Publications

Highly toxic sodium cyanide (NaCN) is used increasingly by the international mining community to extract gold and other precious metals through milling of high grade ores and heap leaching of low grade ores. Of the 98 million kg cyanide (CN) consumed in North America in 1989, about 80% was used in gold mining (Knudson 1990). In Canada, more than 90% of the mined gold is extracted from...

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Given the absence of a current source on snake diversity and nomenclature and the expressed global need to understand better the diversity of our biota, we think that a catalogue of the world snake fauna complete with synonymies at the familial, generic, and specific levels is essential. We provide that here beginning with publication of the first volume. This compendium will facilitate

The tiger (Panthera tigris) is an endangered, large felid whose demographic status is poorly known across its distributional range in Asia. Previously applied methods for estimating tiger abundance, using total counts based on tracks, have proved unreliable. Lack of reliable data on tiger densities not only has constrained our ability to understand the ecological factors shaping...

Understanding evolutionary consequences of intermittent breeding (nonbreeding in individuals that previously bred) requires investigation of the relationships between adult breeding state and two demographic parameters: survival probability and subsequent breeding probability. One major difficulty raised by comparing the demographic features of breeders and nonbreeders as estimated from...

Although wildlife risk assessments are generally based on the accumulation of environmental contaminants through food chains, wildlife may also ingest contaminants incidentally with sediment. Forty-two mute swans (Cygnus olor) were collected from unpolluted portions of central Chesapeake Bay, Maryland, USA, in spring 1995, and their intestinal digesta were analyzed for 13 metals...

Temporal variation of demographic characteristics for animal populations is of interest to both ecologists and biological modelers. The standard deviation of a series of estimated parameter values (e.g., estimated population size) or some function thereof (e.g., log of the estimated parameters) is commonly used as a measure of temporal variability. These measures of temporal variation...

Population management of waterfowl requires an understanding of the effects of changes in hunting regulations on harvest and survival rates. Mean survival and recovery rates of American black ducks (Anas rubripes) were estimated during 3 periods of increasingly restrictive harvest regulations: 1950-66, 1967-82, and 1983-93. From the first to the second period, direct recovery rates...

The Lower Mississippi River contributes significantly to the biodiversity and ecological stability of the alluvial valley, but agricultural, industrial, and municipal developments have historically impacted environmental quality of the river. Toxicity of sediment and sediment pore water was used to assess the current effects of major cities on sediment quality along the Lower Mississippi...