Publications

Many coastal-dependent species have undergone large-scale population declines due to impacts from habitat loss, including American oystercatchers (Haematopus palliatus). Islands along the Big Bend region of Florida’s Gulf Coast provide important nesting habitat for oystercatchers, but reproductive success here is low and habitat degradation and loss are a major concern. To determine...

Range expansion of American black bear (Ursus americanus; bear) and residential development has resulted in a growing presence of bear in suburbia. Suburban landscapes exhibiting patchworks of variable-sized parcels and habitats and owned by landowners with diverse values, can create large areas of suitable habitats with limited public access. These landscapes thereby may limit the...

Harvest can affect vital rates such as reproduction and survival, but also genetic measures of individual and population health. Grey wolves (Canis lupus) live and breed in groups, and effective population size is a small fraction of total abundance. As a result, genetic diversity of wolves may be particularly sensitive to harvest. We evaluated how harvest affected genetic diversity and

Wildlife translocation is an often-used technique to augment populations or remove animals from harm’s way. Unfortunately, many translocation efforts fail to meet their goals for myriad reasons, particularly because translocated animals make large, erratic movements after release, which can result in high mortality rates. Soft release, holding animals in acclimation pens for some period...

Goals are important for the effective execution of public trust responsibilities by state inland fisheries bureaus, but formulating meaningful goals is not simple. Often bureaus look to their past and to their sister bureaus in neighboring states when crafting goals for their own freshwater resources. Herein, we review the goal themes of fisheries bureaus using publicly available...

Over the next two decades, half of all hydropower projects in the USA will require relicensing by the Federal Regulatory Commission (FERC). Relicensing proceedings invoke a range of informational sources and agency regulators are tasked with using the “best available science” (BAS) to make informed decisions about hydropower operations and management. Although embraced as the standard...

Drone use in wildlife biology has greatly increased as they become cheaper and easier to deploy in the field. In this paper we describe a less invasive method of using drones and exploring their limitations for studying colonial nesting waterbirds. Western Grebes, like most colonial nesting waterbirds, can be very sensitive to human interaction. Using a 3DR Solo quad copter equipped with...

The Smith River is a popular recreational sport fishery in western Montana, but salmonid abundances there are thought to be artificially limited by riparian land-use alterations, irrigation water withdrawals, and high summer water temperatures. We used integrated networks of temperature loggers, PIT tag antenna stations, and in situ temperature mapping to investigate the thermal...

Understanding the effects of predicted rising sea levels, combined with changes in precipitation and freshwater inflow on key estuarine ecosystem engineers such as the eastern oyster would provide critical information to inform restoration design and predictive models. Using oyster ladders with shell bags placed at three heights to capture a range of inundation levels, oyster growth of...

Droughts are expected to increase in frequency and severity with climate change. Population impacts of such harsh environmental events are theorized to vary with life history strategies among species. However, existing demographic models generally do not consider behavioural plasticity that may modify the impact of harsh events. Here we show that tropical songbirds in the New and Old...

Captive-rearing conservation programs focus primarily on maximizing postrelease survival. Survival increases with size in a variety of taxa, often leading to the use of enhanced size as a means to minimize postrelease losses. Head-starting is a specific captive-rearing approach used to accelerate growth in captivity prior to release in the wild. We explored the effect of size at release...

Institutional trust and perceptions of regulatory efficacy can affect support for management. This study examined how institutional trust, specific trust related to information/management, and support for/perceived efficacy of current regulations related to deer hunters’ attitudes about chronic wasting disease (CWD) management. Results are from a survey of southeastern Minnesota deer...