Climatic Variation and Age Ratios in Bighorn Sheep and Mountain Goats in the Greater Yellowstone Area

Using management data regularly collected by state and federal agencies, we indexed recruitment rates of bighorn sheep and mountain goats in the Greater Yellowstone Area (GYA) by calculating young : adult ratios. Annual and long term regional climatic conditions were indexed using data from Natural Resource Conservation Service Snotel sensors across the GYA. Linear regression models were used to assess hypotheses that recruitment rates in bighorn sheep and mountain goats in the GYA were associated with annual and regional variation in climatic conditions. The initial dataset consisted of 685 bighorn sheep lamb : ewe ratios from 21 herds since 1960 and 184 mountain goat kid : adult ratios from 18 herds since 1966. After censoring data, 369 bighorn sheep records remained, which were split into three seasonal subsets, and 123 mountain goat records remained in a single dataset. Findings suggest that recruitment rates in bighorn sheep and mountain goats were associated with annual variation in both pre-birth and post-birth climatic conditions, interacting with long term regional climate conditions. Additionally, strong interactions were found between precipitation during the birthing season and winter severity. Collectively, these findings suggest that recruitment in bighorn sheep and mountain goat populations in the GYA may be sensitive to changes in future climate conditions and that the response may vary regionally across the GYA

What Does it all Mean? Interpreting Respiratory Pathogen Survey Results for Bighorn Sheep Management

Respiratory disease has been a major challenge for bighorn sheep (Ovis canadensis) conservation and is a dominant factor influencing management decisions of bighorn sheep, however; much about the disease process remains unknown.  Decades of research have compiled considerable evidence that domestic sheep and goats can transmit the disease to bighorn sheep as well as strong evidence for several bacterial organisms as causative agents for the disease.  However, there are examples of bighorn populations hosting the agents linked to respiratory disease with little demographic side-effects.  Further, the immediate cause of disease events often remains undetermined. Two general hypotheses exist to explain observed disease events in wildlife populations: 1) A disease event is caused by introduction of a novel pathogen from neighboring or sympatric host populations or; 2) A disease event is caused by certain conditions triggering endemic pathogens to become virulent to the host.  While the extent to which these competing hypotheses explain observed respiratory disease events in bighorn sheep is unknown, the appropriate management actions to address disease due to these different processes are very different.  Effectively addressing these hypotheses and better understanding the major causes of observed respiratory disease events is a challenge and requires rigorous and repeated pathogen sampling in bighorn populations both affected and seemingly unaffected by respiratory disease.  This presentation provides a brief background of bighorn respiratory disease, highlights the challenges of interpreting respiratory pathogen survey results to inform management as well as recent advances in respiratory pathogen research that have promise to help further inform management decisions

One-Year Progress Report for the Montana Statewide Bighorn Sheep Research Project

Restoration and conservation of bighorn sheep has been a challenge. Despite strong conservation efforts, bighorn sheep have not recovered to historic range and numbers as most other ungulates have. The Montana Statewide Bighorn Sheep Research Project, a collaborative effort between Montana Department of Fish Wildlife & Parks and Montana State University, began operations in winter 2013/2014 in order to provide information to help guide future management and conservation of bighorn sheep. Seven bighorn sheep populations were scheduled to be sampled in the first year of the study and this presentation will outline the accomplishments, challenges, and findings from the first year of the research effort. Research objectives are to quantify and compare exposure to and prevalence of pneumonia pathogens, body condition, habitat use and demographic rates in multiple bighorn sheep populations with varying histories and characteristics across Montana.  Study plans and initial findings relevant to these objectives will be presented

Approaches Initiated to Gain Insight into Respiratory Disease in Montana’s Bighorn Sheep Herds

Respiratory disease is a major limiting factor in the restoration, conservation, and management of bighorn sheep in Montana and throughout western North America. Despite many decades of research there is a limited understanding of the disease process, with proactive management to minimize disease primarily limited to establishing policies to minimize exposure of bighorn sheep to domestic sheep. In the past decade, however, there have been significant advances in understanding the pathogens involved in bighorn sheep pneumonia that have resulted in the development of new sampling and testing methodologies that promise to advance our understanding of the disease.  This presentation will review the general ideas regarding the pathogens and the disease process advanced by leading researchers of bighorn sheep pneumonia and describe how these ideas are being combined with recent sampling and testing advances and incorporated into Montana’s state-wide bighorn sheep research program. We will also describe the collaborations developed between our research team and other research teams addressing the same questions in neighboring states. These collaborations are an attempt to build a regional initiative that combines the resources, expertise, and unique management histories of bighorn herds in other states. We think such open communication and coordination of research activities will help us advance our understanding of bighorn sheep pneumonia and develop management strategies that can enhance restoration of the species

Correlates of Recruitment in Montana Bighorn Sheep Populations: An Initiative to Synthesize Montana Bighorn Sheep Recruitment Data and Gain Biological Insight

Bighorn sheep (Ovis Canadensis) populations in Montana have been strongly affectedby disease outbreaks in recent years, resulting in the death of approximately 1500 bighorns as well as depressed recruitment rates in some affected herds. The ecology of these disease outbreaks is not well understood and there have been several proposals for a state-wide research project addressing disease ecology of bighorns in Montana. Such a project is a large investment and any extra knowledge of the bighorn populations that can be gained from existing data would improve study design and enhance the success of any future research effort. Last year we used management data to index bighorn recruitment rates of 23 bighorn herds in the Greater Yellowstone Area (GYA) and found strong correlations between recruitment and both annual and regional climate patterns. This year we have received funding from Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks to conduct a similar analysis of bighorn recruitment rates across Montana. The planned analysis will investigate potential correlations between bighorn recruitment and climate covariates, similar to the GYA effort, but will also explore additional covariates to capture differences in management strategies, genetics, disease history, migration patterns, and population connectivity among the state’s bighorn sheep populations. The presentation will focus on the goals of our work as well as the advantages of conducting preliminary data analysis prior to implementing large scale research projects

Montana’s New State-Wide Bighorn Sheep Research Initiative

Bighorn sheep (Ovis canadensis) conservation and management in Montana has been, and continues to be, a challenge. The majority of Montana’s bighorn sheep populations are patchily distributed across the state and are relatively small, with many populations static or periodically experiencing dramatic declines despite the fact that adequate habitat seems to be abundant. Wildlife managers and biologists are routinely making decisions on bighorn sheep population augmentation and restoration, harvest, habitat management, disease prevention and response, and other conservation actions without adequate knowledge of the drivers of demographic processes that inform management of many of Montana’s more successfully restored ungulate species. Field studies of bighorn sheep in Montana have been limited primarily to short-term, master’s thesis projects focused on a specific herd. A 6-yr research program has been designed and funded on the premise that research insights that are broadly applicable for management and conservation are best obtained by addressing the same questions in multiple populations representing differing demographic characteristics, ecological settings, and management histories that capture the range of variation realized by the species of interest. The research program will involve field studies of seven bighorn sheep herds in Montana, with data on each herd collected over a 5-yr period. Herds were selected to capture a wide range of variability in disease outbreak history, habitat types, and herd attributes in an effort to maximize our ability to partition and quantify the potential relative effects of these factors on lamb and adult survival, recruitment, and population dynamics

The Rachel Carson Letters and the Making of Silent Spring

Environment, conservation, green, and kindred movements look back to Rachel Carson’s 1962 book Silent Spring as a milestone. The impact of the book, including on government, industry, and civil society, was immediate and substantial, and has been extensively described; however, the provenance of the book has been less thoroughly examined. Using Carson’s personal correspondence, this paper reveals that the primary source for Carson’s book was the extensive evidence and contacts compiled by two biodynamic farmers, Marjorie Spock and Mary T. Richards, of Long Island, New York. Their evidence was compiled for a suite of legal actions (1957-1960) against the U.S. Government and that contested the aerial spraying of dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT). During Rudolf Steiner’s lifetime, Spock and Richards both studied at Steiner’s Goetheanum, the headquarters of Anthroposophy, located in Dornach, Switzerland. Spock and Richards were prominent U.S. anthroposophists, and established a biodynamic farm under the tutelage of the leading biodynamics exponent of the time, Dr. Ehrenfried Pfeiffer. When their property was under threat from a government program of DDT spraying, they brought their case, eventually lost it, in the process spent US$100,000, and compiled the evidence that they then shared with Carson, who used it, and their extensive contacts and the trial transcripts, as the primary input for Silent Spring. Carson attributed to Spock, Richards, and Pfeiffer, no credit whatsoever in her book. As a consequence, the organics movement has not received the recognition, that is its due, as the primary impulse for Silent Spring, and it is, itself, unaware of this provenance

Evaluating Success for a Within-Mountain Range Transplant of Bighorn Sheep in Southwestern Montana

Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks (MFWP) performed a bighorn sheep (Ovis canadensis) transplant within the Madison Mountains of southwest Montana February 2015.  Once with 5 distinct wintering ranges, the herd since endured, and recovered from, several all-age die-offs.    As of 2013, one historic wintering area was overpopulated (>250 bighorn), one sparsely populated (~30 bighorn), and three historic wintering areas were left unoccupied: Indian Creek, Wolf Creek, and the Henry’s Mountains.  MFWP evaluated habitat and proposed to reintroduce bighorn from the overpopulated wintering range to either Wolf Creek or Indian Creek.  After the EA and public process concluded, Wolf Creek was the selected release site.  MFWP captured 52 bighorn from the overpopulated winter range using a drop-net, and moved them via trailer to the release site.  Ten of the released bighorns were fitted with LOTEK Lifecycle GPS collars, providing satellite location data once daily for up to 4 years.  Transplant success was mixed, with three collared bighorns immediately returning to their former range, three collared bighorns wintering at the sparsely populated intermediate range, and four collared bighorns remaining through winter and into summer at the reintroduction site.  One bighorn died shortly after release.  The four collared bighorns remaining at the release site explored Indian Creek through summer, then in July, 3 returned to their original range and 1 remained in the transplant area.  Of the 52 bighorns transplanted, approximately 10-15 remain in the Wolf Creek transplant range.  Subsequent transplants are planned to enhance the restoration of bighorn sheep in the Madison Range

Using Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) Metabolic Profiling to Distinguish Herds of Bighorn Sheep

The objective of this study was to determine if nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) metabolic profiling has the potential to serve as a management tool for evaluating herds of bighorn (Ovis canadensis) sheep. Two-hundred and forty bighorn sheep serum samples from 13 herds located in Montana and Wyoming were processed for NMR spectra, profiled for small molecule metabolites using Chenomx®, and then analyzed with MetaboAnalyst (v3.0). Fifty-six small molecule metabolites were identified in ungulate serum.  To determine if NMR metabolic profiles can distinguish herds that are geographically distinct with access to different nutritional resources, herds collected in December were compared to herds collected in March. Partial least square discriminant analysis (PLS-DA) indicated a clear, majority separation of metabolic shifts with minor overlaps. Biomarker analysis identified 15 potential biomarkers from the compounds with variables of importance (VIP) scores greater than 1.0. These molecules enabled us to identify ‘significantly’ important metabolic pathways that discriminate herds sampled in December and herds sampled in March. Key biomarkers resulting from the pathway analysis, included: 2-oxoisocaproate, choline, tyrosine, creatinine, and trimethylamine n-oxide. To determine if metabolic profiling can distinguish individual herds within a month, herds in December, January and March were compared to a domestic, Rambouillet ewes (control) sampled during the sample months.  PLS-DA of all herds showed clear metabolic shifts and complete separation between each individual herd and the control ewes for each month. Potential biomarkers for herds within a season that were found to be good discriminants for the December herds included: trimethylamine n-oxide and sarcosine; for January herds included: creatinine and asparagine; and, for March herd included, creatinine. Through identification of small molecule metabolites, it is possible to discriminate herds from each other within and between seasons. These biomarkers represent a potential panel of metabolites that may be used for assessing nutritional status, environmental stress, and herd health through the identification of significantly important metabolic pathways related to energy and protein balance

The Lyot Project Direct Imaging Survey of Substellar Companions: Statistical Analysis and Information from Nondetections

The Lyot project used an optimized Lyot coronagraph with Extreme Adaptive Optics at the 3.63m Advanced Electro-Optical System telescope (AEOS) to observe 86 stars from 2004 to 2007. In this paper we give an overview of the survey results and a statistical analysis of the observed nondetections around 58 of our targets to place constraints on the population of substellar companions to nearby stars. The observations did not detect any companion in the substellar regime. Since null results can be as important as detections, we analyzed each observation to determine the characteristics of the companions that can be ruled out. For this purpose we use a Monte Carlo approach to produce artificial companions, and determine their detectability by comparison with the sensitivity curve for each star. All the non-detection results are combined using a Bayesian approach and we provide upper limits on the population of giant exoplanets and brown dwarfs for this sample of stars. Our nondetections confirm the rarity of brown dwarfs around solar-like stars and we constrain the frequency of massive substellar companions (M>40Mjup) at orbital separation between and 10 and 50 AU to be <20%.Comment: 32 pages, 11 figures, 2 tables. Published in the Astrophysical Journa