Saving species requires adaptability
Third time’s the charm
Pursuit of the elusive checkerspots
Slithering towards success
Quick release increases capacity
What’s the scoop on the turkey poop?
Letter from Lance
We live in a changing world. Conservation requires teams to be willing to try new things, to be constantly learning, and able to adapt in the face of new challenges. Much like the shrike family highlighted by Helmi in this newsletter, one of the most important things we can do as conservation biologists working with endangered species is to learn from each experience, adapt and not give up. This is when success happens.
The Ojibway Prairie Reptile Recovery Project in Windsor, ON, is the perfect example of adaptability leading to innovation of new techniques. The project’s initial pilot attempts to overwinter snakes began with the common eastern gartersnake in 2019. Each year since, the team has expanded the scope of the project, based on incremental learning of what worked, and what didn’t work quite as well and could be improved. This past season the team successfully overwintered two endangered species including: Butler’s gartersnakes for the very first time and massasauga rattlesnakes for the second year in a row. They also carried out experimental releases of Butler’s gartersnakes in the region, a world first and only possible because of knowledge gained from previous years.
Environmental DNA research to improve blue racer population monitoring in Ontario, and changes to management of the Taylor’s checkerspot butterfly conservation breeding program in BC are excellent examples where new knowledge and innovation have resulted from emerging challenges. The ultimate goal of saving these species from extinction and the overall trajectory and steps needed for recovery remain the same but the short-term needs rely on our being able to react to new information and external challenges as they inevitably arise.
Since WPC’s programs have grown by leaps and bounds, we decided to split our project articles this year between spring and fall newsletters. However, I couldn’t pass on mentioning a few other major highlights from 2023 that show the positive results of being adaptable:
I hope you enjoy this newsletter and are able to get a sense from this issue’s articles of the importance of adaptive management in conservation success.
Thank you to all of you, partners, supporters, and donors for joining us in this mission to save Canada’s endangered species from extinction. Wildlife Preservation Canada will continue to do whatever it takes to protect Canada’s biodiversity. We cannot do it without your support.
Dr. Lance Woolaver Jr.,
Executive Director
Eastern loggerhead shrike
(Lanius ludovicianus migrans)
Status: Endangered
Since 2003, WPC has been reintroducing loggerhead shrikes back to alvar grasslands in Ontario to bolster wild populations.
Eastern Loggerhead Shrike Recovery
Loggerhead shrikes face a myriad of barriers to their success. From habitat loss to inclement weather to vehicle collisions, these birds can barely catch a break! With only 22 breeding pairs confirmed in Ontario in 2022, each individual counts for the success of the species in our province.
Inhabiting merely one third of their historical Ontario range, the wild population exists in two pockets; the Carden Alvar and the Napanee Limestone Plain. This year, the Carden population suffered many defeats and was plagued by nest failures. With a conservative estimate of just over a dozen shrikes spotted in Carden this season, the future of the population remains uncertain. But through the doom and gloom there is a spark of hope for this predatory songbird, with an incredible story of parental resilience.
This year, one pair’s relentless nesting attempts truly paid off! Discovered before the deciduous leaves had unfurled, the first nest seemed like a picture-perfect shrike nest; nestled in the middle of a dense hawthorn on a vast native grassland.
The female diligently incubated the nest in early May, and all seemed well, until a cold snap hit Carden two nights in a row, reaching sub-zero temperatures. The next day, our field staff discovered that the eggs had been abandoned, likely due to the female keeping herself warm and sacrificing the first nest attempt.
Shrikes are considered persistent re-nesters, with anecdotes of females laying up to five sets of eggs before successfully raising a brood. But with each renest occurring later in the breeding season, the chance of young surviving decreases. The second attempt was discovered less than two weeks later, only 100m away and right next to a nest from last year. Alas, this second nest was also doomed for failure. In early June, three broken eggs were discovered below an empty nest: a presumed predation event. As the saying goes, if at first you don’t succeed, try and try again!
But insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different results, right? Our field team became worried when the pair was not spotted in over a week. Had they been spooked away from their territory or were they trying a third time? Indeed they were! A third attempt was discovered in mid-June with five eggs.
Somewhat hidden by branches, these five loggerhead shrike nestlings, around 10 days old, were the results of perserverance of their parents. Photo by H. Hess
Cautiously but hopefully, we monitored the site from afar, until the beginning of July brought the arrival of nestlings! We did not expect all the eggs to hatch, but these birds proved us wrong. All five nestlings were alive and well at their first nest check.
At each visit, we held our breath but kept being happily surprised. They had all survived to the branching stage (early exploration out of the nest into surrounding branches) and were facing their final trial before migration. This is often when the number of successful offspring declines, with mortality recorded between 33-53% in the first 10 days after fledging. Both parents must constantly feed the young and defend them from predators for weeks until the juveniles are finally independent.
Despite the odds, this family continued to stick together, and were seen as a unit five weeks after fledging! This goes to show, you can have all the statistics in the world, but animals can defy them and prove to be resilient.
A juvenile loggerhead shrike, spotted through binoculars at a distance of 30m, waiting to be fed by its parents. Photo: H. Hess
Through the ups and downs, the shrikes had an overall successful breeding season this year. We found 12 successful shrike nests this year, which fledged 37 new young between the Carden and Napanee core areas. Working with our breeding partner facilities, we also released 17 new captive-bred juveniles into the wild. We are hopeful that these new recruits will return to breed in Ontario again next year!
An adult loggerhead shrike on the Carden Alvar, keeping an eye out for predators around its nest. Photo by H.Hess
If you see a shrike, we’d love to know about it! Send sighting details and photos to birds@wildlifepreservation.ca
Native Pollinator Initiative
The new year for Taylor’s checkerspot butterfly recovery began for us as it usually does with our trips over to Hornby Island, off the coast of British Columbia, for our “butterfly release” in early spring. We put that term in quotes because it is probably far different from what you would imagine a butterfly release to be. The life history of this butterfly, the distance from the breeding facility to the release location (which includes three ferry rides), and the timing of our field work all mean that these are actually caterpillar releases.
One of the adult checkerspots in our conservation breeding program feeding on a cotton swab of nectar. Photo by M. Gardiner
We carefully place each caterpillar on preselected host plants throughout the suitable habitat. While this is always fun and a great culmination of the previous year’s efforts of breeding the butterflies, it’s not exactly releasing fluttering butterflies into a picturesque coastal meadow as many people would assume.
By the end of March, we had placed 1,400 caterpillars on plants at the reintroduction site.
Taylor’s checkerspot butterflies go through one whole generation per year, and can quickly be affected by lack of genetic diversity. We planned to have a complete colony refresh for the breeding program this year, beginning with new caterpillars from the wild. We retained some of the caterpillars from the previous year, in case we didn’t find as many as we wanted to add. And boy were we glad we did!
Field crews were unable to find any individuals at some of our historically populated areas. So they searched some of our tried and true sites, where caterpillars are usually plentiful, on perfect, sunny caterpillar-spotting days. But our crews found nothing. Well, maybe not nothing – they found four caterpillars.
Although we needed new genetic lineages, we moved forward with our season, hoping that like with many insect populations, a resurgence will naturally occur. We relied on breeding our retained animals, keeping pairs together to optimize breeding. By the end of August we had just 439 caterpillars – a far cry from our goal of producing 5000 per year.
Before the caterpillars went into late summer diapause in our breeding facility, we received some uplifting news from the field. Surveys at our reintroduction site sighted caterpillars during this time period. Not only were caterpillars observed but they were plentiful. Field techs counted more than 90 clusters of caterpillars, indicating that our spring releases had significant success breeding, laying and hatching in the wild.
Prior to this observation we had only known that our released caterpillars had metamorphed into adult butterflies and were observed flying. We had no confirmation that they were viable (meaning able to breed successfully) until we saw the clusters. We can now check that critical milestone off our list!
Seeing a cluster of caterpillars only a few cm in size is like finding a needle in a haystack. Photo by C. Junck
Next year we will focus on field work to hopefully solve several problems at once. Firstly, we will be timing our field work to more closely align with the warmer months to better assess what’s happening with the wild population, while increasing increasing our chances of again observing caterpillar clusters. This will provide us with the secondary benefit of increasing the collection of caterpillars, to refresh the breeding colony.
While the low numbers in the wild in 2023 impacted our captive breeding efforts, we, along with our partners in Taylor’s checkerspot recovery, are all the more motivated in our efforts to conserve this species.
Taylor’s checkerspot butterfly
(Euphydryas edith taylori)
Status: Endangered in Canada
WPC’s recovery program for the Taylor’s checkerspot butterfly challenged the team to pioneer techniques in breeding and releases for butterflies – an approach highlighted in the recovery strategy for this and other butterflies in Canada.
Kathleen Woodhouse, Lead Field Technician, radio tracking an eastern gartersnake in the Ojibway Prairie Provincial Nature Reserve in Windsor Ontario. Photo by A. Simeoni
Ojibway Prairie Reptile Recovery
For over a decade, our team in Windsor, Ontario has been working tirelessly to implement recovery actions targeting massasauga rattlesnakes at the Ojibway Prairie Complex and Greater Park Ecosystem (aka. “Ojibway Prairie”). Along the way, our team has successfully developed a technique for artificial hibernation of snakes and is gearing up for the exciting next step of our first conservation translocations with massasauga rattlesnakes.
We also recently expanded our efforts as part of the Ojibway Prairie Reptile Recovery program (OPRREC), with the addition last year of the endangered Butler’s gartersnake as our second focal species. Guided by techniques developed for rattlesnake recovery, we began steps for population augmentation of Butler’s gartersnakes at Ojibway Prairie. The increased efforts of the OPRREC team have made for an exciting 2023 field season.
For the first time in the history of OPRREC, three different species of snakes were hibernated in artificial hibernacula during the winter of 2022-23: massasaugas, Butler’s gartersnakes, and eastern gartersnakes (a surrogate species). For the second year in a row, 12 massasaugas were artificially hibernated at proposed release sites with 100% survival!
The success with massasaugas (and with eastern gartersnakes before them) provides evidence that our proposed release sites support suitable hibernation habitat. Success has also given our team the confidence to expand the artificial hibernation technique to Butler’s gartersnakes. Fifteen of these endangered snakes were artificially hibernated this past winter, as a first step towards the recovery of a declining subpopulation. Survivorship of hibernated Butler’s gartersnakes was within the range we previously observed in eastern gartersnakes of the same age class. Artificial hibernation provides us with a means to validate release site suitability, and also exposes captive reared snakes to a hibernation period prior to release—which actually may
improve translocation outcomes.
The OPRREC team continued its spring and summer monitoring activities at Ojibway Prairie in 2023, while expanding surveys into other areas of Windsor-Essex.
As part of Butler’s gartersnake recovery activities, our team continued to intensively monitor two subpopulations at the Ojibway Prairie and another two inhabiting natural habitat corridors in a more heavily urbanized area. We also surveyed 11 other areas across Essex County in an effort to reconfirm historical observations of Butler’s gartersnakes. We are thankful to the Essex Region Conservation Authority, a member of the OPRREC Working Group, who provided permission to survey many of their properties.
The OPRREC team was able to confirm the presence of at least one at-risk reptile species at 4 of the 11 sites, including Butler’s gartersnakes at one site.
This summer, our team took further important steps in improving snake translocation techniques. In preparation for massasauga translocations we conducted a trial release with four eastern gartersnakes, and applied a suite of potentially beneficial tactics.
The snakes were surgically implanted with radio transmitters, which will allow the team to monitor their movements, site fidelity, and overwinter survival. This information will help guide our choice of best tactics to use during massasauga translocations. We owe many thanks to Dr. Kate Sweetman of the Downtown Veterinary Hospital, in Windsor, who conducted surgeries, as well as Dr. Anthony Braithwaite who provided assistance.
Also this summer, we completed our first trial release of a small number of juvenile Butler’s gartersnakes, which were marked with small microchips (PIT tags). Our automatic PIT readers will tell us if any snakes return to the release sites to hibernate.
As we move into fall and winter, field work will continue on the OPRREC program in order to make progress in conserving endangered snakes. This winter will bring the second year of artificial hibernation of Butler’s gartersnakes, as well as a doubling of the number of hibernated massasaugas. Our first massasauga translocation is just around the corner. Stay tuned for exciting announcements in 2024!
A massasauga rattlesnake overwintering in an artificial hibernaculum. This is one of twelve rattlesnakes that overwintered in 2022-23, all of which survived. Photo by K. Woodhouse
Western painted turtle
(Chrysemys picta bellii)
Status: Endangered on the Pacific Coast of Canada
The western painted turtle can live to well over 50 years old — if they can survive their most defenseless first years. Turtles face a number of threats, from habitat destruction to hungry predators. WPC’s headstarting and reintroduction program ensures that young turtles survive beyond their most vulnerable development stage.
Photo by S.Winton
BC Reptile & Amphibian Recovery
As our butterfly and frog recovery programs in BC are winding down for the year, our turtle season keeps moving on. There were many great successes this year that give us immense satisfaction and will help to direct our efforts in the years ahead. We saw many of our headstart released turtles lay their first nests this year, including over 20 at one site in Aldergrove! This is amazing and exactly what we want to see from our release efforts.
Unfortunately we did have a mole at our nesting beach at Aldergrove that began targeting the nests. Because of our dedicated monitoring staff we were able to identify the problem, save some nests and remove any new nests that were laid and incubate them in our facility. This resulted in more than 100 hatchlings. The nests had a very high fertility and hatching success rate. Go team Aldergrove-turtles!
Since this population is now doing so well with released turtles having reached breeding age and is therefore no longer in need of additional headstarting we released the hatchlings back to where we had collected them without giving them the extra time overwintering. The mole can not predate the hatchlings once they have moved into the water, so the immediate risk was over and they could return. We adopted this method with some of our other release sites, taking in the eggs, hatching them out to assess viability and then releasing the hatchlings in the same summer.
This helps us gather information on the success of nests laid by our released animals, without having to dedicate the limited headstarting space to rearing them year round.
By optimising our efforts through hatch and release without an extended headstarting period, we are able to assist other populations that would benefit from reintroductions of head started animals. This includes Sunshine Coast and Texada Island which are more remote and the release of larger turtles will more rapidly benefit these depleted populations by shortening the time until the released turtles begin breeding in the wild.
We are also able to take in nests from landowners who have turtles nesting on their property, which supports existing significant populations. We can take in eggs from females hit by vehicles, as we did this year from a female who did not survive and whose hatchlings we are now rearing.
This season we’ve been able to provide rehabilitation to five adult turtles found injured in the wild, as well as one very special turtle to the program, 2-2 or as we call her Tutu. Tutu was found during monitoring, she is from Burnaby (site two) and is the second turtle we caught there, hence her number 2-2. Tutu had been tracked by the program for over 15 years.
When she was captured this year for a routine check it was noted that she had a new eye injury and seemed impaired in her other eye. She was taken to the vet for assessment and found to be completely blind in one eye and partial sighted in the other, likely as a result of a fish hook injury. The vet recommendations were either euthanasia or retirement in captivity.
The population of turtles at Burnaby, while affected by some hybridization with Midland painted turtles, is known to have unique genetics among its genetically unhybridized Westerns. Tutu is one of this genetically unique groups so we decided to give her a chance to live out her days in captivity.
Tutu, our new long-term resident, was injured and could no longer live in the wild. However, she is from a genetically unique population, providing tremendous conservation value to our program. Here, Tutu is tucked into her hibernation chamber to spend the winter safely in our lab. Photos: Andrea Gielens
Tutu will go into her first hibernation in our turtle winter chalet (fridge) this year and will be paired with a male in the spring. This is a conservation program after all, and while we might have to hand feed her, she has shown us with her past nesting successes in the wild that, in the safety of our care, she can continue to help save her species from extinction.
Female turtles don’t always lay eggs in indeal locations. Fortunately, our field team is able to rescue eggs and give them a chance at survival. Photo: S. Winton
Blue racer
(Coluber constrictor fox)
Status: Endangered in Canada
The blue racer was found across southern Ontario until habitat loss on the mainland pushed the population down to the last remaining stronghold on Pelee Island. WPC works with a provincial team of conservation partners to determine the conservation status and needs of the blue racer.
Photo by H. McCurdy-Adams
Ontario Reptile & Amphibian Recovery
The blue racer is the rarest snake in Canada with only one population found on Pelee Island in western Lake Erie, Ontario. This population is threatened by many factors such as habitat loss and road mortality. However, a recently introduced non-native resident of the island is also suspected of having a negative impact on the blue racer population: the wild turkey!
These omnivorous birds were introduced to Pelee Island in 2002 and their population has flourished since then. While wild turkeys feed primarily on vegetation and small arthropods, opportunistic predation on reptiles and amphibians has been reported. Turkeys acquire much of their food by foraging on the ground and turning over leaves which can expose and make small snakes vulnerable.
Assessing wild turkey predation on blue racers is challenging as traditional approaches require you to either observe a predation event, which is extremely rare, or to euthanize the animal and analyse the stomach contents. Fortunately, new DNA-based tools that do not require the capture or observation of individuals have been recently developed. It is now possible to detect the DNA of any wildlife species from environmental samples such as air, water, or fecal samples. This approach is called ‘environmental DNA’ (eDNA).
A multi-disciplinary team from Wildlife Preservation Canada, Queen’s University, Natural Resource Solutions Inc., and African Lion Safari have developed and validated a new environmental DNA assay protocol to detect blue racer DNA in wild turkey fecal samples and start to assess the impact of wild turkeys on the blue racer population of Pelee Island.
We used a cutting-edge technology named Droplet Digital PCR (ddPCR) which allows the detection and absolute quantification of tiny amounts of DNA by partitioning a sample into 20,000 individual reactions. We had two criteria for high-quality output: the assay must be specific (i.e. we want to detect only blue racer DNA and not other co-occurring snake DNA) and sensitive (i.e. we want to accurately detect and quantify blue racer DNA even at very low concentrations).
First, we built a blue racer DNA sequence reference database from blood samples collected in 2021, and we downloaded the archived DNA sequences of the co-occurring snake species in Canada and other racer species in the US. The sequences, as well as DNA extracts, were used to validate the assay specificity, showing that the assay doesn’t work on the DNA of 15 co-occurring species such as the eastern foxsnake, northern watersnake, or gray ratsnake.
We also used blue racer synthetic DNA (fragments of DNA artificially made in the laboratory) to evaluate the assay’s limit of detection and quantification (lowest amount of DNA that can be detected and accurately quantified in the environmental sample).
Finally, we ran a pilot study on eight wild turkey fecal samples and none of them showed traces of blue racer DNA. However, such a small sample size doesn’t mean that turkeys don’t feed on blue racers. More fecal samples are needed at strategic locations and during peak snake activity for a statistically robust test.
Now, the cherry on the top of the cake: this new DNA-based tool can be applied for investigating other factors affecting blue racers! For example, it can be used on water or soil samples in the future to help quantify blue racer habitat suitability and site occupancy to help preserve the imperiled Canadian blue racer population.
Far removed from the wild blue race population on Pelee Island, the Lougheed Lab at Queen’s University was the site for environmental DNA tests of turkey feces to indicate the turkey fed on a blue racer. Photo by M. Chatelain
Founder
Gerald M. Durell OBE
President
Shripal Doshi
Past President
Bridget Stutchbury, Ph.D.
Secretary
Randal Heide
Treasurer
Stephen Brobyn
Directors
Christopher Boynton
Jocelyn Brodie
Jay Bryant
Ron Cuthbertson
Tanya Davis
Ian Glen
Douglas Hart
Julie Wood
Honorary Directors
Chris Von Boetticher
Michael Chisholm
Eleanor R. Clitheroe
Kathyrn B.P. Dempster
Lee Durrell, Ph.D.
W. Paterson Ferns, C.M.
Louise Gervais
Craig Gilpin
Graham F. Hallward
Peter Karsten
Anson R. McKim
Stephanie McLarty
Stephen T. Molson
H. Alec B. Monro
William Noble
Pinar Ozyetis
Thomas C. Sears
Executive Director
Lance Woolaver Jr., Ph.D
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89171 0535 RR0001
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