Conservation Target : Wild turkey & Ruffed grouse (Phasianidae Family) Management Goal: Promote hunt-able populations of forest game birds. Biological Conditions Contributed Service
Conservation Strategies
Unknown density/harvest rate/health, stable habitat Monitoring, Management History and Adaptive Process: Wild turkeys and grouse are two game birds that can be found in western North Carolina and on EBCI lands. Wild turkey ( Meleagris gallopavo, ᎬᎾ ) and ruffed grouse ( Bonasa umbellus, ᏛᏗᏍᏗ ) are significant game animals for the Cherokee tribe. Our office works to understand their populations and distribution across tribal lands. Both species can be legally harvested under certain restrictions (see tribal muni-code section 113). Grouse/Gobbler surveys were conducted from 2012 to 2020 during the months of March and April. During these surveys, a vehicle would stop every half mile for a visual/auditory survey on Tribal Reserve roads. Due to the nature of Tribal Reserve roads, which contain switchbacks and turns, we found that we were often surveying within the same unit multiple times therefore any observation of grouse or turkey could have been double counted- a.k.a. pseudoreplicated. This was evaluated as a methodological flaw that would bias any conclusions. In addition, wild turkey poult populations were surveyed haphazardly throughout the month of August from 2008 to 2017- but citizen contributions from newspaper and social media was too minimal to Provisioning, Cultural contribute to our over-all population evaluation. We also accepted hunter/harvest records during some of these years. These surveys were discontinued due to lack of hunter participation and limited staff availability. To help account for the lack of staff capacity and hunter participation, we switched to non-invasive monitoring techniques, such as passive acoustic detectors and camera trapping.
MANAGEMENT ACTIONS
Current Methodology for Conservation Strategies
Monitoring: Deploying passive acoustic detectors in Tribal Reserve and across the boundary during spring/summer months. Developing acoustic and camera-trap methods to identify game birds for occupancy and breeding phenology (peak breeding). Management: Using data collected to find the best times to record information on game birds. Continued management of wildlife openings for the benefit of game birds and other harvestable wildlife. Results and Discussion for Information Transfer and Processing Ecological: Passive acoustic surveys were missing more common species including Wild Turkey, and Ruffed Grouse. Management: A large amount of data is produced because of acoustic sampling. There is a need for additional training and the creation of an automated classifier due to limited staff and time for this project.
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