| | Accession Number | 5005288 |
| | Title | Adaptive management of releases to the Florida non-migratory Whooping Crane |
| | population: Integrating population viability analysis with adaptive management |
| | Project Description | The whooping crane (Grus americana) is one of the rarest birds in North America, currently with |
| | about 176 birds in the migratory Aransas/Wood Buffalo population, 97 birds in the recently |
| | established non-migratory Florida population, and plans to establish another migratory population |
| | between Wisconsin and Florida. Because the new populations are created by releasing |
| | captive-reared birds, and because captive-reared birds are always in short supply, the strategic |
| | allocation of birds intended for release is a necessity. In this study, we propose to analyze survival |
| | data from 10 years of releases in Florida, build models and estimate parameters necessary for |
| | population viability analysis (PVA), and couple this PVA with adaptive resource management |
| | (ARM). The goal of the ARM effort will be to characterize the strategic allocation of captive-reared |
| | birds to the non-migratory Florida population, using a decision-theoretic framework, while |
| | accounting for the considerable uncertainty we have about the long-range dynamics of this |
| | population and its environment. The final product of this project will be a set of tools the Whooping |
| | Crane Recovery Team, and its constituent members, can use to assist in making decisions |
| | about releases to the Florida population. |
| | Keywords | adaptive management, decision theory, endangered species, grus americana, population viability |
| | analysis, releases, survival analysis, uncertainty, whooping crane, |
| | Principal | Jeffrey S Hatfield, USGS Patuxent Wildlife Research Center: jeff_hatfield@usgs.gov; Michael C |
| | Investigators | Runge, USGS Patuxent Wildlife Research Center: michael_runge@usgs.gov; |
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