Performing Department
Environmental & Forest Biology
Non Technical Summary
The forests of the northeast United States are largely secondary growth and relatively even aged due to broad-scale logging efforts through the early 1900's and lack of large-scale natural disturbance within the system since (Meier et al. 1995, Franklin et al. 2002}. Concomitantly, forest-dependent species like fisher (Martes pennanti) declined due to unregulated trapping and habitat alteration from these logging practices. Although fisher populations recovered since the early 1930's, due to trapping regulations by New York Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) and reduction in broad-scale logging (NYSDEC 2015}, they now may be in a prolonged decline owing to a declining prey base.Snowshoe hare (Lepus americanus) are closely tied to both young and old growth forests for shelter and food availability (Hodges 2000, Griffin and Scott Mills 2009), similar to that of fishers. Snowshoe hare have shown a long-term population decline in NY, and are in need of assessment as a key habitat factor driving fisher populations especially in the northern zone. Climate change is forecasted to alter the timing and duration of snowpack in New York, which may negatively affect hare's ability to evade predation through camouflage (Mills et al. 2013, Zimova et al. 2014) - leading to higher predation rates (Zimova et al. 2016) and accelerated range contraction (Sultaire et al. 2016}. Reduced snowshoe hare populations and range contraction are expected to have direct, deleterious implications for fisher populations in the Adirondack Region. Consequently, more information is needed about hare abundance and distribution to better manage fisher populations.To address concerns about fisher populations in the Adirondack Region, DEC began conducting fisher surveys in the winter of 2016. In conjunction with these efforts, we worked closely with DEC Biologist Andy MacDuff and the Fur Team to conduct track surveys to develop occu'pancy and abundance estimates for snowshoe hare in DEC Region 6. To date, over 250 track surveys have been completed and preliminary occupancy and abundance estimates have been generated. However to address hare distribution across the Adirondack Region, survey efforts must be extended to Region 5 and a subset of revisit surveys must be completed in Regions 5 & 6.Awarded Start Date: 4/1/17Sponsor: NYS Department of Environmental Conservation
Animal Health Component
0%
Research Effort Categories
Basic
100%
Applied
(N/A)
Developmental
(N/A)
Goals / Objectives
(1) Finalize dual-species occupancy sampling design and conduct full survey in 2017-18.(2) Determine the accuracy and precision of single-visit vs repeat-visit occupancy and abundance surveys for snowshoe hares.(3) Estimate stand-level abundance of snowshoe hares by modeling important land cover and detection covariates, and generate spatially-explicit hare density maps for the Adirondack Region.(4) Conduct site occupancy analysis for fisher based on DEC's winter 2016 and 2017 Northern Zone camera trap data.
Project Methods
Please contact PI for details.