Game designed to stimulate an interest in wildlife conservation and local history.

abstract: Desert ecosystems of the southwest United States are characterized by hot and arid climates, but hibernating bats can be found at high altitudes. The emerging fungal infection, white-nose syndrome, causes mortality in hibernating bat populations across eastern North America and the pathogen is increasingly observed in western regions. However, little is known about the ecology of hibernating bats in the southwest, which can help predict how these populations may respond to the fungus. My study investigated hibernating bats during two winters (2018-2019/2019-2020) at three caves in northern Arizona to: (1) describe diversity and abundance of hibernating bats using visual internal surveys and photographic documentation, (2) determine the duration of hibernation by recording bat echolocation call sequences outside caves and recording bat activity in caves using visual inspection, and (3) describe environmental conditions where hibernating bats are roosting. Adjacent to bats, I collected temperature and relative humidity, which I converted into absolute humidity. I documented hibernation status (i.e. active vs. not active) and roosting body position (i.e. open, partially hidden, and hidden). Between September 2018 and April 2019, 246 bat observations were recorded across the three caves. The majority of bats were identified as Myotis spp. (45.9\%, n=113), followed by Corynorhinus townsendii (45.5\%, n=112), Parastrellus hesperus (4.8\%, n=12), Eptesicus fuscus (3.6\%, n=9). Between September 2019 and April 2020, I documented a total of 361 bat observations across the three caves. C. townsendii was most prevalent (52.9\%, n=191), followed by the category P. hesperus/Myotis spp. (25.7\%, n=93), Myotis spp. (12.4\%, n=45), P. Hesperus (4.4\%, n=16), E. fuscus (3.6\%, n=13) and Unknown (0.8\%, n=3). Average conditions adjacent to bats were, temperature=12.5ºC, relative humidity=53\%, and absolute humidity=4.9 g/kg. Hibernating bats were never observed in large clusters and the maximum hibernating population size was 24, suggesting low risk for pathogen transmission among bats. Hibernation lasted approximately 120 days, with minimal activity documented inside and outside caves. Hibernating bats in northern Arizona may be at low risk for white-nose syndrome based on population size, hibernation length, roosting behavior, and absolute humidity, but other variables (e.g. temperature) indicate the potential for white-nose syndrome impacts on these populations. / Dissertation/Thesis / Masters Thesis Biology 2020

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abstract: ABSTRACT Human and wildlife behavior, governance, and economics are often cited obstacles to wildlife conservation. Accordingly, conservation research has historically been conducted in the exterior terrains of behavior and systems, which can be empirically observed or known through systemic analysis and applied through institutional or technical fixes. However, conservation interventions are failing because they do not adequately address the influence of individual and collective interior phenomena including psychological states, worldviews, values, and identities of stakeholders, which can bear decisively on conservation outcomes. This critical analysis of wildlife conservation science and the social and political histories of Southwestern landscapes illustrates the mechanism of social, cultural, and media narrative linking four irreducible perspectives of the natural world: the I, WE, IT and ITS, or the psychological, cultural, behavioral and structural/systemic terrains, which ground contemporary conservation. Through the conceptual [Re]animation of conservation, this research justifies a more-than-human approach to wildlife conservation that resists the ontological privilege of the human and contemplates human and non-human animals as vitally linked in their mutually relational, perceptual and material environments. The approach extends the human to the natural environment and also accounts for the individual and social needs and perspectives of wild animals, which shape their adaptation to changing environments and conservation interventions. A qualitative analysis of emotion, metaphor, and narrative utilizing an Integral Ecology framework explores how psychological and cultural terrains link to, and influence, the behavioral and systemic terrains of Mexican gray wolf (Canis lupus baileyi) conservation in the U.S. Southwest. This research disentangles and comprehensively maps influential elements in the four terrains; enhancing relational knowledge on human-predator coexistence and conservation governance in the Southwest. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Environmental Social Science 2019

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No description available.

Increased snowmobile use in mountainous terrain has been highlighted as a conservation concern for some Canada lynx (Lynx canadensis) populations. Snow compaction resulting from winter recreation may potentially facilitate access by coyotes (Canis latrans) to habitats used by lynx during winter. Increased interactions could result in either exploitation or interference competition between the two species. Two recent, yet geographically distinct, studies showed contrasting findings regarding coyote movements and their use of snow-compacted trails during the winter. These findings suggest coyote association with snow-compacted trails may be regionally specific and dependent upon ecosystem dynamics and snow characteristics. The objectives of this study were to document diet, space use, and movements of coyotes occupying deep snow regions and explore whether a potential existed for increased interactions between coyotes and lynx due to snowmobile activity. We documented seasonal variation in coyote diets using scat collections to assess dietary overlap with lynx. Coyote resource use within and among habitats containing snowmobile activity was examined using coyote backtrack surveys during two consecutive field seasons in northwestern Wyoming. Although scat analysis findings suggest dietary overlap was not significant between coyotes and lynx during the winter or overall (all seasons combined), we lacked adequate sample size of lynx scats to determine if dietary overlap occurred during the fall, when coyote use of snowshoe hare peaked (24.1 % of all fall occurrences). Coyote backtrack surveys revealed that coyotes not only persisted in habitats used by lynx throughout the winter, but that snow compaction resulting from winter recreation use appeared to influence coyote movements during the winter months. Microhabitat analysis revealed that snow conditions influenced coyote behaviors and habitat use. This research provided insight into the impacts of winter recreation on coyote diet and habitat use during the winter months in northwestern Wyoming. In addition, these results have implications for local lynx populations in the southern periphery of their natural range. These results may assist land management agencies in planning and implementing management strategies to enhance lynx recovery, and may be used to guide decisions regarding areas designated for winter recreation and areas proposed for expansion of winter activities.

This thesis traces the evolution of wildlife manage­ment practices in British Columbia from pre-contact times to 1918. The aboriginal people employed certain measures to restrict the killing of their most valuable species, particularly salmon and beaver. They also practised environmental control to enhance deer and elk habitat. Indians were able to do this with success because most tribes recognized strict territorial rights to fishing and hunting areas by clans or families. Fierce protection of these monopoly rights prevented such practices as poaching, which would have made conservation measures futile. Because these rights were inherited, hunters and fishermen were obliged to preserve species in their care. This system of monopoly control continued after the Hudson's Bay Company acquired exclusive trading rights in the land west of the Rockies. The company recognized Indian territorial rights and used them to continue the sustained-yield harvesting of beaver in New Caledonia, and to promote the recovery of beaver stocks in the Peace River district where beaver had been depleted during the fur trade rivalry. The period of monopoly control came to an end in 1858-59 when the Hudson's Bay Company lost its exclusive trading rights. During the colonial and early provincial period, the responsibility for management controls fell to the public authorities. The initial efforts by government to restrict the hunting and sale of game was generally ineffectual because law enforcement was difficult in the sparsely settled province and because the entrepreneurial climate of the late nineteenth century was conducive to resource exploitation. Although public regulations in the nineteenth century failed to protect adequately popular species of game, sportsmen, who subscribed to the lifestyle of the British landed gentry, began introducing exotic game and private shooting preserves to the province, following the practice in Europe. They also organized game protective associations, which led the public demand for the cessation of market-hunting excesses and the appointment of government game wardens. During his tenure from 1905 to 1918, the first provincial game warden, A. Bryan Williams, made public control of game conservation a reality in much of the province. He built a department of capable deputies whose efforts annually multiplied convictions of game law infractions. At the same time, Williams constantly stressed the economic importance of game and widely advertised the province's sporting attractions. Under his direction, the government established three public game reserves. It also commenced the control of game predators and the patrol of border areas. Most importantly, Williams inaugurated the principle of game users paying for game protection through a system of licenses. By 1918 most of the public recognized govern­mental responsibility for the management of wildlife. This thesis suggests that wildlife received the most consistent and effective management when their habitat and harvest were subject to the monopolistic control of the users. It also reveals that the history of wildlife management in British Columbia did not adhere closely to the universal sequence of measures observed by Aldo Leopold, the recognized founder of the discipline of wildlife management. The paper concludes that a mixture of private and public wildlife management areas may be the most appropriate means of satisfying the various attitudes and interests of British Columbia citizens who are concerned with wildlife. / Graduate

This study investigated the various sources of information utilized by a sample of the Oregon adult population to gain information and ideas about the wildlife resource. The results were compared to those of a study of college and university students and their sources of information that gave them anti-hunting attitudes. The basic question posed was: What sources of information are most commonly utilized by a sample of Oregon’s population in obtaining ideas and information concerning the wildlife resource and do the proportions of various sources utilized compare with those indicated by college students as sources of anti-hunting sentiments? Additional questions asked of the subjects revealed less anti-hunting sentiment than in many portions of the United States and further hinted at simple bias in the direction of pro-hunting attitudes.