaking info to a possible poacher.

Billy
mikez
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Joined: October 3rd, 2010, 6:43 am
Location: north central Ma

Re: horridus habitat mgt paper

Post by mikez »

Any time clearings are made we can expect sun loving species to respond by moving in and basking.
The two factors I'd be curious about are;
How does the logging effect the food supply? Certain small mammals like chipmunks and squirrels might be less available while others like rabbits and voles might increase.

What happens when forest succession fills in the open spaces with thick brush etc. That kind of low quality secondary growth might shade the basking sites while not providing the food species with correct habitat.
Just thinking outloud. Didn't read the study.
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kyle loucks
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Location: Pennsylvania- Bucks Co. near Phila.

Re: horridus habitat mgt paper

Post by kyle loucks »

I didn't even thing about the hellbenders Billy. :!:
Jimi
Posts: 1955
Joined: December 3rd, 2010, 12:06 pm

Re: horridus habitat mgt paper

Post by Jimi »

Billy -
Here in Utah we've had numerous oil & gas booms (and "bust-lets") recently. Initial build-out is pretty ugly. Hopefully you guys will get pipelines, not have everything trucked out, as we do in our biggest oil patch, the Uintah Basin. That generates tons of 24/7 traffic, and we do get lots of roadkill (everything up to elk and pronghorn, plus concolor etc). Interestingly nearly all our rig workers were from Texas & Oklahoma, as apparently you are experiencing. Utah locals were mainly hired to do stuff like drive trucks.

It's funny, the locals here are bitching a blue streak about Obama etc taking away oil & gas jobs, but actually it's your Marcellus shale that took away all our drilling rigs! All you energy-hungry customers back east are just too attractive! Profits are way better back there, especially when certain states (ahem) barely or plain don't don't regulate fracking, water quality, etc.

Anyway, stream animals aside, if adult (esp female) horridus mortality goes up then there'll need to be a demographic compensation, or the population will fall abruptly. Earlier maturation, more-frequent parturition, and possibly larger broods could be things one might look for (or try to induce) with habitat alterations that generate larger food supply and more abundant, closer, and hence maybe safer thermoregulatory opportunities. Habitat alterations like patchy forest regeneration.

Regarding academics - they might be more interested if some of you guys approached them with your data sets and local knowledge. Especially where you've got animals you've photo-ID'd, and have tracked for years. That is COOL STUFF that might get their heads in gear. Just a guess; but I work with academics to get certain management questions answered, and to some extent I think I understand them. Finally - find the academics who might be interested in such studies, wherever they work. They don't have to live in PA to work in PA. Reinert is in NJ, after all.

Mike -
Typically, early-successional eastern deciduous forest stands have much greater production of small mammal foods thus small mammals, than older forests. Especially when the forests are deer-impacted (the forest managers in the study I cited fenced the regenerating stands to keep deer out). Sure, small-mammal species composition changes with stand structural change, but in pounds of meat there's no comparison. Younger is better. Timber rattlesnakes (I think) will eat anything warm-blooded that's small enough to ingest - shrews to rabbits. So from an energetics standpoint, I think they'd benefit from a landscape under active management - one with plenty of acreage in young, middle-aged, and mature forest stands. Just like woodcocks, turkeys, deer, etc.

Anyway, thanks for engaging, guys. Looking like spring here today - hope yours is a pleasure.

Cheers,
Jimi
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billysbrown
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Re: horridus habitat mgt paper

Post by billysbrown »

kyle loucks wrote:I didn't even thing about the hellbenders Billy. :!:
Figure on more roadbuilding and land clearing potentially silting up creeks, water extraction from the ground and waterways potentially affecting water levels, and chemical pollution from either leaking formations or accidental spills.
Jimi wrote:Billy -
It's funny, the locals here are bitching a blue streak about Obama etc taking away oil & gas jobs, but actually it's your Marcellus shale that took away all our drilling rigs! All you energy-hungry customers back east are just too attractive! Profits are way better back there, especially when certain states (ahem) barely or plain don't don't regulate fracking, water quality, etc.
I am horrified to think that we are being out-regulated by a Western state like Utah, but that's what it is looking like.

Billy
Jimi
Posts: 1955
Joined: December 3rd, 2010, 12:06 pm

Re: horridus habitat mgt paper

Post by Jimi »

Oh, don't look to Utah if you're looking for examples of protecting human health and the environment from industrial excesses. Of a population ~3.5 million, we have ~3000 excess deaths a year due to air pollution alone. Colorado is a lot better, California too, at protecting their people while accommodating development. Those are both much larger oil and gas states than Utah. Hell, even Montana is better than Utah at not letting industry kill its people with filth. New Mexico (another big mining state - fluid and hard-rock) is the Mississippi of the west (poor, poor, poor) and, well, Wyoming seems to be owned by the oil & gas industry - a miniature Texas, if you will.

But it's interesting what a sleeper the Marcellus has been. This graph from High Country News:
http://www.hcn.org/issues/43.1/decades- ... raph_1.jpg

shows the last 3 decades of exploratory drilling effort in most western and Marcellus states (exploration and production drill rigs are different things - they have to swap out rigs when they hit a good hole). You guys back east are big-time! I always thought of Pennsylvania as a has-been as far as oil goes; never gave gas much thought. Oops.

Anyway, hope you all enjoy the graph. Maybe I can do out and find me a rubber boa today - supposed to be sunny, mid-50's.

Cheers,
Jimi
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