A fisher visiting a baited camera trap in our surveys.
A coyote pondering the view in the Adirondacks.
The northern New York landscape includes a variety of natural and human modified environments.
A black bear visiting a baited camera trap.
During the past century, human land-use and wildlife management practices have dramatically affected the ranges and population densities of most mammalian carnivores in the northeastern United States. The result has been relatively rapid shifts in predator communities, often occurring in landscapes significantly altered from those of 150 years ago. Central to this has been the remarkably rapid expansion and successful colonization of the Northeast landscape by the coyote. Favored by habitat disturbance, the elimination of the wolf, and its own opportunistic nature, the coyote moved out of the Midwest in the mid-1800s and has now colonized virtually all of northeastern North America.
Despite its wide distribution and its potential for competing with many native species, we know little about the ecology of the northeastern coyote as it conquers new environments. Just how many coyotes live in the Northeast and whether or not populations are still increasing remain unclear. At the same time, to inform conservation and management decisions in the Northeast, more information is needed about the diets and relative abundances of other forest carnivores, the response of carnivore communities to landscape change, the best methods for surveying and censusing carnivores, and the diseases and parasites of coyotes and their potential for transmission to other carnivores. A clearer understanding of these phenomena is essential for developing effective strategies to achieve goals as diverse as conserving threatened carnivores, weighing the pros and cons of wolf reintroduction proposals, managing deer herds, and understanding interactions between domestic and wild carnivores.
Objectives
- Estimate the abundance of coyotes across a broad region.
- Investigate potential competitive relationships of coyotes with other sympatric carnivores.
- Determine how variation in landscape structure affects the relative abundances of Adirondack forest carnivores and their prey.
- Identify the important parasites and diseases of carnivores in the region.
- Develop effective forest carnivore survey techniques.
Methods
From 2000-2002 we surveyed the carnivore communities at 54 sites across northern New York using camera traps, track plates, and scat surveys. We then used fecal DNA to identify the species responsible for each scat, and the individual responsible for each coyote scat. We used footpad fingerprinting to identify individual fishers that visited track plates.
Results
We are sharing our results through peer-reviewed publications, including those listed below and others still in preparation.
Collaborations: Dr Justina Ray, Wildlife Conservation Society, and Dr. Matt Gompper, University of Missouri
The footpads of fishers (left) have tiny bumps that leave corresponding dots on our track-plates (right).
These patterns are unique and can be used to identify individual fishers.
For more information about the identification of fisher footpads, view the: Fisher Footprint Tutorial
Gompper, M. E., Goodman, R. M., Kays, R. W., Ray, J. C., Fiorello, C. V., & Wade, S. E. (2003). Parasites of coyotes, Canis latrans, in New York. Journal of Wildlife Diseases 39: 712-717.
Gompper, M. E., Kays, R. W., Ray, J. C., LaPoint, S. D., Bogan, D. A., & Cryan, J. A. (2006). A comparison of non-invasive techniques to survey carnivore communities in Northeastern North America. Wildlife Society Bulletin 34: 1142-1151.
Herzog, C. J., Kays, R. W., Ray, J. C., Gompper, M. E., Zielinski, W. J., Higgins, R., & Tymeson, M. (2007). Using patterns in track plate footprints to identify individual fishers. Journal of Wildlife Management 71: 955-963.