January 2021

On December 15, 2020, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Service) found that adding the monarch butterfly to the list of threatened and endangered species is warranted but precluded by work on higher-priority listing actions. With this decision, the monarch becomes a candidate for listing under the Endangered Species Act (ESA), and its status will be reviewed each year until it is no longer a candidate.

Tools that can be used to accelerate development of reasoning and judgment by conservation professionals are now available on the Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies’ (AFWA) website. The tools are based on an in-depth assessment of the habits and practices of high-performing professionals. As previously reported by the Wildlife Management Institute (WMI), the 30 habits and practices relate to five broad themes: being critically inquisitive and continuously learning; applying multi-level, integrated systems thinking; exercising self-discipline; taking a balanced approach; and being conscious of interactions with others.

Online registration is now open for the 86th North American Wildlife and Natural Resources Conference! Links to the conference registration and draft agenda can be found by visiting the conference website.

The USGS Maine Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit is collaborating with faculty and graduate and undergraduate students in wildlife ecology, remote sensing, and computer science at the University of Maine to investigate the efficacy of using a variety of data collection approaches to survey colonial nesting birds in Maine. This study evaluates data collection platforms (plane, unoccupied aerial vehicles (UAV), ground surveys), data types (multi-platform imagery, real-time observations), and data collection protocols (e.g., UAV speed and altitude) for surveying nests and attending birds. The research team is developing protocols to collect imagery with UAVs with minimal disturbance to birds and to manually interpret the images.