PSA: 40 Mile hunt entirely open for short period

If you're like me, you'd put the 40 Mile winter hunt out of your mind, since it started back in December. However, if you still have interest in hunting it, the corridor along the highway will be open for a short period. You can read about it at the News Miner or at the 40 Mile Hotline (907 267-2310 in fairbanks, 8832971 in Tok).

Things I did not know

Animals raised in captivity under optimum conditions -- Caribou (McEwan and wood, 1966), black-tailed deer (Woods et al. 1962), and whitetailed deer (French et al. 1955; Magruder et al. 1957) -- still underwent a reduction in food-consumption during the winter months, with the retardation of growth in young deer and the loss of weight in adults.

That's from Ronald Skog's 1968 Thesis, which I'm re-reading portions of. My immediate question is... why? Why should animals under nice, warm conditions being fed ad-lib lose weight? Is it because they turn off their digestive track? If so, why eat? Very curious

Unimak and South West caribou instability

I was fairly surprised to see that there was a story about the Unimak Caribou Herd (UCH) in the Alaska Daily News this morning; I checked around and found the source of this new burst of public awareness, which was a press release posted on ADF&G's website. As someone who knows a few things about the South West and Alaska Peninsula herds in general, and about the situation specifically, I thought I might try to add meaningfully to the conversation.

To the right I have a figure of the area we're talking about. I'm using ADF&G's figure from their website, since it's far better than my own. In the region, there are 5 designated caribou herds, plus feral reindeer on Kodiak island (which is a hotbed of introduced species). Mulchatna (MCH) is a conglomeration of multiple herds, including the now defunct Killbuk, and a few others, which merged into the mass we have today. Nushagak is actually quite separate from MCH because it a) has separate calving grounds and b) is entirely man-made, made from transplanted Northern Alaska Peninsula Caribou (NAP) a couple decades ago.

The NAP has quite a bit of range overlap with MCH, and recent authors have used this to describe the situation down there as a "Meta-population," that is to say a population of populations, with patches of terrain gaining and losing caribou at some background rate. I'm not sure I agree with their assessment, for technical reasons. However, NAP and the Southern Alaska Peninsula Caribou (SAP) don't really mix, as SAP and NAP are constrained short of Henderson Bay (generally). Similarly, UCH and SAP don't really mix, because of the False Pass that the village is named for.

Unimak caribou probably descended from animals which somehow made it across False Pass, and settled on the island. The island itself is lightly inhabited, and has broad plains with a few major volcanos sticking out (It's the AP, volcanos are like seagulls. ;) ). The Alaska Peninsula and Unimak island are both fairly marginal caribou habitat, or at least appear to be as over the long term, caribou have a hard time finding any equilibrium census, and they tend to fluctuate wildly over time. It's tempting to blame this on poor lichen, human harvest, other predation, and severe weather events, but to be completely honest, any satisfactory explanation of population dynamics out there probably must include all those factors.

So that's to say the area isn't a stranger to precipitous caribou declines. In the late 40's, NAP is thought to have scrapped along at a mere 2,000 animals, before peaking again at 20,000 in 1984. However, even this 10 fold didn't come as low as SAP, which declined to 600 animals as recently as 2007. After intensive management, the calf survival rate was brought up significantly in 08-09, and the population appeared to inch its way up so slightly to a slightly higher census.

In UCH, the population is at a mere 400. Harvest has generally been 10 animals (more or less) for the past decade, with no harvest being allowed in 09-10 regulatory year. In general, the level of human harvest represented a negligible portion of the herd until the decline between 06 and 09 censuses. Hunting on the whole AP has been "Verboten" for the last regulatory year.

The UCH's problem is illustrated through two things. First, it's abnormally low Calves per 100 Cows ration. It's 3:100. Needless to say, that is abnormally low. SAP had a lower ratio until intensive management was instituted, so it's not to say it's unrecoverable. However, the second illustrative problem is the extreme sex ratio fluctuation that's occurred. Currently, there are 5 bulls for every 100 cows in UCH. While Caribou are harem breeders (One male breeds with many females), this ratio is probably contributing to the other, abysmally low Calf-Cow ratio. There  just isn't enough bulls to "Cover" all of the cows.

So, I hope I've convinced you that it's not hyperbole when one of my good friends in the agency said "We have concerns that in one to two years, the herd will be on a trajectory that will cause it to cease to exist." While I'd put this possibility on the low end of things (Maybe 5-10% chance), I have to agree with his assessment on the whole. Discussion up to this point has focused on rescue transplants of males. Hopefully, the thought goes, additional males could cover the females not currently getting covered. The long-term genetic consequences of this is worrisome, but the short-term demographic consequences of the extreme sex ratio is far greater, and we can mitigate the genetic effects through appropriate management.

This development relates to the other factor of the cow:calf ratio, which is survival-to-census. Wolves can be highly effective predators of caribou calves, as can bears (for a short period). The argument goes that wolves are at a "Population High," and therefore intensive management is warranted in order to preserve both caribou and wolves long term viability on Unimak island. Most people will generally agree that IM was somewhat effective in bringing SAP on an upward trajectory, and we'll see how effective it was long-term when those 2008 animals really get to breeding in 2010.

However, long-term, I think we need an over-all strategy. South-Western caribou will go through population fluctuations much greater percent-wise than other herds in the arctic. This is inevitable, unless climate change has the unforeseen boon of stabilizing caribou cycling. We have three long-term directions we could take. First, we could intervene and attempt to stabilize the system through clever pushing-of-the-buttons. This, I'm sure, will be expensive. Second, we could supplement Caribou to stabilize them, turning the AP into something akin to the National Elk Refuge. This would be potentially less expensive, but have some major eco-systems wide effects. Or, we could manage for natural ecosystems, which is a fancy way of saying "Take our hands off the wheel and let the truck go wherever." All three have their strengths and weaknesses as options. All three require value judgements. However, a consistent direction is far preferred to a reactionary approach.

Slides from the FWS presentation from ADF&G, and the table is from the 09 caribou inventory report.

Abstracts: Body Size Variation in Caribou Ecotypes and Relationships with Demography

One of the bigger arguments amongst Caribou biologists is what is the relationship between the different forms we see, and how important they are. For example, on one hand you have the big migratory herds like Western Arctic, but then you have more woodland herds like the Mentasta. Finally, there are sedentary montane herds. All three look like they have different things going on morphologically too, according to these authors. I'm fairly willing to believe that, and I'm willing to believe their mechanism - that it's habitat induced variation, and not anything genetic. That is to say, they're like that because they live there, and if they didn't live there, they wouldn't be like that.


Here's the abstract

ABSTRACT In many vertebrates size is one of the most influential and variable individual characteristics and a strong determinant of reproductive success. Body size is generally density dependent and decreases when intraspecific competition increases. Frequent and long- distance movements increase energy expenditures and, therefore, may also influence body size, particularly in highly mobile species. Caribou (Rangifer tarandus, also known as reindeer) exhibit tremendous variation in size and movements and thus represent an excellent candidate species to test the relationships between body size, population size, and movements. We analyzed body measurements of adult female caribou from 7 herds of the Que ́ bec-Labrador Peninsula, Canada, and we related their morphology to population size, movements, and annual ranges. The herds represented 3 ecotypes (migratory, montane, and sedentary). Ecotypes and herds differed in size (length), shape (roundness), and movements. The sedentary ecotype was larger and moved 4 to 7 times less than the migratory ecotype in the 1990s. At the start of a demographic growth period in the early 1960s, migratory caribou from the Rivie` re-George (hereafter George) herd had longer mandibles than caribou of the sedentary ecotype. Mandible length in the George herd declined in the 1980s after rapid population growth, while individuals performed extensive movements and the herd’s annual range increased. Migratory caribou then became shorter than sedentary caribou. After the George herd decline in the 1990s, mandible length increased again near levels of the 1980s. Caribou from the migratory Rivie` re-aux- Feuilles herd later showed a similar decline in mandible length during a period of population growth, associated with longer movements and increasing annual range. We hypothesize that the density-dependent effect observed on body size might have been exerted through summer habitat degradation and movement variations during herd growth. Our study has 2 important implications for caribou management: the distinctiveness of different populations and ecotypes, and the correlations between population trajectories and changes in body condition and habitat.

Couturier, Otto, Côté, Luther and Mahoney. 2010. Body Size Variations in Caribou Ecotypes and Relationships With Demography. J. Wildlife Management, 74, pp. 395-404. DOI: 10.2193/2008-384

Totally unrelated, but I met Shane Mahoney last year - I think it as at the Wildlife Soc. 2009 meeting, but I'm fuzzy on that point. He's an entertaining guy, and as smart as it gets. Côté is also very clever, though I been able to meet him directly yet.

Reinabou

I'm reading papers, as always. I don't know how I missed this one from Dave Klein, one of our great emeritus. We're lucky to still have him around the department, with his decades of knowledge. When he talks, it pays to listen.
Here's a neat picture from one of his 1980 papers:

Fig 5. A caribou-reindeer cross trained as a sled deer at the Reindeer Experiment Station, Fairbanks,  June 29, 1926. (L. J. Palmer Collection - Univ. of Alaska).

The Little Rail-line that couldn't.

I love old stuff. Here's this, published NY Times April 11 1902:

    Tachoma, Washington, April 10. - George S Canfield has arrived from Minneapolis en route to Nome. He announces that when he left New York last week arrangements were underway to consolidate companies incorporated to build 500 miles of railway from either Cook Inlet or Illiamna Bay across Seward Peninsula to Nome. The companies are understood to be the Alaska and Siberia Company, which Canfield assisted in organizing, and the Trans-Atlantic Company of Colorado.
    The Alaska and Siberia Company made surveys between the Yukon River and Nome during the Summers of last and the previous years under Canfield's direction. He believes the consolidated interested will select Illiamna Bay as a coast terminus, building thence to Kaltag, on the Yukon, and thence across the Tundra to Nome. He expects the work of construction will commence this year at each end.

I think Mr Canfield's project is a few decades behind schedule.
I was trying to find the initial financial estimate of the modern proposed route to Nome. Right now, one of the biggest economic impediment to Reindeer herding on the Seward Peninsula is the ability to move meat to market. If that could be overcome, better markets could be created for the meat.  I'm sure the modern mining interests in Nome would like better market access too, but that's not what spurred my interest.

Pictures

Pictures

Predator Control by Press Release

If I was doing science by press release* to try and convince people everything was great about Predator Control, I don't think I would have taken the tack used in the AP story that the News Miner and the ADN picked up. This story is rife with problems.

First, while it's true that the current program really got started by Murkowski, there has been active predator control of one sort or another since pre-statehood. Poison, bounties and aerial shooting was employed by government agent until statehood. Aerial shooting continued with the public until 1972, when the federal Airborne Hunting Act was passed. This coincided with several harsh winters in the state, resulting in heavy predator depression of game populations.

In 1975, the first wolf control was authorized in game management unit 20A, which is south of the Tanana river from Fairbanks. This was conducted by only ADF&G staff. The policies were shaped over time through the 80s, and in 1992, the Board of Game (BOG) added control to three areas. Due to massive backlash from tourists, Hickel reconsider and BOG revoked their plan. In 1993, BOG authorizes additional predator control for 20A. Predator controlled continued until Knowles became Governor, and suspended all programs.

Because of the long history, I don't think it's fair to say Murkowski is responsible for predator control. It would be like saying I started the tradition of having breakfast this morning. Sure, it's technically true, because there was a gap of about 24 hours where I had no breakfast tradition, but it ignores all the breakfast I've had other days.

My next big complaint about the story has to do with mis-leading verbiage. The story implies that of all areas of predator control, a few have been successful. It then cites McGrath, and the Southern Alaska Peninsula. If we're allowed to talk about predator control as a holistic idea, a better example would be the aforementioned GMU 20A. The area currently hosts some of the largest populations of moose in the state, and very healthy populations of wolves (though not the healthiest, due to the 2003 invasion of a depeliating parasite).

If we're only talking about current areas, then I have some complaints. First, it's too early to be talking about successes. You only know whether you were successful after you remove predator control. One of two things will happen. Either population levels will remain stable, or the population of game species will decline again. If the number of game animals declines again, you know you've mis-characterized the ecological situation, and you're attempting to apply predator control where it doesn't work; if they remain stable, you know that you've been successful**. I will admit, if you don't see an increase in game numbers, it is fairly indicative that your current predator control regime is not applicable.

If we're limited to current predator control areas, then the Southern Alaskan Peninsula Caribou Herd is not great example of anything, right now. The situation is complex, and it's my studied opinion that we're not entirely in possession of all the facts in that system.  While Calf Mortality is clearly a major issue with the SAPCH (<2 per 100 is a very low number indeed), I'm yet to be fully confident that there are not other, conflating factors involved in the long term population trends.

The AP left out something re: the non-resident hunter situation that I think ADF&G would have pushed strong for inclusion. That is, that non-resident hunters are a substantial economic factor, especially in small villages. In order to access the non-resident permitted areas, a guide is typically required. Further, non-resident hunting parties can spend several thousands of dollars per person, and each tag typically results in multiple hunters in a party. While the Nelchina is a complex situation, one that I swore I wouldn't touch with a 10 foot stick, game there is not so precariously positioned that those permits need to be cancelled.

One thing I wish people understood is that Predator Control is like science in general: It's really, really complex. There are no simple answers to pretty much anything; everything is wrapped up in assumptions that need met, confidence intervals, and highly situational knowledge. There should be an * beside pretty much every simple line inside these sorts of articles saying "Well, X is true 85% of the time, and the other 15% of the time, Y and Z are true." We're letting ourselves get trapped by these simple story explanations which don't even begin to cover the truth.


*Science by press release is a pejorative comment to describe non-peer reviewed science that's pushed out there by Public Offices of Agencies and Universities. the chief complaint is that science by press release is rarely accurate, and never goes through the rigour of peer review.


** This is seriously simplified, moreso than everything else here. But the nut of the matter is sound - you don't know, until it's over.

Climate Change and Rangifer

Here's a little something I wrote while sipping tea in my brother's home, obviously on vacation (that's why I had so many work related emails open! Because I was on vacation!). As you possibly remember, I have confidence in Global Warming as a actual phenomenon as it's born out by a variety of data sets. I can't comment on the mechanism, except to say I don't second guess nuclear physicists, so why should I treat climatologists any different.

That said, I was somewhat... appalled by the treatment of a finding I've known about for a while:

The scientists were shocked to discover that 34 of the herds were declining, while no data existed for 16 more. Only eight herds were increasing in number. Many herds had been declining for a decade or more.

"We were surprised at the ubiquity of the decline," says Vors.

Surprised? I'm not sure they should have been. The data's been around since 2004ish (more on that in a moment).

"When we delved into the status of European reindeer herds, we were surprised that so many were declining. We expected them to be in better shape than North America herds because reindeer, namely the semi-domestic herds, are closely managed by humans."

[...]

"If global climate change and industrial development continue at the current pace, caribou and reindeer populations will continue to decline in abundance," says Vors.

Oh dear. I suppose I should start with the initial statement. Reindeer herding on a whole is on the decline due to human factors. Namely, fewer people are doing it. In North America, little market exists for reindeer meat, and historical factors have sabotaged the development of herding as an industry. In Eurasia, the industry is on the wane for a variety of reasons.

As for the out-of-nowhere statement about Climate Change, I present this graph from Kofinas and Russel:
You can probably see the issue right from the get go.
I'll refrain from begrudging the point. After all, I haven't seen the paper yet (I am writing this while on vacation!), but it would take strong evidence to convince me that the competing hypotheses are incorrect.

The Herd Concept

Random: Am I the only one who finds the article headline "Palin, gas line supporters dismiss pipeline criticisms" incredibly obvious? Of course they disagree with people who disagree with them. That's the definition of supporter, eh? They support. Next, the DNM will publish a story saying "Critics continue to criticize."

---

I've got my work on deer off to my coauthors for their review, and I've effectively finished my work on them. I would be going back to the wolf stuff now, except I haven't heard any direction from ADF&G, so that'll continue to get put on the back of the stove. I'm back to caribou work, where we've went and raided our freezer for blood and tissue. So maybe it's a good time to talk about the herd concept.

When we talk about caribou, we tend to talk about caribou in herds. For management purposes, there's 32 recognized herds in the state of Alaska. Don't ask me to name them all. By and large, they're numerically concentrated in 7 herds of 10,000 caribou or greater, with the north slope herds being the largest. As a pure guess, I'd say 90% of the caribou in Alaska are in the Porcupine, Central Arctic, Western Arctic, Mulchatna, Nelchina, 40-Mile or Teshekpuk Lake caribou herds.

One of the defining features of caribou is that they exhibit the prehensity to seasonal movements. c.f. domestic reindeer, who tend to move fairly "randomly" through time. What happens is that we see caribou exhibit site fidelity among females for parturition (what normal people call "childbirth" or "calving"). Because they return to at least roughly the same area each cycle, we tend to treat all the animals who use that same space the same way as a management unit.

You can see site fidelity illustrated off to the right. The figure is from ANWR, based off of a radio collared female in 1987. You can see how she migrated to the calving ground, hung around a while (probably calving), before moving off over the course of a few months. The Western Arctic herd migration is very pronounced - whereas the PCH may migrate 200-300 miles, the WAH will move up to and over 400 miles from their summer grounds on the North Slope to their wintering grounds on the Seward Peninsula. You can see a nice animation of that at this link to the CARMA network's webpage. Beware, the file is about 3 MB, for those of you on slow connections. Here's a link to the PCH's page, where you can click on "Porcupine Caribou Animation."

So, it should be clear that the herds are somewhat demographically independent - that the number of caribou in an area is linked to how well the herd is doing, and not how well the herd nextdoor is doing. This makes herds a very useful concept for management, as we as managers want to manage how many animals there are (abundance). However, although useful for management, the herd concept might not be evolutionarily signifigant - it might not reflect the actual, biological reality of what are important groupings for the animals. This is because caribou occupy different space when they rut and when they calve. Rut is when all the sex is happening, and long term biological processes are chiefly concerend with who has the largest number of successful offspring.

Whether the herd concept is actually rooted real or not, we can't say yet. A previous researcher did a survey of the North Slope herds, and found that they weren't biologically discrete units. However, that researcher's research was filled with problems, and many scientists are reluctant to take it at any value. There's a number of people doing studies across the state, and in Canada, investigating just that. One finished project from Canada found a mixed bag - some herds were legitimate biological entities of evolutionary importance, and some were not. And some herds should have been considered multiple herds. It will be interesting, as time goes on, to see how the North Slope caribou herds are found to be in the future.

The history of Reindeer in Alaska

I've been reading a lot about the history of Reindeer herding lately, and my head is so full of thoughts that I can scarcely get them down on paper fast enough. Two very important things I've been reading have been "Eskimos, Reindeer, and Land," a publication by UAF's school of Ag and Land Resource Management from the 80s. More recently, but more tangentially, Gary Kofinas (UAF) and Don Russell (Environment Canada) wrote a chapter in "Family-Based Reindeer Economy, and the Status and Management of Caribou Populations" on the status of North American caribou in the high arctic, and their use as a subsistence resource. There was 4 pages on modern Reindeer herding on the Seward Peninsula, which might not seem that much, but it's helped me clear up some long standing questions I'd had.

If you're not clear on the difference between reindeer and caribou, I'd describe it like this: Caribou are to reindeer as wolves are to dogs. They're both members of the same species (Rangifer tarandus) but they're different subspecies (Reindeer: R. tarandus tarandus; Alaskan Caribou: R. tarandus granti). Reindeer are semidomestic - they've had a long history of being herded in northern Eurasia, but there are also wild populations of reindeer, and the two groups freely interbreed. Physically, reindeer are shorter than caribou, with thicker chests, more muscle mass, and they're more likely to have spots or stripes on their coat. Behaviourally, caribou and reindeer differ in that caribou are less docile, and tend to be migratory. The top picture is of a caribou, and the second picture is of reindeer at the Ag. station.

The overwhelming majority of reindeer in the state are the descendants of reindeer imported from Russia in the late 1800s, when the Reverend Sheldon Jackson imported 1,280 reindeer to provide to the eskimo in the areas he was evangelizing. The hope was that with the introduction of reindeer, subsistence hunters would stop hunting, and take up pastoral activities - somewhere in all of this, they were looking for people to join their brand of Christianity. I imagine it worked like opening a bank account, and the bank mailing you a free toaster. "Accept Jesus today and get two free reindeer! (Offer not for existing parishioners)."

Oh, randomly. A lot of the old bible translations use qusngiq for sheep, which amuses me to no end. `Reindeer of god, who takes away the sins of the world.` Okay, I'm easily amused.

All glibness (is that a word?) aside, Jackson was only partially concerned with evangelization, and no doubt part of his importation of reindeer stemmed from a crises that he thought was growing, in the form of declining Caribou numbers. Long ago, it would mean people would merely shift their focus to new food sources, like more whaling or fishing, and de-emphasize caribou as a food source. Similarly, Jackson interpreted the old sod houses and qasgiqs as being miserable, damp places, having overlooked that they were quite nice in the winter, and weren't really occupied past the spring.

Whatever the humanitarian motivations were, reindeer herding was quickly associated with religious missions, and was spread to various areas by various churches - Bethel by the Moravians in 1901, Point Barrow by the Presbyterians in 1898, Kotzebue by the California Yearly Meeting-Friends in 1901, etc. The Barrow situation is of interest, because the reindeer were drove to partially provide relief for stranded white whalers; it's my understanding of the story that the reindeer drive ended up being more of crisis than the stranded whalers. One of my graduate students has the whole story of that, but she's currently out on a well earned vacation. There were other disastrous reindeer drives, such as a drive of animals to Circle, where only about 1/3rd of the animals survived. I can't find a single time in the history books that a reindeer drive worked.

After 1930, reindeer herding underwent a rapid and catastrophic collapse, with populations going from 640,000 to around 25,000 between 1935 and 1950. The numbers remained stable there for a period, before entering a steady decline. The reasons for the collapse are mutlifaceted. Part of it was over-grazing in some areas. Other reasons were failures to retain reindeer when caribou herds would enter the area. Part of it is was related to a en-mass change of ownership mandated by the Reindeer act of 1937. The Reindeer Act of '37 warrants its own post, really. Boy, do I have a lot to say about that!

Now days, reindeer herding is essentially only conducted on the Seward Peninsula, with minor herds on Nunavak, Umnak, St. Paul, St. George, and very recent, small herds in Palmer, Delta Junction and on the Kenai Peninsula. For the herds off the road system, the biggest issues are concentration of knowledge, logistics, and the near-total collapse of the Asian antler market, which used to be a major source of income. The data I see for the value of reindeer meat up to 2000 shows a steady decline from '95 on, suggesting that alternatives to the meat are becoming more desired, or possibly the price of reindeer meat is overvalued, and any increases in price result increased no-sale. I'm not an economist, though. The Reindeer project had more to say about the state's future economic viability.

The reindeer industry in Alaska, and especially the industry at Seward Peninsula, is facing major problems.

The growing caribou herd represents a major threat to the reindeer industry in Alaska. The caribou has a devastating impact on the pasture areas; they attract preditors when they migrate into the pasture areas; and the caribou bring the domesticated reindeer along when they migrate through the permit areas.

There is a huge potential in the market for reindeer meat and other products both within Alaska and in the lower 48. To be able to develop this market the industry depends on access to abattoirs and other essential infrastructure. But the main disadvantage for the development of the industry is the high transport costs. Concerning the size of the potential market for reindeer products, the profitability of the industry could be increased if the above mentioned problems are solved.

Our reindeer and caribou research is focusing on the north slope, especially the Central Arctic Herd, the Western Arctic Herd, the Teshekpuk Lake herd, and to a lesser extent the Porcupine Herd. My own interest is more in the Mulchatna Herd, on the lower Kuskokwim, where the now-defunt Killbuck caribou herd used to reside - as previously mentioned, Bethel was a site of introduction for reindeer by the Moravians.