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Southwest Washington
Wildlife Reports
January
28, 2008
Region
5 Wildlife Areas
Mt. St. Helens Wildlife Area Emergency Winter Feeding Preparations: Wildlife
Area Manager Calkins and Assistant Manager Hauswald have been fully occupied
over the past week making preparations for implementation of an emergency winter
feeding operation on the Wildlife Area. Details included: Securing permission
to use a Department of Transportation facility for hay and equipment storage;
Hiring temporary employees who will do most of the feeding; Picking up flatbed
trucks from the Bob Oke Game Farm for daily feeding runs; Collecting and delivering
pallets to the hay storage site; Locating an agency tractor capable of lifting
and loading the 1300 lb bales; and Purchasing and scheduling of the hay delivery
as well as gathering up dozens of small items needed for daily operations and
safety. At this time, hay is expected to be delivered on the 28th with feeding
operations expected to commence immediately after. The tractor is the only item
that will not arrive until after that date but we will have the trucks loaded
at the time of delivery, which should allow us to commence operations for a
few days until the tractor arrives.
Calkins and Hauswald extend a special thanks to Wenas Wildlife Area Assistant Jody Taylor and Blue Mountains Wildlife Area Manager Bob Dice who were instrumental in helping to get the operation started. Taylor arranged the hay delivery, rounded up hay tarps and helped Calkins schedule the logistics. Manager Dice located and moved the agency tractor as far as the Oak Creek Wildlife Area in Naches where it will be picked up by Casey Morris of the Cowltz Wildlife Area next week to get it the rest of the way to Mt. St. Helens. Thanks also go to Paul Peterson and Larry Peterson of the Mossyrock and North Toutle Hatcheries who helped us locate and haul pallets to the site.
Klickitat Wildlife Area: Wildlife Area Manager VanLeuven provided a tour of the Wildlife Area to John Thiebes, who is working with WDFW and the National Wild Turkey Federation, to discuss several potential habitat improvement projects in the area.
Wildlife
Diversity Division
Western Pond Turtle Management: Biologist Holman met with Biometrician
Chang, Research Scientist Vanderhaegen, Pierce and Thurston County District
Wildlife Biologist Tirhi, and Pierce and Thurston County Assistant Biologist
Schmidt to discuss data collection and compilation efforts for western pond
turtles. Regions 5 and 6 currently conduct various turtle trapping and monitoring
efforts annually, leading to the capture of hundreds of individual turtles and
the re-capture of many turtles. These efforts have focused on the capture of
adult female western pond turtles and have not been standardized among sites,
regions, or years. Similarly, data collection and recording efforts have not
been standardized, centralized, nor designed specifically for population estimation.
Populations of western pond turtles in the Columbia River Gorge have increased significantly since the early 1990s when roughly 150 individuals occupied just two sites. Similarly, populations have increased at select locations in the south Puget Sound area. As western pond turtle management progresses into the future, the emphasis of the program will slowly change from head-starting and initiation of new sub-populations to monitoring of extant populations and habitat management activities. Standardization of data collection methods and monitoring efforts will allow for meaningful evaluation of progress towards the goals outlined in the State Recovery Plan for western pond turtles. Thanks to Wan-Ying Chang and Matt Vanderhaegen for their help in this effort.
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One
camera on Lord Island recorded 53 images of both black tail and white
tailed deer |
Wind Power: Biologist Anderson attended a statewide meeting of WDFW people currently working on wind power issues. WDFW has recently hired 3 biologists to develop and coordinate agency guidelines for development review and monitoring of wind projects around the state. Wind Power development has been growing exponentially the past 5 years and WDFW is increasingly being asked to review large-scale proposals, primarily in eastern Washington. Although wind power is generally believed to have minimal impacts on wildlife habitat, these projects are industrial developments frequently taking place in sensitive areas. The goal of this week’s meeting was to develop a statewide strategy for agency policy on development guidelines for project development and mitigation.
Remote Camera Monitoring: Volunteer Dan Howell and Science Technician Ridenour endured the sunny yet cold weather Tuesday to service USFWS remote cameras on 2 Columbia River islands. These cameras are used to record black-tailed deer and ESA listed Columbian white-tailed deer presence. Of the nine images recorded on Fisher Island, all were of coyotes. One camera on Lord Island recorded 53 images of both black tail and white tailed deer.
Game
Management Division
St. Helens
Land Access Program: The St. Helens Land Access Program is winding down after
a successful first year. To thank the many volunteer organizations and their
members, Weyerhaeuser, and WDFW staff, a luncheon was hosted to thank everyone
for all their hard work and for doing such an excellent job! We had a great
turn out and enjoyed sharing the many interesting experiences during this effort.
We look forward to learning from our first year and implementing another great
effort next year. Thank you to everyone for a fantastic job well done!
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