WERC Highlights -- January 2002

Fire and Invasive Species: Several USGS scientists participated in a workshop on the role of fire relating to the control and spread of invasive species, which was held at Fire Conference 2000: The First National Congress on Fire Ecology, Prevention, and Management. The proceedings of the workshop will be published this February by the Tall Timbers Research Station as Miscellaneous Publication No. 11. The volume, edited by Krista E. M. Galley and Tyrone P. Wilson, with Matthew L. Brooks and Stanley G. Coloff as Technical Coordinators, includes three articles by USGS scientists. They are: Matt Brooks and David Pyke, “Interactions Between Fire and Invasive Plants in the Deserts of North America;” Jon E. Keeley, “Fire and Invasives in Mediterranean-Climate Ecosystems of California;” and James Grace, Melinda Smith, Susan Grace, Scott Collins, and Thomas Stohlgren, “Interactions Between Fire and Invasive Plants in Temperate Grasslands of North America.” These proceedings will be used in a Congressional briefing Feb. 13. (Matt Brooks, Las Vegas, NV, 702-914-2206 x225)

A Winning Plan: The Sonoran Desert Conservation Plan, governing development in Pima County, Arizona (including Tucson), has won this year’s national Outstanding Planning Award from the American Planning Association. APA will honor the plan April 16 during its national meeting in Chicago. The plan is designed to protect critical habitat and endangered species in the region while sustaining economic growth. Cecil Schwalbe, a research ecologist with the USGS Western Ecological Research Center, is one of nine biologists who comprise the plan’s Science Technical Advisory Team. The team selected 55 vulnerable species, 12 of which are federally protected or proposed for listing, as representatives of the county’s flora and fauna. (Cecil Schwalbe, Tucson, AZ, 520-621-5508)

Getting the Big Picture of Pintail Migration: Getting the Big Picture of Pintail Migration: Female northern pintails, beaming their locations via satellite transmitters to scientists in Dixon, California, have shown themselves to be resilient international flyers, some winging hundreds of miles over the Pacific Ocean to reach nesting grounds as distant as Russia. Long oceanic flights were news to waterfowl researchers at the USGS Western Ecological Research Center's Dixon Field Station, now in their third year of gathering data about pintail spring migration. The pintails travel north from the Central Valley of California, the most important wintering region for northern pintails in the world, to summer nesting grounds located mostly on the prairies of Canada and in Alaska. The previous two years of pintail tracking also identified southern Oregon and northeastern California as extremely critical to pintails during spring migration; the first of a two-year project has begun there to investigate in detail the spring ecology of pintails using that area. This year Dixon scientists assisted biologists of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's Region 2, Texas Parks and Wildlife, and New Mexico State University, trap pintails and fit these additional birds with satellite transmitters at Buffalo Lake NWR in the Texas Panhandle, on private lands southeast of Kingsville along the Texas Gulf Coast, and at Bosque del Apache NWR in central New Mexico to compare migrations with the California pintails. The scientists are documenting spring migration pathways, the chronology of movement along these routes, specific areas and habitats used along the routes, and their length of stay in these areas before reaching nesting areas. Information from these studies, funded by grants from the Tuscany Research Institute through Ducks Unlimited, Inc. and the California Waterfowl Association, and additional funds provided by Texas Parks and Wildlife and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's Region 2, will aid public and private land managers and conservation organizations implement effective programs to reverse the long-term decline of pintails in North America. To follow the movements of individual ducks at the interactive web site for the study called Pinsat, visit http://www.werc.usgs.gov/pinsat/. (Michael R. Miller, Dixon, CA, 707-678-0682 x618)

California Sea Otters: USGS scientists of the Western Ecological Research Center and National Wildlife Health Center will meet with Reed Addis, District Director for California Congressman Sam Farr, in a briefing to update the Congressman on the status of the California sea otter project. The meeting, planned for January 31, will also include staff from the California Department of Fish and Game and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. (Deborah Maxwell, Sacramento, CA, 916-379-3743)

Desert Tortoise: Research wildlife biologist Kristin Berry, of the USGS Western Ecological Research Center, was interviewed about tortoise diseases and decline in California for a story on ranching, mining, and the desert tortoise in the World Net Daily, a Web news publication. (Kristin Berry, Riverside, CA, 909-697-5361)