U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) Director Dan Ashe announced on August 12 that the agency was withdrawing a proposal to list wolverines as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act (ESA), according to the Wildlife Management Institute. Agency leadership determined that the effects of climate change were uncertain on the species at this time and therefore did not warrant federal listing.

New research from the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) found that insecticides known as neonicotinoids were found commonly in streams throughout the Midwest, reports the Wildlife Management Institute. The group of chemicals has increasingly come under fire in recent years as research begins to show impacts to species outside of the target insects.

The Michigan Department of Natural Resources recently launched a new program that is helping the Wildlife Management Institute advance its Upper Great Lakes Young Forest Initiative. The program, called Grouse Enhanced Management Systems (GEMS), currently has seven units in the state's Upper Peninsula and the northern part of the Lower Peninsula, with at least three more units planned over the next two years. The first GEMS site will be dedicated on Drummond Island in Chippewa County at the eastern end of Michigan's Upper Peninsula on September 4.

Over the past several years, the Arizona Game and Fish Department (AGFD) has been working with resident sporting groups and other interested organizations to take an innovative and proactive approach to combating the decline in hunter and angler participation. Through the Hunting and Angling Heritage Working Group (HAHWG), the AGFD has organized the leadership of various, sometimes diverse, user groups into a cohesive program of outdoor activities, particularly aimed at youth and other potential new hunters and anglers.

Conservation Briefs is a compilation of short news stories of interest to Outdoor News Bulletin readers. The stories cover a number of issues that have developed in the past month or provide updates on issues that were featured in previous ONB editions. Each story includes links to online resources for more details on each topic.

This Month:

Periodically the Outdoor News Bulletin will include job opportunities for projects that the Wildlife Management Institute is coordinating or supporting.

Latest Opportunity:

The restoration of Pennsylvania's river-otter, Lontra canadensis, population has been, by all accounts, a great success, and a study being conducted by researchers in Penn State's College of Agricultural Sciences through the Pennsylvania Cooperative Research Unit will soon quantify the accomplishment by yielding population information.