Wildlife Management - Science topic

Applications are due November 2, 2023!

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The grey areas in current legal regime of Islamabad Wildlife Management Board (IWMB) are making the Board less autonomous , toothless hence making it dependent on Capital Development Authority (CDA) and compromising the Margalla Hills National Park’s natural form alongwith the Wildlife residing therein hence no one is held liable of any untoward incident in this regard which necessitates the amendments in current legal regime to overcome the gaps / grey areas.

I am curious what flight planning apps researchers are using to preplan and fly flight missions for Parrot ANAFI Ai drones. Are there any good options besides the FreeFlight 7 app?

Dear Peers

I am looking for the literature about wildlife management in different countries. I desire to compare them with Indian system and find out strengths and weaknesses to have comprehensive management plan. Therefore, it is a humble request to you all that please provide me the relevant paper or references, if you can. Thanking you in anticipation.

_jha

Aware that managed breeding is still a controversial issue, I believe that one conservation endeavor should not discard the other or worse, antagonize the other based on personal opinion or theoretical discipline gain. In situ and ex situ have both proven to be necessary to avoid extinction of critically endangered species.

I could cite several examples but one should be representative for all: the Arabian Oryx (Oryx leucoryx). Extinct in the wild but some individuals breeding in Zoological Parks. Today the Arabian Oryx is reintroduced successfully in former range areas and numbers in the wild are increasing. Why leave managed breeding as "the last resource"? And when is the time to put in action "the last resource"?

There are conservationists who cannot tolerate the extinction of a species for anthropogenic causes and believe that intervening on specific species is a responsibility. There are others who consider a species better extinct than detached from its habitat, even partially. Discussion can go on forever…but no one can ascertain the future of our Planet with 100% certainty and state which solution is the best.

Would like to conduct a detailed study into vulture diversity, abundance, population density and movement patterns on the endangered Hooded vulture within Ghana as well as current threats that are leading to its reported population decline within the range. I would very much appreciate papers on similar studies and pointers on properly designing the study as well as possible funding sources. Thanks

i want to study problems of rehabilitated people because of Tiger reserve in western ghat. is there any literature or research papers related to this issue. plz suggest

I am a looking for feedback in terms of reliability, lifespan, drop-off possibilities, user friendly interface of the website and possibility for the stakeholders to check the data of a single animal. 

I assume that, in countries with any kind of compensation system regarding the agricultural wildlife/game damage, there has to be some sort of field assessment conducted by experts.

I would like to collect information on the different systems that operate in the different countries (ie. is there a compensation system, if yes, who estimates the damage, are there any sampling principles that are obligatory to be followed or even specified sampling methods, or it is simply up to the experts, etc.).

I would be grateful for any written, citable resource (primarily in English, if it exists) or even for personal summaries.

In return, I can prepare a description of the Hungarian situation, if anyone finds it interesting or useful.

Thank you in advance!

Imre

My name is Hairul from Selangor, Malaysia, 36 years old, 175cm, 66kg. I am looking for an opportunity to further study in PhD level. Any body here looking for a PhD student in research field such as wildlife management, conservation biology or life sciences. So far my expertise on breeding assessment, exitu management, terrapins/turtles, ecology and conservation.

In a recent review we attempted I was amazed to find very few restoration examples in rivers in the southern Balkans (south and southwest of the Danube basin). Could anybody help us in finding such examples? (i.e. riparian restoration, de-daming, fish-passes, eco-flows, re-connectivity works, urban river restoration, wildlife habitat enhancment, rewilding rivers, nature-based solutions, anti-pollution technologies, re-introduction of threatened species, etc).

For my Master thesis I try to estimate the relative density of chamois with a pellet-counting method. For calculating the number of animals per ha, I need to know the defecation rate (pellet groups per day). I found some information about captive goats (THE USE OF FAECES COUNTS IN STUDIES OF SEVERAL FREE-RANGING MAMMALS IN NEW ZEALAND; T.RINEY (1957)) and also a survey about chamois (DISTRIBUTION AND ABUNDANCE OF BROWSING MAMMALS IN WESTLAND NATIONAL PARK IN 1978, AND SOME OBSERVATIONS ON THEIR IMPACT ON THE VEGETATION; C.J. PEKELHARING ET AL (1983)) but there is no information about the missing value.

Perhaps someone had the same problem before?

Thanks a lot for any advice. :)

I discovered that many authors include the name of the software they used in their methodology while others do not.

I want to know your thoughts, if it is necessary for one to mention the name of the statistical software (package) in an academic report (thesis, project, journal paper etc) used in running the analysis?

Please, if possible support your answer with a reasons.

I've calculated the odds ratio (2.6, 95% CI 1.03 - 6.58) of breeding hen mortality in a experimental vs. control treatment. Thus, under experimental conditions hens are 2.6 times more likely to die than in control conditions.

I would like to model population growth rate based on my new breeding survival parameters, for the hypothetical scenario of my experimental condition being applied across the landscape. Hoekman et al. (2002) have conducted a well-known sensitivity analysis on mallards and I think I could use their values to model the hypothetical influence of my experimental treatment on lambda.

What is the appropriate method to do this? Should I use the equation lambda = change in vital rate/(elasticity/sensitivity)?

Thanks in advance for anything you can offer.

Citation:

Hoekman ST, Mills LS, Howerter DW, Devries JH, Ball IJ. 2002. Sensitivity analyses of the life cycle of midcontinent mallards. The Journal of Wildlife Management 66:883–900.

Im doing Forest Resources and wildlife management at NUST.zw. im just interested in the project, its very useful in terms of resource allocation and sustainable use in the future. such qualitative data can be used as a reference

I am planning for a morphological study on Saara hardwickii in the Aravallis in Western India. It has a semi-arid landscape with a fairly good population of the species. But capturing these species became a problem. I need to know some methods by which I can capture these species for morphological study and then release safely in their habitat.

Are there papers or studies on conservation vs. conservation conflicts and how to avid and/or manage them? Here in Bulgaria we have at least two such conflicts, where actions to conserve one conservation dependent species are not in favour to other or even worse may further threaten it. For example conservation of the wolf in Bulgaria (especially legislation changes) could lead to illegal actions against wolf (e.g. poison baits use), which do not affect the wolf that much, but are absolutely dangerous to vultures and eagles. This conflict passes through the man-wolf conflict though. The other example is the conservation of the European Suslik (Spermophilus cittelus), which requires well grazed (even may be overgrazed) grasslands to recover and sustain and its conservation, restoration and abundance is fundamental for several other species (e.g. Saker Falcon, Imperial Eagle etc.), but the general nature lovers and botanists are against heavy grazing and keeping grassland in best condition for Susliks. So here is a Conservation-Conservation conflict. To may opinin it should be measured on the base of Conservation value of the species involved, which is not always the case e.g. managers of the Central Balkan National Park in Bulgaria. Any references, notes or discussion will be appreciated.

I do intend to carry out a pilot test on the efficiency of barn owl Tyto alba to reduce rodent infestation in urban affected tropical zones. I would like to know the most challenging factors faced by anyone who ever had done such project.  Give advice and share the results, please. Many thanks. 

We just released a few bison into a grassland restoration unit of about 1,000 acres.  We wanted to assess dung beetle community recovery in response to the animals.  When we set out baited pitfall traps – it’s like we are sampling the inverse of what we expected.  The traps in grasslands with no bison have lots of beetles.  The units with the bison..., our traps are essentially empty.  Our assumption is that there is too much “competition” in the pasture for our traps to attract much attention.

Does anyone have any suggestions about how we may still sample this insect community – perhaps a more passive way of sampling dung beetles?

I am looking for information about the speed achieving by escaping roe-deer (Capreolus capreolus) and red deer (Cervus elaphus).

I am doing research on Alpine Musk Deer  (Moschus chrysogaster) from Nepal to study genetic diversity and individual identification (later is for latrine site use). I tried to find out the microsatellite markers this for a particular species (Moschus chrysaster) but could do so. However, I have found 15 novel microsatellite markers developed for Forest musk deer (Moschus berezovoskii). Now, I would like to know possibilities of Microsatellite Marker of Moschus berezovoskii for Moschus chrysogaster.

I'm trying to compare the amount of biomass (carcasses) available in a national park with the daily biomass requirements of these two predators to see if its enough to sustain the predator populations in the area.

Can wild life suitability map be co-related with summer temperature data?

Every protected area (nature reserve, national park etc.) that I know in tropical Asia has lost at least one species in the last 500 years: typically a rhino, the tiger or another big cat (lion, cheetah, leopard), and/or the elephant, plus a varying number of smaller species. Is there anywhere that still has all the native vertebrate species likely to have been there in the last 500 years? If there is I would guess it is most likely to be in India. Perhaps also on islands where the fauna was always fairly limited. Sulawesi?

Are there examples from Europe where winter feeding of red deer has been reduced or eliminated? North American elk (Cervus elaphus) have been fed supplemental hay rations during winter months at the National Elk Refuge (NER) in Jackson Hole, Wyoming since 1912. We are exploring options to reduce reliance on supplemental feeding at NER, but there are very few examples in North America where this has been attempted. Any information from Europe where winter feeding of red deer has been reduced or eliminated would be appreciated.

I would like to collect observational video off-line from eight cameras for later analysis with EthoVision (multiple arenas module).  The laboratory environment is such that I would prefer to use a multiplexing DVR rather than a PC.  Most security-system DVRs use proprietary file encoding that is typically not easy to convert to compatible video formats like MPEG-4; but someone must have identified the correct equipment for this application!

In my research activity I am increasingly including the analysis of Ecosystem Services and their perception. Indeed, despite having studied dozens of papers and grey literature during my student career, I have found few textbooks. I am looking for a text that summarizes the state-of-the-art about ES and the techniques for their monetary and non-monetary evaluation. Is there any?

Due to weight limitation I cannot use electro-mechanical drop-offs on my collars (wild dogs) and was considering using a piece of decomposable material instead. Several companies offer this option (I am working with Vectronics).

Time to decomposition depends most likely on temperature, humidity, and animal habits. If somebody has used decomposable drop-offs and has info on time to decomposition I would appreciate also knowing on which species the collar was used and in which region and also the collar brand (company name).

Any inputs are highly appreciated

In this case, I was wondering about how an endangered species of deer endemic to the Philippines, Rusa alfredi, acquired a novel papillomavirus despite being in conservation areas due to its low populations. Is it possibly due to a mutation? 

We are interested in relating the annual/seasonal/monthly/weekly number of animal drownings on the Mara River in the Serengeti ecosystem with the hydrology of the river. Does anyone have any records of the number of animals drowning over time? We are happy to offer   coauthorship if you can provide data that we can use.

Hi,

I would like to know if any of you have a good experience with the pop-up tags from Desert Star, particularly GEO 3D. I intend to use them with dolphinfish. Thanks

I`m currently gathering information about reports of Tapirus pinchaque in Cundinamarca, Colombia, I need data of this species in Cundinamarca, so I can map potential distribution and report locations, because I must go to this specific points to validate the information, so I can design a Conservation plan for paramo´s tapir.

Required information: reputation of the company, VHF-transmitter / GPS-logger reliability, speed of order execution, relatively low price of the production.

Animal species: Mustela eversmanni, Vormela peregusna, Mustela nivalis.

I am trying to gather information on what someone would expect to pay per month for Iridium-based satellite services for collars? 

That is very generalized, and I know it is dependent on: 

a) the company providing the Iridium services

and

b) The amount of data transmitted

Therefore, if someone could provide me with examples of what they transmitted and subsequently paid that would be ideal.

In Arabian desert, certain areas favorable for spring camping are totally destroyed. I am looking for appropriate restoration projects and case studies in similar habitats.

We have some records of striped hyenas getting killed due to retaliation by humans. There is some information on human-spotted hyena conflict but virtually nothing human-striped hyena conflict in the web. I hope friends here could help me.

I will be doing a video analysis of crabs swarming behavior in the field, via aerial drones. However, I have no previous experience buying drones and the video cameras that go on these drones. What models of both drones and Camera would be acceptable for this type of work? Could I just use a system with a GoPro? Is anything relatively good quality, cheap, and durable? Thanks!

For a local council, I am compiling a literature review on effects of festivals and other large events (people, music, food, cars, fireworks in different combinations and numbers) on nature (mainly birds, bats and mammals on/in the ground). These festivals are often organized in or near areas with natural values (city parks, nature or green areas close to cities). Regular papers can of course be found, but I hope there is ‘grey literature’ on this in different countries: case studies where not only assessments from literature have been made but where effects have been assessed and measured in the field. Suggestions, references, pdf’s are welcome!

We need to compare our methodology and results of herbivory incidence in leafs of trees from three sucesional stages in tropical dry forests (early, intermidiate and late).

I was wondering if anyone has experience with the color band tags. I would ideally like to use long term bands and these appear to be. The model I'm looking into have a 2.3mm diameter and are a centimeter long. The weight should be ok for my birds and they look great, but the concern is that moisture, dirt, etc will get caught in the band and irritate the leg or worse. Does anyone have insight or experience with this? I considered trying to make my own bands but will not have enough time.

impact of elephants on birds diversity and distribution especially when there are damages cause by elephants on nesting trees.

I need to produce a map of a particular region to point out several localities for a paper on distribution records of birds. What program is the most apropriate?

I have to revue briefly systems to evaluate forest damages caused by ungulates and to estimate the financial costs of that damages.

My context is Walloon Region (temperate deciduous forest). Damages concern especially natural regenerations of broadleafs and bark peeling of coniferous stands 

I'm interested in methods with a sclale going from  forest stand to  managment zones for wild ungulates.

Any information about existing systems is welcome.

Comparing between a fenced and non-fenced region seems to be a good way to do this for deer. But other species, e.g. monkey or pig, can easily bypass the fences. Any suggestions ?

For smaller species, I believe I can probably use mesh exclusion bags ?

Thanks :)

Hi,

I would like some suggestions of good drop off mechanism for collar (e.g. designed for larger Cervidae)? Carrying a load of about 500 gram. 

Regards,

Ronny

Is Visual encounter surveys the only method?

Animals can't be trapped or captured in the area.

measurement of morphological details of the varanus species is not allowed.

for human wildlife conflict survey, species which i am targeting are Common Leopard, Rhesus Macaque and Wild Pig.

I'm doing a case study on Singapore as a wildlife trafficking hub in Southeast Asia. Any information about Singaporean political drivers of the wildlife trade or political drivers of the trade in general would be greatly appreciated!

Owing to vertical transmission risks for some diseases I would be interested if anyone has successfully set up a standard monitoring program for pigeon carcasses? Solid literature suggestion also welcome.

I'm interested in

Thanks a lot in advance.

wildlife trafficking some published work kindly share 

In order to minimize livestock depredation and agricultural field compensation  process and thus ultimately reducing human wildlife conflict.

Nepal is facing increasing incidences of human wildlife conflicts. Among those incidents, largest share is from Wild Elephant, So we are seeking best successful cases how the damages were reduced in terms of crop damages as well as human killings in the vicinity of forests.

I am not really sure about and how to used the index and determine the wildlife or insects in natural forests or plantation areas.

I'm working on a small project exploring the potential for coordinating the management and research of wolves in the Southern Caucasus (Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan) and Central Asia (Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan) and want, first to get an idea of the current situation. I'm looking for paper/articles/chapters on the subject spanning the past 30 years or so (both Soviet and post-Soviet eras). Also, if you are currently working on wolf management in any of these countries, I'd like to hear from you.

I work in the Rio de Janeiro State Environment Institute and we need to know what types of fauna crossings are working well to prevent road kill of wild animals and how is the monitoring made to assess their efficiency.

Hi,

Do you know of a study or review that examined different approaches or rules of thumbs for putting a collar around an animal's neck? Preferably for different groups - ungulates, predators, etc.

The main issue, off course, is the safety and welfare of the animal, but there is also the possibility of changing the animal's behavior.

We are hearing different opinions. For example, some say it's better to have a tight collar than a loose one because branches or limbs can get stuck between the collar and the neck. Others say the contrary.

There are many parameters to take into account - e.g., weight, tightness, position and width, and I did find a few studies looking at specific aspects or species. I was wondering whether someone has collected data into some kind of a "manual".

Thanks,

Amir

Hi, I need an effective method for capturing mink (live or dead), and avoiding capturing non-target species in southern South America.

Thanks!

I'm in need of R code to conduct a k-fold cross validation of a nested glmer model. My data is nested in that locational information (GPS locations) is nested within individual animals. Thanks for the help! 

I am interested to find historical data about the introduction in South America of the Feral Pigeon (Columba livia), House Sparrow (Passer domesticus) and species of the genus Eucalyptus.

It is possible that in some areas livestock breeders may decrease or stop livetsock breeding due to permanent/frequent predation by wolves Any opinions from direct observations and published papers are welcome.

I am interested in finding information or examples of best management practices for marine keystone species (not including forage fish).

Thanks.

I'm studying the attitude of common people towards wildlife management. Some topics, as poaching, invasive species or pest control, are seen in a controversial way and I would like to find a measure that summarizes the magnitude of their "noise" on the media.  

The Eurasian wolf is returning to Middle Europe - so far, the observed pack structure encloses a parental pair and it's offspring (new pups and subadult siblings). On the other hand, we know about very big pack sizes (of unknown genetic relationships) in northern America (D.Mech at Isle Royale) - surely reflecting some special biogeographic conditions. Do we know about the factors which form the social organization in wolves?

The natality rate of Baboons(Bapio Anopus) in the Dinder National Park (Sudan) is high and there is growing demand to correct the situation for the present population by using biological methods, like re-introduction of leopards in the park.  

I need to trap alive dozens of wild Norway rats for my research. What kinds of places and what ways of live trapping would you recommend? I have used many kinds of traps and baits and I have tried out many kinds of places (barns, cowsheds, sewers, basements, landfills etc.). It always takes days or weeks and the success is usually limited to a few individuals. The remaining rats develop trapshyness and the 'hunting' is over - usually for weeks. Any hints or tips appreciated.

Could anyone direct me towards papers or statistical methods used for analysing the visitation sequence by a large mammal? I am studying Arabian tahr at numerous pits (natural and made by myself) using video camera traps. The tahr frequently scrape and dust in the pits, and I am looking to test hypotheses relating to why Arabian tahr scrape and use the pits. I need to understand if the pattern of visitation to pits is non-random, and if the visitation sequence follows a particular pattern, e.g. Male-fem-male-fem, patterns indicating over-marking. I have not conducted analyses such as this before. Thanks... 

I'm currently working on a project examining the interactions between badgers and cattle and how this might impact on transmission of tuberculosis. In light of the controversy surrounding the culling programme in the UK (and the less publicised version in Ireland), what do people think about the efficacy or ethics of such 'wildlife management' initiatives (on this species or others). The debate is quite polarised, with politicians/farmers on one side and conservationists on the other. I am interested in seeking the viewpoints of scientists from diverse but relevant fields.

I'm going to be monitoring cortisol levels in a troop of Sulawesi crested macaques (>20 individuals) and am looking for potential tracers to feed them to pin point which feces belong to who. We have previously used beetroot and blue dye on food however, the presence of these are only obvious at the supernatant stage. I'm ideally looking for something that we can see immediately, doesn't mess with their nutrition and something we could dye in order to collect samples from as many as possible. Thanks! 

Hello,

I'm looking at elasticity values from a range of amphibian PVA's. There are lots of elasticities values within models that turn out to be the same, not similar, but exactly the same to 10 decimal places. I've re-ran some of the models and no matter how I structure them transitions turn out to be identical and stasis are all different. I've also recalculated them by hand and get the same results. I'm using a deterministic model, if that makes any difference. I'm new to this kind of modelling so I could totally be messing something up. Does anyone have any insight as to what might be going on here?

Please let me know if there is some specific additional information that would be helpful here.

Thanks in advance,

Paul

I am working on understanding population dynamics of a sucessful reintroduced tiger population at central India. Initially 3 tigers were reintroduced at Panna Tiger Reserve. Later another 3 individuals were reintroduced. They successfully bred and produced  more than 30 cubs during last four years. Among them 11 tigers were radio collared (including founder) and monitored. To understand population projection for PVA, I need to understand few demographic parameters like, survival, maternity, fecundity and growth rate. Is their any tutorial which explain step by step process of calculating those parameters? Or is their any software programme or R package which explain such parameters?

The term has been used a lot but I've never found it referenced.

Samples or issues from Afghan Pika for a genetic analysis

If so, could you give a brief description of your research - purpose, question or hypothesis, and location?

I'm curious if there's any quantitative measure of which terrestrial mammals have the largest (or narrowest) climatic tolerance/niche.

Since the invasive exotic species prey on organisms native to a region, would it be a possible solution to starve off the exotic species by temporary relocation of its food source or is this not a viable solution?

Please recommend me 1. Any recent paper on impact of drought on wildlife population dynamics and 2. How to tackle the problem of statistical bias in estimation of wildlife mortality resulting from things like biased sightings of carcass because of habitat differences (for example carcasses in grassland are easier to see as opposed to carcasses in woodland and this results to biased estimates if the results are compared)

For density calculations with fototraps (Rowcliffe et al. 2008) the daily distances moved (km/24h) are needed. The best would be data from the same study area. For wild boar we have a lot of different movements. However, for many species these are not available or hard to find.

Does anybody have data for the species mentioned below? These data are quite easy to calculate from GPS (or consecutive VHF-tracking) data. Or does anybody know literature where these results can be found (I do not have an overview on all these species)

We would need data for (best Germany/central Europe ; km/24h):

roe deer Capreolus capreolus

red deer Cervus elaphus

fallow deer Dama dama

brown hare Lepus europaeus (best in forest)

pine marten Martes martes

red fox Vulpes vulpes

racoon dog Nyctereutes procyonides

badger Meles meles

The best would be data from northern Germany, but there are vew available (as we did produce most of them on our own). Thus, any data will help.