Interview: Climate Affecting Fish and Game

  • The National Wildlife Federation is concerned about the nation's fish and game species being impacted by climate change. (Photo courtesy of the US Fish and Wildlife Service)

People are beginning to notice the effects
of climate change – especially people who
get out in nature a lot. Hunters and anglers
with the National Wildlife Federation recently
released a list of some of the game and fish
species that are at risk due to climate change.
Lester Graham talked with one of the members
of the group:

Transcript

People are beginning to notice the effects
of climate change – especially people who
get out in nature a lot. Hunters and anglers
with the National Wildlife Federation recently
released a list of some of the game and fish
species that are at risk due to climate change.
Lester Graham talked with one of the members
of the group:

Lester Graham: Kathleen Law in an angler, a member of the National Wildlife Federation, a former member of the Michigan Legislature, and a retired research scientist. First, what kind of game and fish, besides polar bears and penguins, are at risk because of climate change?

Kathleen Law: Well, everything that nests in the water or tries to have a fishery involved. It is affecting our national and our local bird, deer, the population, the habitat.

Graham: I guess that’s the question, though – how do we know that it’s not something else at work? How do we know that it’s climate change? And, of course, the skeptics will say, ‘how do we know it’s man-caused changes to the climate?’

Law: Well, we can continue being in a state of denial, and wonder where everything went, or we can get ahead. It’s not important to me who’s causing it, it’s, ‘what can I do to help?’

Graham: The US House has passed climate change legislation, the Senate is debating a version. Will the policies in those bills be enough to save some of these fish and game species you’re worried about?

Law: It’ll give us a chance. Without a concerted, willful effort, we have a very limited chance. So, there are things that we can do, that we must do, as a people who want diversity, who want to fish, who want to eat – I like venison. So what do we do to protect that resource and, and in a positive way? Which is the education and resource restoration, I think, is probably the best way to start.

Graham: Opponents of climate change legislation worry a cap-and-trade carbon reduction scheme will cost the economy too much. They don’t want the US to be put at a competitive disadvantage. Will the concerns of hunters and fishers sway any members of Congress to actually support climate legislation, if they believe it’s a jobs killer?

Law: Well, it will certainly be a consideration. The hunters and fishing folk are your constituents, they’re your neighbors, they’re your family. You can look at that, ‘it’s a job killer.’ So is climate disruption a job killer. So, how do we create new jobs? Well let’s get people out planting marsh grass. Let’s, you know, something positive. Something that people can do that makes a difference for them and their neighborhood and their community. That’s positive. That’s hope. We gotta give them hope.

Graham: What is the National Wildlife Federation doing in Washington to affect the debate about climate change?

Law: Well, they have flown in a large contingent of just people who are hunters and fishers and who have represented people in the constituencies to come in and talk to the Senators. Our hunters and fishing people – consider them sentinels. They’re out there in November, hunting ducks. They’re out in April, standing in the water, fishing. These are sentinel people, and to pay attention to what they’re saying is very important, vital, and that’s what we did in Washington DC.

Graham: Kathleen Law is a retired research scientist, a former member of the Michigan legislature, and working with the National Wildlife Federation as part of an effort to save fish and game species the group says is at risk because of climate change. Thanks very much.

Law: Thank you.

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Open Season on Wolves

  • Idaho Fish and Game sold 1,825 wolf tags in the first hour. By mid-afternoon the first day, about 4,000 tags had been sold. (Photo courtesy of the US Fish and Wildlife Service)

It’s open season on wolves starting
today. Lester Graham reports
Idaho has issued tens of thousands
of hunting permits for the first
wolf season since the animal was
taken off the endangered species
list:

Transcript

It’s open season on wolves starting
today. Lester Graham reports
Idaho has issued tens of thousands
of hunting permits for the first
wolf season since the animal was
taken off the endangered species
list:

This is the first time a state has allowed an open hunting season on the wolf since it was protected by federal law.

Jon Rachael is state game manager for Idaho’s Fish and Game. He says there are about 1,000 wolves – far more than the original plan when the wolves were reintroduced.

So, hunters can kill as many as 220 of them.

“The intent of that is to reduce the population slightly. But that would leave us in the neighborhood of about 800 wolves at the end of the year.”

A Montana hunting season would allow another 75 wolves to be killed.

Environmentalists say it’s outrageous to kill so many wolves in the northern Rockies so soon after they were taken off the endangered species list.

The Environmental group Defenders of Wildlife sued to stop the wolf hunting season. A federal judge has not yet ruled on whether to stop the hunt.

For The Environment Report, I’m Lester Graham.

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Saving the Snail Kite

  • Environmental scientist Rachael Pierce and her team travel on airboats into the marshes around Lake Okeechobee. (Photo by Rebecca Williams)

We’ve spent billions of dollars
just trying to partially restore
the Everglades in Florida. Now,
there’s a struggle to save a bird
there that’s close to extinction.
It’s a raptor called the snail kite.
It’s becoming one of the symbols
for saving the Everglades. Rebecca
Williams has more:

Transcript

We’ve spent billions of dollars
just trying to partially restore
the Everglades in Florida. Now,
there’s a struggle to save a bird
there that’s close to extinction.
It’s a raptor called the snail kite.
It’s becoming one of the symbols
for saving the Everglades. Rebecca
Williams has more:

The snail kite eats pretty much only one thing – a snail called the apple snail.

The apple snail’s been disappearing – partly because of people messing with water levels in the Everglades for farming and cities.

Scientist Rachael Pierce and her team have raised apple snails in the lab and let them go in a marsh at the edge of Lake Okeechobee. Now they need them to stick around and have babies.

“It’s unlikely the snail kites will come back here to this marsh because we haven’t released that many snails. But in the future when we scale this up we do hope to start seeing snail kites.”

The survival of the snail kite depends on this working. And, some people say, if the snail kite goes extinct, things won’t look good for the restoration of the Everglades.

For The Environment Report, I’m Rebecca Williams.

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Osprey Nest Near Fish Hatchery

  • The osprey is a bird that scoops fish out of rivers and lakes (Photo courtesy of the National Parks Service)

Ospreys are birds of prey that eat fish. Todd Melby tells us about a pair of osprey that tried to nest near a fish hatchery:

Transcript

Ospreys are birds of prey that eat fish. Todd Melby tells us
about a pair of osprey that tried to nest near a fish hatchery:

The osprey is a raptor that scoops fish out of rivers and lakes.

So when a pair of osprey decided to mate near a DNR fish hatchery south of
Minneapolis, biologists were delighted and worried.

Ospreys rarely nest so far south. So that was good news. What worried biologists was
whether the birds would eat the fish. Biologists decided these fish were too small.

Another worry was the ospreys’ choice of a nesting site. In this case, the birds picked an
electrical power pole.

Lisa Gelvin-Innvaer is with the Minnesota DNR.

“They like high areas. Places that have room for them to put their nest. Transmission
poles often provide that.”

Biologists decided that was a bad idea, so they’ve built a tall nesting platform near the
power pole.

“We’re hopeful with the new nesting platform, that they’ll come back and attempt to nest
again.”

For The Environment Report, I’m Todd Melby.

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Wolf Hunting Hurts Wolf Packs

  • The gray wolf is slated to be removed from the Endangered Species List. Many are worried this will have a negative impact on wolf packs. (Photo courtesy of Wisconsin Fish and Wildlife Service)

This year, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service plans to officially remove the northern
Rockies gray wolf from the federal Endangered Species List. The agency will hand over
management of the wolves to states in the region. The states will allow hunters and
ranchers to kill wolves during specific seasons, or even year-round. But scientists and
conservationists are concerned about the hunting plans. Kinna Ohman reports some
conservationists think hunting could disrupt the way a wolf pack works, and even lead
members to seek out easier prey such as livestock:

Transcript

This year, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service plans to officially remove the northern
Rockies gray wolf from the federal Endangered Species List. The agency will hand over
management of the wolves to states in the region. The states will allow hunters and
ranchers to kill wolves during specific seasons, or even year-round. But scientists and
conservationists are concerned about the hunting plans. Kinna Ohman reports some
conservationists think hunting could disrupt the way a wolf pack works, and even lead
members to seek out easier prey such as livestock:


Biologists in Yellowstone National Park have had an unprecedented opportunity to study
wolves over the last twelve years. They’ve looked at everything from what wolves prefer
to eat, to why wolves kill big prey such as bison. But one topic they haven’t studied
much is how a typical wolf pack works.


Doug Smith is a biologist with Yellowstone’s wolf recovery program. He says they now
understand healthy wolf packs need lots of older, skilled members in order to hunt natural
prey:


“They’re very good at it. They have a lot of teamwork. They switch back and forth
about whose doing what job.”


In fact, studies have shown it takes 3-4 skilled adults to kill an elk. It takes more wolves
to kill a bison. Packs in Yellowstone are naturally filled with large numbers of adults.
But in places where wolves are hunted by humans, skilled adults are in short supply.


Smith says a lack of skilled wolves in a pack could mean they’d be more likely to go after
easier prey including livestock:


“If they don’t have that experienced age structure in the pack, they make do, and so
you will have probably inexperienced killers out there and inexperienced killers are gonna
look for easier prey. The elders of the pack, if there are only 2 or 3 of you,
are much more likely going to go after a sheep or cow than if there’s 7 or 8 of you.”


These concerns could become real when the gray wolf is taken off the Endangered
Species list in the northern Rockies. The states of Montana, Idaho, and Wyoming will
take over management. Suzanne Stone with the Defenders of Wildlife in Idaho says
hundreds of wolves could be killed as part of state management plans:


“They’re talking about killing now about 500 to 600 wolves after delisting. You
don’t manage any population of wildlife like that. The delisting plan, as it’s written
right now, is just a recipe for failure.”


Stone says the gray wolves were protected to build healthy populations, and how a wolf
pack works should be part of that consideration.


But the government is focused on how sport hunting effects just wolf numbers. Ed Bangs
is the wolf recovery coordinator with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. He says that
hunting won’t threaten the wolves:


“One thing that does happen everywhere in the world that wolves and people
overlap is that people kill wolves. And the answer is yes, that does have an effect on
wolf pack structure. And it certainly never endangered wolf populations.”


So it’s hard for conservationists to convince officials that the sport hunting of wolves
could change how wolf packs work and even lead to more livestock conflicts. Biologist
Doug Smith says that’s because the decision to delist the wolves is based purely on
numbers:


“Delisting is entirely numbers. Some conservation biologists have made the
argument that delisting should not occur until the endangered species is integrated
back within the ecosystem and functioning as a member as that ecosystem. That is
not how delisting occurs now for the Fish and Wildlife Service. It’s ‘do we have
enough?'”


Many conservationists and activists will soon be arguing that killing 500 to 600 wolves
leave too few. They’ll likely file lawsuits, stressing that the importance of healthy wolf
packs should be considered before hunting is allowed.


Ed Bangs with the Fish and Wildlife Service says he’s confident the agency has followed
the law. He says they’ll meet the requirements of the Endangered Species Act by
delisting the wolves and handing management over to the states:


“My deal with the Fish and Wildlife Service is: What is the purpose of the act as it’s
currently written by Congress, have we met those conditions for wolves, and the
answer is clearly yes and therefore we’re supposed to delist them. If people want the
act to say something different, they need to talk to their elected officials, not the Fish
and Wildlife Service.”


But the wolf’s defenders will argue the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service as well as the
states need to understand how the wolf packs work before declaring open season on the
wolf.


For the Environment Report, I’m Kinna Ohman.

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Wolves Make Mark on Yellowstone

  • The wolves in Kinna Ohman's report as seen through a spotting scope. Wolves have helped strengthen several species of plants and animals in Yellowstone National Park. (Photo by Marlene Foard)

Scientists are surprised by the changes one animal can make in America’s first national park.
Since the wolf returned to Yellowstone, the predator’s had wide-ranging and unexpected effects
on the ecosystem of the park. As Kinna Ohman reports, top predators such as wolves might be
more necessary than previously realized:

Transcript

Scientists are surprised by the changes one animal can make in America’s first national park.
Since the wolf returned to Yellowstone, the predator’s had wide-ranging and unexpected effects
on the ecosystem of the park. As Kinna Ohman reports, top predators such as wolves might be
more necessary than previously realized:


Yellowstone National Park holds many wonders, but few things capture a visitor’s imagination
like the wolf:


“Whoa, I can see their eyes.”


Marlene Foard lets me peek through her scope and see members of the Slough Creek wolf pack
tearing into a recent kill. As we watch, we hear another group of wolves howling in the distance:


“Did you hear ’em? Yeah, did you hear that? Oh my God…”


(Sound of wolves howling)


Visitors are not the only ones fascinated by the wolves. Lately, scientists have been caught up in
the excitement too. Not just by the wolves, but how the wolves are changing Yellowstone.


(Sound of creek)


It’s a cold yet sunny day in the park. I’ve met up with Doug Smith, the project leader of
the park’s wolf recovery program. But we’re not going to look for wolves today. We’re about to
see how wolves are changing the landscape:


(Sound of footsteps)


“This is Blacktail Deer Creek that we’re walking up on. And it’s surrounded by willows.
And these willows about ten years ago were not growing as luxuriantly as they are right
now.”


This new willow growth happened after the wolves’ reintroduction to Yellowstone, and many
scientists are making a connection. Willow can be a food for elk especially in the winter, but
since the wolves have returned, elk would rather be on hillsides and open areas where they can
see wolves coming. And once they leave the river valleys behind, plants like the willow are
recovering.


The willow’s recovery is important because it helps other wildlife. Beaver eat willow and use it
for building dams. And ponds created by beavers are great habitat for endangered birds, like the
warbler. Doug Smith says the fact this could be caused by wolves caught everyone by surprise:


“Nobody thought of this. I was around at the beginning. There were many studies done
looking at what the impacts of wolves would be. And I can’t remember reading about this
at all.”


And it goes beyond the willow. Bill Ripple is a professor of Ecology at Oregon State University.
He came to Yellowstone in 1997 to study why aspen trees were declining. Ripple wasn’t thinking
wolves, but one day, when studying tree ring data, he saw the aspens’ problems began just when
the last wolves were killed off in Yellowstone. He was equally surprised:


“I didn’t see anything in the record. It wasn’t on my radar to see how wolves may be
affecting aspen trees. That was not even considered at all. And all of a sudden, it appears
that this one animal can have this profound effect on the entire ecosystem.”


And this got Ripple thinking about the top predators a little differently. He says these effects
might even extend to other animals:


“I think that this effect of predators would probably go well beyond just cougars or wolves.
You know everything from black bears to grizzly bears to lynx to wolverines. They may all
play important roles that we don’t even know about at this point.”


Not everyone thinks predators are needed for ecosystems to thrive. There are hunters who
consider wolves unnecessary and even competition for animals such as deer and elk, but Doug
Smith says it’s important to realize the contribution of wolves goes beyond what hunters can do.
Willow and aspen re-growth depends on wolves changing elk behavior. And this has to happen
year round:


“Human hunters, well known this fact, and I’m a hunter and I know this, prey behavior
changes during the hunting season, and before and after they go back to doing what they
want. Having a carnivore on the landscape changes prey behavior year round. A totally
different presence than human hunting.”


But there’s a caveat. Smith says there has to be a certain number of wolves on the landscape for
these changes to occur. And the number might be more than humans are willing to tolerate:


“You know, just having wolves on the landscape does not do it. And that’s a very, very
important point because some people are using wolves to argue that we’re going to get this
ecosystem restoration, this ecosystem recovery. But they need to be at a certain minimum
density. And that might be in some places at densities that are too high for humans to
socially tolerate.”


So, ultimately, ecological recovery could depend on humans, not the wolves. Human tolerance
needs to be high enough to allow top predators like the wolf to return to ecosystems, otherwise,
full recovery might never happen.


For the Environment Report, I’m Kinna Ohman.

Related Links

Species Avoids Being Prey

A new study in the journal Ecology finds that in the animal world,
there are worse things than being eaten alive. Rebecca Williams
reports:

Transcript

A new study in the journal Ecology finds that in the animal world,
there are worse things than being eaten alive. Rebecca Williams
reports:


Getting eaten by a predator might be bad, but it might be just the
beginning of the bad news for prey.


Scientists looked at the effects of an invasive species in the Great
Lakes called the spiny water flea. The water fleas eat tiny creatures
called daphnia. In the study, daphnia swam to deeper, colder water to
get away from the predator.


Scott Peacor is a fisheries scientist with Michigan State University
and the Great Lakes Environmental Research Lab:


“Prey of course do all sorts of things to avoid becoming a meal. In this case,
the daphnia swimming down to colder waters means they reproduce at much
slower rates. So that’s a major cost in this case.”


So instead of one daphnia getting eaten, the entire population is at
greater risk of dying off. And that’s bad because daphnia are a key
food source at the bottom of the Great Lakes food web.


For the Environment Report, I’m Rebecca Williams.

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Predators to Be Prey for Livestock Owners?

The U.S. Forest Service is loosening rules to deal with
predators. The new rules would allow livestock owners and others to hunt down wolves, bears, coyotes and mountain lions using trucks, helicopters and cyanide-laced traps. The GLRC’s Lester Graham
reports:

Transcript

The U.S. Forest service is loosening rules to deal with predators. The new rules would
allow livestock owners and others to hunt down wolves, bears, coyotes and mountain
lions using trucks, helicopters and cyanide-laced traps. The GLRC’s Lester Graham
reports:


The Forest Service says the proposed new rules simply clear up a program that’s
designed to get rid of nuisance animals that prey on livestock. Erik Ryberg is with the
Center for Biological Diversity. He says the new rules permit killing any local predator
instead of just the animal that’s killing livestock. They would also allow off-road
vehicles and even helicopters to chase down the animals on federal land, and they would
allow baited traps that explode with poison gas:


“These are buried cyanide bombs that when triggered release an explosive cloud of
sodium cyanide crystals and kill whatever has triggered it. They’re very dangerous both
to domestic pets, to children and to people. They certainly don’t belong in federally-
protected wilderness areas.”


The current rules state that the agency is to “consider the benefits of predator species in
the ecosystem” before it starts killing any predators.


For the GLRC, this is Lester Graham.

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Delisting the Gray Wolf

Some populations of gray wolves could be taken off the endangered species list. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is expected to issue proposed new rules for gray wolves in the upper Great Lakes region in the next week or so. We have more from the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Tracy Samilton:

Transcript

Some populations of grey wolves could be taken off the endangered
species list. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is expected to issue
proposed new rules for gray wolves in the upper Great Lakes region in
the next week or so. We have more from the Great Lakes Radio
Consortium’s Tracy Samilton:


The growth of the grey wolf population in the Great Lakes area is good
or bad, depending on who you talk to. Wolves help control deer herds,
but they also prey on livestock.


Adrien Wydeven is with the Wisconsin Department of Natural
Resources. He says in extreme cases, states might want to let farmers
who’ve had problems shoot wolves they catch in the act of killing
livestock.


“And we could consider the possibility of a public harvest of members of
general public applying for permits to trap or hunt wolves in limited
areas.”


There will be a 90-day public comment period before the delisting of
Great Lakes wolves is adopted. It will apply mainly to wolves in
Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota. Each state will also have to adopt
its own wolf management plan.


For the GLRC, I’m Tracy Samilton.

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Ten Threats: Botulism Kills Beach Birds

  • Interns for Presque Isle State Park in Erie, Pennsylvania walk along a Lake Erie beach picking up dead birds. (Photo by Lester Graham)

Researchers are beginning to understand what’s killing thousands of
Great Lakes shorebirds. It might be part of a larger problem indirectly
caused by humans. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham
reports:

Transcript

We’ve been bringing you reports from the series, ‘Ten Threats to the Great Lakes’ which is now looking at the threat to beaches. Our guide through the series is Lester Graham. He reports that scientists are beginning to understand what’s killing thousands of Great Lakes shorebirds. It might be part of a larger problem indirectly caused by humans.


Researchers are beginning to understand what’s killing thousands of
Great Lakes shorebirds. It might be part of a larger problem indirectly
caused by humans. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham
reports:


Along parts of Lake Erie, Lake Ontario, and Lake Huron, large numbers
of dead birds and fish are washing up on shore. If they’re left there, the
disease that killed them can be passed on to other wildlife. That’s why
park officials such as Mike Mumau at Presque Isle State Park at Erie,
Pennsylvania ask their staff to watch out for the dead carcasses.


“Our interns do a great job. They’re the eyes of the staff that are out. So,
there’s probably three to four days a week that they’re out on the
beaches, checking to see if they have anything.”


Since 1998, untold numbers of fish and sometimes hundreds of dead
birds a year have washed up on just these eight miles of Lake Erie beach.


Eventually, researchers figured out the problem: type “E” botulism. It
slowly paralyzes the birds until the respiratory system shuts down. Most
of them don’t make it that long. They get so weak they can’t hold their
heads up out of the water and they drown.


(Sounds of walking and shovel)


Leslie Jones and her fellow interns are headed out to an area to pick up
some dead seagulls on the beach.


“When we’re out here doing migratory bird studies, we might see some
and then we pick them up as soon as possible. A lot of times, we get
radioed from different people like lifeguards and they have us come out
and pick them up so that the disease doesn’t spread throughout the rest of
the ecosystem.”


They find five dead birds rotting on the beach. They bury the maggots
because they could carry the botulism toxin and other birds might eat the
maggots. They shovel the bird carcass into a black plastic garbage bag.


“If they’re very fresh, this one, obviously not very fresh, but, if we get a
fresh one, we actually freeze them and they’re sent off to be tested
botulism, but, something like this we’ll just bag up until we can get them
incinerated to get rid of all the disease.”


The fresh carcasses are shipped to the National Wildlife Health Center in
Madison, Wisconsin.


There, Grace McLaughlin is among the researchers who are beginning to
put the puzzle together.

Here’s what they think is happening. The invasive species zebra mussels
and quagga mussels create huge mussel beds that begin a complicated
biological phenomenon. Organic matter collects there, and then decays. It
lowers the oxygen level in the immediate area of the mussel beds. Type
“E” botulism spores occur naturally, but when the oxygen level goes
down, they begin reproducing like crazy. The waste they produce is the
toxin.


“That toxin will accumulate in the organic matter as well as in the water
in the immediate vicinity of the mussel beds. As the mussels do their
filter feeding, they will accumulate the toxin in their tissue. They are not
susceptible to the toxin. However, when the fish start coming down
there and eating the mussels, they become intoxicated, lose their ability
to swim properly and become easy prey for the birds that come in.”


The fish that feeds on the mussels the most is another invasive species,
the round goby. Researchers made the connection when they noticed the
botulism started being a problem shortly after round gobies arrived in big
numbers.


The type “E” botulism toxin has killed tens-of-thousands of birds such as
cormorants, terns, loons, ducks, and seagulls.


Back at Presque Isle State Park, Mike Mumau says it’s terrible to see so
many birds die.


“We just do our best on our end to stop the botulism cycle. When we
can, provide samples, and also, keep it a positive recreational experience
for all our visitors. They don’t want to see birds decomposing and
rotting out on the beaches, so we’re pretty diligent with that.”


Researchers say that’s about the best that can be done. Since ocean-
going vessels brought zebra mussels, quagga mussels, and round gobies
to the Great Lakes, all three of the invasive species have flourished. It
will likely be a long time before we’ll ever begin to understand the full
extent of the damage to the native wildlife of the lakes.


For the GLRC, this is Lester Graham.

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