The Science- and Art- of Moose Management in the Big Hole Valley, Montana

Moose (Alces alces) management can be challenging because of the difficulty of quantifying population trends consistently. Because of their solitary nature and penchant for fairly dense cover, moose can be hard to see. Also, their presence in more open habitat is highly dependent on weather conditions. Where done, aerial surveys serve more as an index of population trend than as a census and should be combined with other indices to make management decisions. In the Big Hole Valley in southwestern Montana, aerial survey data is combined with harvest data when setting license quotas. Specifically, three indices are used:calf:100 adult, days per hunter, and hunter success. Results from the past 4 years suggest that this suite of indices is effective at meeting management objectives

Introduction

This year's theme was Habitat: The Science, Art, and Politics of Conserving It. The idea for this came about when I thought about all the factors that have to be navigated to develop and implement a successful habitat project. From the science perspective, you need to understand the habitat that you’re working in, its ecological state, function and disturbance ecology and apply appropriate science. Then there’s the matter of scale. To be more effective, many projects are applied at the “landscape-level”, which means you’re often working across landownerships and therefore have to navigate the different side boards and mandates that each agency must work within. While agency folks trip their way through the bureaucratic hurdles to get their projects done, private landowners maintain 70% of the land base in Montana, including valuable habitat for wildlife. Habitat can be enhanced or reduced depending on the land use practices. Land trust organizations, non-governmental organizations, private landowners, and state and federal agencies must work cooperatively to conserve and enhance wildlife and fish habitat. And all of this can become that much more complicated depending on the political winds that are blowing at the time. This year’s plenary session and banquet presentation were designed to explore some of these influences affecting habitat conservation and management. At the plenary panel we heard from Jeff Laszlo, a private landowner engaged in large-scale habitat work on his ranch in the Madison Valley; Jeff Herbert, a retired FWP biologist speaking to the active influence that sportsmen and women have had on habitat conservation in Montana; Bok Sowell, an Montana State University professor of range ecology challenging our interpretation of scientific studies; Martin Nie, a University of Montana professor specializing in natural resource policy on western public lands and the need to improve forest plans rather than dispose of federal lands; and Jennifer Fielder, a state senator who supports the transfer of federal lands to the state so they can be better managed. Greg Neudecker was our banquet speaker. He is the state coordinator for the Montana Partners for the Fish and Wildlife Program with the USFWS. He’s worked with well over 500 landowners on projects ranging from conservation easements, fee acquisition, instream restoration, wetland restoration, grazing management and grizzly bear conflict abatement. His presentation addressed how science, art and politics shaped the successful collaborative habitat conservation program that has come to be known as the Blackfoot Challenge in the Blackfoot Valley of western MT. Over 300 wildlife professionals attended this year’s conference

Moose Management in Southwest Montana: Insights From Four Years of Field Research

From 2007-2010, Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks conducted research on moose ecology on the Mount Haggin Wildlife Management Area in southwestern Montana. In this presentation, we will briefly review our methodology and results, but will largely focus on the management implications of this research and potential ideas for future research. The goals of this research were to determine the habitat selection of cow moose during winter with an emphasis on willow community importance and to examine population-scale willow browse utilization through browse patterns. We also sought to contribute to a foundation for future research on moose in Montana. Using browse surveys on willow (Salix spp.) and GPS collars on cow moose, we were able to determine the current intensity of willow browse and basic habitat use of cow moose (e.g. home range size and location), and to model variables associated with both browse utilization and habitat selection. Management implications of the browse surveys include suggestions regarding sample sizes and sample site placement for future monitoring of willow community health or browse utilization. Additionally, species preference by moose has implications for riparian restoration. The habitat selection analysis showed the importance of willow and conifer communities and has implications for habitat conservation and aerial survey methods. Future research on moose ecology in Montana should focus on the impact of changing habitat and climate on habitat selection and population dynamics, the role of predation on populations of moose, and improving aerial or other survey techniques to more accurately monitor moose population trends

Winter Ecology Of The Shiras Moose On The Mount Haggin Wildlife Management Area

Moose (Alces alces shirasi) populations across Montana have expanded in the last century, both in geographic range and in population size. This expansion has had a negative impact on moose winter range in some locations where moose have overutilized key browse species. Excessive and unsustainable browsing has the potential to reduce local biodiversity and carrying capacity of moose and other ungulates. The browse species of interest in this study were willow (Salix spp), a highly palatable and abundant browse source for moose on many winter ranges, including our study area in southwestern Montana. The objectives of this study were to determine patterns of willow community use by selected female moose during winter and to quantify willow utilization across the study area to examine population scale habitat use through browse patterns. To accomplish these objectives we deployed GPS collars on 18 cow moose, 6 each in the winters of 2007, 2008, and 2009-2010. We also completed large scale, systematic browse surveys in the springs of 2008, 2009 and 2010. Results indicated cow moose spent the plurality of the winter within willow communities (48.4%, 48.2%, 51.8%, and 49.8% of locations in the winters of 2007, 2008, 2009, and 2010, respectively), but the estimated percentage of browsed willow twigs across the study area was low (11.5%, 8.0%, and 8.3% in 2008, 2009, and 2010, respectively). Our data suggest that while moose have the potential to significantly impact willow communities, this did not appear to be the case on the Mount Haggin WMA at current moose densities

Impacts of Aspen and Conifer Vegetation on Predation Risk and Distributions of Bird Species

Aspen forests are in decline around the globe and are largely being replaced by conifers.  Associated with this shift in forest composition, we document an increase in nest predation risk and decrease in abundance of bird species that breed in aspens.  These observational data from 5 years across 19 forest stands in western Montana were verified with an adaptive management experiment removing all conifers from three large aspen stands in the Mt. Haggin WMA.  This landscape-scale approach strongly supports the active management of aspen stands, by such methods as removing conifers, to improve breeding bird habitat.  Our results also suggest that vegetation-mediated effects of predation are associated with avian distributions and species turnover

Bird species turnover is related to changing predation risk along a vegetation gradient

Abstract. Turnover in animal species along vegetation gradients is often assumed to reflect adaptive habitat preferences that are narrower than the full gradient. Specifically, animals may decline in abundance where their reproductive success is low, and these poorquality locations differ among species. Yet habitat use does not always appear adaptive. The crucial tests of how abundances and demographic costs of animals vary along experimentally manipulated vegetation gradients are lacking. We examined habitat use and nest predation rates for 16 bird species that exhibited turnover with shifts in deciduous and coniferous vegetation. For most bird species, decreasing abundance was associated with increasing predation rates along both natural and experimentally modified vegetation gradients. This landscape-scale approach strongly supports the idea that vegetation-mediated effects of predation are associated with animal distributions and species turnover

Bird species turnover is related to changing predation risk along a vegetation gradient

Abstract. Turnover in animal species along vegetation gradients is often assumed to reflect adaptive habitat preferences that are narrower than the full gradient. Specifically, animals may decline in abundance where their reproductive success is low, and these poorquality locations differ among species. Yet habitat use does not always appear adaptive. The crucial tests of how abundances and demographic costs of animals vary along experimentally manipulated vegetation gradients are lacking. We examined habitat use and nest predation rates for 16 bird species that exhibited turnover with shifts in deciduous and coniferous vegetation. For most bird species, decreasing abundance was associated with increasing predation rates along both natural and experimentally modified vegetation gradients. This landscape-scale approach strongly supports the idea that vegetation-mediated effects of predation are associated with animal distributions and species turnover

Appendix F. Changes in nest predation with both PC axes for bird species.

Changes in nest predation with both PC axes for bird species

Appendix C. Species-specific sample sizes of nests used in observational nest predation analyses.

Species-specific sample sizes of nests used in observational nest predation analyses

Appendix H. Conifer removal effects on densities of bird species and combined nest predators.

Conifer removal effects on densities of bird species and combined nest predators