Translocation digest: January 2014

News:

7th reintroduced bighorn reportedly dies in Catalinas, USA

Endangered northern cricket frog may be reintroduced to Long Island

Beaver found wild in Devon, UK, for the first time since the twelfth century.

Wolf reintroduction expanded to North Arizona

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has completed a programmatic safe harbor agreement for the black-footed ferret in cooperation with state, tribal, federal and local partners in 12 states

Post re-introduction drive, Panna Tiger Reserve, India, reclaims its tiger populace

Publications:

Baker, K., Lambdon, P., Jones, E., Pellicer, J., Stroud, S., Renshaw, O., Niissalo, M., Corcoran, M., Clubbe, C. and Sarasan, V. (2014), Rescue, ecology and conservation of a rediscovered island endemic fern (Anogramma ascensionis): ex situ methodologies and a road map for species reintroduction and habitat restoration. Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society, 174: 461–477. doi: 10.1111/boj.12131

Earnhardt, J., Vélez-Valentín, J., Valentin, R., Long, S., Lynch, C. and Schowe, K. (2014), The Puerto Rican parrot reintroduction program: Sustainable management of the aviary population. Zoo Biol., 33: 89–98. doi: 10.1002/zoo.21109

Owen, A., Wilkinson, R. and Sözer, R. (2014), In situ conservation breeding and the role of zoological institutions and private breeders in the recovery of highly endangered Indonesian passerine birds. International Zoo Yearbook, 48: 199–211. doi: 10.1111/izy.12052

Smyser, T. J. and Swihart, R. K. (2014), Allegheny woodrat (Neotoma magister) captive propagation to promote recovery of declining populations. Zoo Biol., 33: 29–35. doi: 10.1002/zoo.21114

Wiedmann, B. P. and Sargeant, G. A. (2014), Ecotypic variation in recruitment of reintroduced bighorn sheep: Implications for translocation. The Journal of Wildlife Management, 78: 394–401. doi: 10.1002/jwmg.669

Translocation digest: November 2013

Projects:

New area selected for reintroduction of Puerto Rican parrotsGlobalPost

San Juan, Nov 21 (EFE).- The Maricao State Forest in western Puerto Rico has been selected as the site for a third colony in the wild of Puerto Rican parrots on ...

See all stories on this topic » Endangered ferrets reintroduced on ranchLa Junta Tribune Democrat The ferrets, which are one of North America's most endangered mammals, were reintroducedon the Walker Ranch in Pueblo County. The event was hosted by ... See all stories on this topic » Protecting Gir's lions: Kuno's gun culture worries expertsTimes of India The report says that 40% of the revenue generated from the lionreintroduction project should percolate to local marginalized communities if anti-social activities ... See all stories on this topic » In a first, sambars to be shifted and reintroducedTimes of India NAGPUR: For the first time in the country, a non-endangered animal, the sambar, is being shifted and reintroduced to ensure that they procreate at a fast rate ... See all stories on this topic » Bighorns will be reintroduced to Catalinasazcentral The project will reintroduce bighorns to an area considered ideal terrain for the ... Some Tucson-area residents are worried that reintroduction of bighorns to ... See all stories on this topic

Publications:

Du, H., Wang, C.Y., Wei, Q.W., Zhang, H., Wu, J.M. and Li, L. (2013), Distribution and movement of juvenile and sub-adult Chinese sturgeon (Acipenser sinensis Gray, 1835) in the Three Gorges Reservoir and the adjacent upstream free-flowing Yangtze River section: a re-introduction trial. Journal of Applied Ichthyology, 29: 1383–1388. doi: 10.1111/jai.12343

1. Shephard
2.  J.M., 
3. Ogden R., 
4. Tryjanowski
5.  P, 
6. Olsson
7.  O and
8. Galbusera P (2013). 
Is population structure in the European white stork determined by flyway permeability rather than translocation history? Ecology and Evolution 3(15): 4881–4895

Translocation digest: August 2013

Projects:

Sea eagles breed on east coast of Scotland for first time in almost ...Telegraph.co.uk

Most have moved long distances from the release point, with some ending up in the west Highlands where birds have been reintroduced at different sites over a ...

See all stories on this topic »

PLANTS CONSIDERED FOR ASSISTED MIGRATION TO ...GardenNews.biz (press release)

Adam Smith, an ecologist at the Missouri Botanical Garden has begun to determine the ability of “chaperoned” assisted migration to aid plants in responding to ...

See all stories on this topic »

Ibis reintroduction program sees fledging successThe Japan Times

NIIGATA – Kei Osada, 41, is the man behind the recent success of a government effort toreintroduce the crested ibis as part of a captive breeding program for ...

See all stories on this topic »

Keeping the Seychelles Island Giant Tortoises Off the Endangered ...The Edwardsville Intelligencer

Initial results of Giant Tortoise reintroduction seem positive, but close monitoring and care will need to be a priority as this delicate balance takes place. Full text ...

See all stories on this topic »

New born beavers pictured at trial site aimed at bringing the animal ...Scottish Daily Record

The five youngsters or "kits" have been spotted at the Scottish beaver trial site at Knapdale in Argyll, the only licensed reintroduction scheme for beavers - and ...

See all stories on this topic »

Plan seeks 'chaperones' for threatened speciesNature.com

Critics claim that such 'assisted migration' could transform struggling species into destructive invaders, or inadvertently transmit disease, or that hybridization ...

See all stories on this topic »

A timeline of the desert tortoise's slow and steady declineHigh Country News

Fish and Wildlife and the San Diego Zoo experimentally translocated juvenile tortoises from the Desert Tortoise Conservation Center to the former Nevada Test ...

See all stories on this topic »

Publications:

Bristol, R. M., Tucker, R., Dawson, D. A., Horsburgh, G., Prys-Jones, R. P., Frantz, A. C., Krupa, A., Shah, N. J., Burke, T. and Groombridge, J. J. (2013), Comparison of historical bottleneck effects and genetic consequences of re-introduction in a critically endangered island passerine. Molecular Ecology, 22: 4644–4662. doi: 10.1111/mec.12429

CULLINGHAM, C. I. and MOEHRENSCHLAGER, A. (2013), Temporal Analysis of Genetic Structure to Assess Population Dynamics of Reintroduced Swift Foxes. Conservation Biology, 27: 1389–1398. doi: 10.1111/cobi.12122

Fisk, J. M., Kwak, T. J. and Heise, R. J. (2014), Modelling riverine habitat for robust redhorse: assessment for reintroduction of an imperilled species. Fisheries Management and Ecology, 21: 57–67. doi: 10.1111/fme.12050

Gomez, E. D., Cabaitan, P. C., Yap, H. T. and Dizon, R. M. (2014), Can Coral Cover be Restored in the Absence of Natural Recruitment and Reef Recovery?. Restoration Ecology, 22: 142–150. doi: 10.1111/rec.12041

Jones, T. A. (2013), When local isn't best. Evolutionary Applications, 6: 1109–1118. doi: 10.1111/eva.12090

Translocation digest: July 2013

Projects:

Free State's first wild cheetah in 100 years
News24
"This reintroduction marks an extremely important moment in our battle to save the Cheetah from extinction. The reintroduction is the culmination of years of work and the building of great relationships and we are extremely excited to be returning this ...

Volunteer to report wild turkey sightings
WDEL 1150AM
This reintroduction resulted in today's 5,000 wild turkeys in Delaware, which are crucial to the annual turkey hunting season. The information gathered by volunteers will help track wild turkey health, distribution and reproductive success. If you spot ...

First Killer Whale Reintroduced to Wild Has Baby National Geographic The only killer whale known to be put back into the wild after human intervention was spotted with her first baby last week. In 2002, a young killer whale named Springer was reintroduced to her pod in northern Vancouver Island (map), Canada, after she ... See all stories on this topic »

Osprey chicks to be reintroduced to the wild Dubuque Telegraph Herald Nature lovers and the simply curious can witness the reintroduction of osprey chicks Wednesday morning. The chicks will be reintroduced as part of the Mud Lake Osprey Project at 9 a.m. at Mud Lake Park, according to a news release. Translocating animals outside home turf is high risk ... Times of India AHMEDABAD: The latest guidelines of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) on translocation of wildlife could prove to be a major ... Park life: The Cairngorms' lost beasts BBC News But beavers are just one animal on a list of 22 creatures assessed for potential reintroduction, or targeted conservation efforts, to Britain's largest national park. Wildlife on the list were either were wiped out because of over-hunting or ... See all stories on this topic » First Persian leopard cubs born in Russia for 50 years Phys.Org The Persian Leopard Reintroduction Program is run by the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment of the Russian Federation with participation of the Sochi National Park, Caucasus Nature Reserve, A.N. Severtsov Institute of Ecology and Evolution, ... See all stories on this topic » Endangered minnow being reintroduced in MissouriKansas City Star A once abundant minnow that's been listed as federally endangered for 15 years and is now “in serious trouble” in Missouri is being reintroduced into waterways ... See all stories on this topic »

Publications:

Converse, S. J., Moore, C. T. and Armstrong, D. P. (2013), Demographics of reintroduced populations: Estimation, modeling, and decision analysis. The Journal of Wildlife Management, 77: 1081–1093. doi: 10.1002/jwmg.590

GRIFFITHS, C. J., ZUËL, N., JONES, C. G., AHAMUD, Z. and HARRIS, S. (2013), Assessing the Potential to Restore Historic Grazing Ecosystems with Tortoise Ecological Replacements. Conservation Biology, 27: 690–700. doi: 10.1111/cobi.12087

HUNTER, E. A., GIBBS, J. P., CAYOT, L. J. and TAPIA, W. (2013), Equivalency of Galápagos Giant Tortoises Used as Ecological Replacement Species to Restore Ecosystem Functions. Conservation Biology, 27: 701–709. doi: 10.1111/cobi.12038

Reynolds, M. H., Weiser, E., Jamieson, I. and Hatfield, J. S. (2013), Demographic variation, reintroduction, and persistence of an island duck (Anas laysanensis). The Journal of Wildlife Management, 77: 1094–1103. doi: 10.1002/jwmg.582

Seidel, S. A., Comer, C. E., Conway, W. C., Deyoung, R. W., Hardin, J. B. and Calkins, G. E. (2013), Influence of translocations on eastern wild turkey population genetics in Texas. The Journal of Wildlife Management, 77: 1221–1231. doi: 10.1002/jwmg.575

Sites, J. W. (2013), Extinction, reintroduction, and restoration of a lizard meta-population equilibrium in the missouri ozarks. Molecular Ecology, 22: 3653–3655. doi: 10.1111/mec.12357

SMYSER, T. J., JOHNSON, S. A., PAGE, L. K., HUDSON, C. M. and RHODES, O. E. (2013), Use of Experimental Translocations of Allegheny Woodrat to Decipher Causal Agents of Decline. Conservation Biology, 27: 752–762. doi: 10.1111/cobi.12064

IUCN/SSC Guidelines for Reintroductions and Other Conservation Translocations - final version released

Just a quick update to let everyone know that the fully formatted version of the IUCN/SSC Guidelines for Reintroductions and Other Conservation Translocations (including annexes) has now been released and you can get a copy by emailing me: s.e.dalrymple@gmail.com or following this link:
http://www.issg.org/pdf/publications/RSG_ISSG-Reintroduction-Guidelines-2013.pdf

It's the same in content as the 'interim' version which I know many of you have seen but the final release looks nicer and has the full citation details:

IUCN/SSC (2013). Guidelines for Reintroductions and Other Conservation Translocations. Version 1.0. Gland, Switzerland: IUCN Species Survival Commission, viiii + 57 pp.  ISBN: 978-2-8317-1609-1

Learning from non-conservation translocations: "Conspecifics can be aliens too..."

I was very glad to receive the paper featured in this post from one of the co-authors, Jocelyn Champagnon, as this review has some important conclusions to draw in terms of restocking practices. The authors have not restricted themselves to looking at restocking for conservation purposes only, instead, they draw on a range of reasons that result in the mixing of conspecifics from wild and captive sources and their conclusions are all the more valuable as a result.  These release events include making a target population of a threatened species viable, enhancing future harvests of for example, game birds, unintentional escapes from fish farms and fur farms and releases motivated by an ethical standpoint on animal welfare.  These and other reasons for release are described in the paper in a useful and enlightening summary that really opened my eyes to the diversity of reasons that can result in conspecifics from captive and wild populations mixing.

The review summarises the effects of restocking (intentionally or not) on wild and translocated individuals using 233 studies to provide a thorough overview of the possible implications. The explanations are too detailed to cover here but include behavioural, genetic, demographic and pathogenic impacts, both positive and negative for both wild and captive-bred individuals. Of particular interest to me were revelations on dispersal behaviour; in mobile species captive-bred individuals tend to disperse further than their wild counterparts. This means that the intended positive effects of restocking e.g. improved social interactions, are not attained and furthermore, the captive-bred animals are more likely to perish during migration, select unsuitable habitat, and fail to breed.  Another interesting finding is that population trends may be positive due to the introduction of new individuals to the group but practitioners should be aware that this might mask underlying problems. Mixing many individuals in one site might result in better demographic and social dynamics but if the reason for decline is unfavourable habitat, eventually the captive-bred animals may also succumb in time.

As part of the conservation translocation community, I think we would benefit by wider adoption of the following recommendations adapted from the paper:

• Avoid selection in captivity.
• Choose genetic strains that are as close as possible to wild target populations
• Vaccination and diseas screening should be routine practice.
• There is an urgent need for monitoring the size, duration and success of restocking events and this would be enhanced if individuals were identifiable using e.g. tags or rings etc.
• Policy-makers and managers need to encourage studies that reduce research bias e.g. addressing the lack of rigorous studies on harvest enhancing interventions.
• Practitioners in conservation, game management, fisheries, epidemiology and other relevant fields would benefit by working across disciplines.

By using restocking events from a range of motivations and circumstances, Jocelyn and her co-authors have added weight to the idea that translocations for non-conservation purposes have much to teach us when using translocations to effect conservation benefit. Ultimately, mixing wild and captive-bred individuals will impact upon each other regardless of how well-intentioned the motivation, if it is intentional at all. Augmenting wild populations have many positive and negative impacts but it is critical to realise that most of the effects covered here are unintended and unforeseen. The process of removing individuals from the wild has the effect of altering traits, or at least, their offspring's traits, resulting in a markedly different animal. Many of these problems are familiar from invasive species biology but with the added problem that genetic and behavioural barriers that normally occur between wild animals and non-native invasives are not there. As the title of the paper neatly states, conspecifics can be aliens too and this comes with all the associated problems of invasive non-natives and more.

For the full paper (and I'd recommend that you read the full thing) please contact Jocelyn by email or download using the following citation:

Champagnon, J., Elmberg, J., Guillemain, M., Gauthier-Clerc, M., & Lebreton, J.-D. (2012). Conspecifics can be aliens too: A review of effects of restocking practices in vertebrates. Journal for Nature Conservation, 20(4), 231–241. doi:10.1016/j.jnc.2012.02.002

Translocations and genetics - a simple summary of a complex subject

This may be a bit of a cop out but I wanted to blog about some of the issues surrounding genetics and translocations and found this post on the excellent Conservation Bytes blog run by Corey Bradshaw.  The author, Dr Salvador Herrando-Perez, has done a much better job than I could so I encourage you to follow the link below:

http://conservationbytes.com/2013/01/14/translocations-genetic-rescue-paradox/

1 million fish reveal translocation and captive-breeding synergies

The translocation described in this post could be an example of assisted migration although not in the sense that this is a climate change-motivated intervention. The movement of the Chinook salmon described by Holsman et al (2012) is assisting migration by transporting fish passed hydroelectric dams from the spawning headwaters to the ocean. As someone who has worked with threatened species and the small numbers of individuals this normally entails, I am envious of their sample size - over 1 million tagged fish made up the dataset and allowed an exceptional number of explanatory variables and interactions to be explored.


Key to their findings are the fact that their million fish represented wild and captively reared individuals, and translocated fish (moved down river) and non-translocated fish (in-river migrants) in all combinations over the period 1998 - 2006. They found that the origin of the fish and whether they were translocated around the hydropower schemes interacted synergistically on fish mortality: captive-reared fish benefited from being transported while wild fish were detrimentally affected by translocation. The latter occurred despite the fact that transportation should minimise deaths associated with migrating through hydropower systems.


The authors go on to explore a range of factors affecting survival in the marine environment before concluding with three important recommendations for management. Firstly, that the effects of management and environment can interact and this must be considered at the outset of any conservation programme. Secondly, that the survival translocated or captive-bred populations cannot be predicted from survival of wild populations because the intervention can alter some of the key phenological, behavioural, genetic and demographic parameters of a cohort. Thirdly, and I feel most importantly, practitioners should adopt an adaptive management approach. Whilst Holsman et al (2012) have the benefit of 1 million fish in their dataset, all translocation projects can improve the ability to identify and respond to unexpected and detrimental outcomes if translocated plants and animals are followed throughout the translocation programme on an individual basis.  As a systematic reviewer of plant reintroductions, I can vouch for this recommendation - survival analysis of an entire cohort is much more diagnostically powerful than samples of an already small population. However, I know it is easier said than done if you are say, trying to reintroduce a plant using seed, but it's not impossible and the rewards for the success of the project are more than worth it.

Holsman, K. K., Scheuerell, M. D., Buhle, E., & Emmett, R. (2012). Interacting Effects of Translocation, Artificial Propagation, and Environmental Conditions on the Marine Survival of Chinook Salmon from the Columbia River, Washington, U.S.A. Conservation biology : the journal of the Society for Conservation Biology, 26(5), 912–922. doi:10.1111/j.1523-1739.2012.01895.x

Definitions of conservation translocation

This post is just to highlight the fact that I've updated the 'definitions' page on this blog (see top tabs to find the different pages).  Definitions are key to a discipline such as this one, where confusion in terminology generates a host of uncertainties about the motivations, appropriate methods and policy implications for species conservation.  For this reason, the IUCN Task Force charged with revising and expanding the Guidelines for Reintroductions and Other Conservation Translocations spent a great deal of time scrutinising the definitions and testing their applicability under a range of scenarios and case-studies.

The new definitions for conservation translocations include a shift from 'historic range' to 'indigenous range' and the following interventions:

• Population Restoration - including reinforcement and reintroduction
• Conservation Introduction - including assisted colonisation and ecological replacement

The full Guidelines are available in an interim version just now (please email me if you would like this version) but will be freely available on the IUCN Re-introductions Specialist Group website in the final format soon.  There are also plans underway for translation of the Guidelines into several languages and hard-copies to be made available.