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Nonnative, invasive ants, and especially the red imported fire ant, Solenopsis invicta, are a widespread threat to ground‐nesting wildlife. In this paper I describe a method of controlling fire ants using hot water. The hot water approach was applied to reduce fire ant impacts on sea turtles and ground‐nesting songbirds and to demonstrate its utility in protection of different ground‐nesting species in different habitats. Fire ant controls using hot water provided 90% or greater control, significantly improving survival of both turtle and bird hatchlings, without the use of pesticides. The success of the method and the availability of necessary equipment shows that hot water control of fire ant populations should be considered as a tool for wildlife affected by fire ants and is useful for a wide variety of scenarios where fire ant controls are desirable or necessary. The method does require that 1) wildlife nest locations are known and that 2) nearby fire ant colonies can be found and treated with hot water. The method can be used as a complement to broadcast or bait‐station baiting strategies or as a stand‐alone method for managing fire ants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT Greater sage-grouse ( Centrocercus urophasianus; sage-grouse) are highly susceptible to infection with West Nile virus (WNV), with substantial mortality reported in wild populations and in experimentally infected birds. Although sage-grouse are hunted throughout much of their range, they have also recently been considered for protection under the Endangered Species Act. We used blood samples collected on filter-paper strips during the 2006-2010 Oregon, USA, annual sage-grouse hunt to survey for specific WNV-neutralizing antibodies that indicate a previous infection with WNV. During this period, hunters submitted 1,880 blood samples from sage-grouse they harvested. Samples obtained were proportional for all 12 Oregon sage-grouse hunting units. Laboratory testing of 1,839 samples by the WNV epitope-blocking enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (bELISA) followed by plaque reduction neutralization test on bELISA-positive samples yielded 19 (1%) and 1 (0.05%) positive samples, respectively. These data provided early baseline information for future comparisons regarding the prevalence of WNV-specific neutralizing antibodies in sage-grouse in Oregon. This methodology may provide other states where sage-grouse (or other species) populations are hunted and where WNV constitutes a species conservation concern with a viable option to track the relative prevalence of the virus in populations. © 2014 The Wildlife Society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reports on a paper in "Endangered Species Research" that says the population on whale sharks is slightly increasing in some parts of Ningaloo, Western Australia. The paper's authors are calling for people to help monitor and protect the fish. Author Brad Norman says that with the help of reliable data collection, numbers of whale sharks can be estimated and monitored. The article notes other studies that also report populations of whale sharks in different parts of the world.

Bird populations with flashier males are at higher risk of extinction. Conspicuous consumption has its price, at least in the avian world. For decades, biologists have presumed that the gaudy plumage sported by the males of many bird species must exact a toll. Indeed, one of the best theoretical explanations for the evolution of such plumage positively requires that it exact a toll: according to this model, the costs of gaudiness are an unfakeable signal to the opposite sex that an individual is otherwise fit and healthy. And there is a fair body of evidence to support the idea that males do, indeed, suffer for their art by leading more perilous and shorter lives. A twist to this tale has been reported by Paul Doherty, of Colorado State University, and his colleagues. They have shown, in a paper recently published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, that it is not only males who suffer the costs of luxuriant display. Instead, populations that have gaudy males seem to be at greater risk of local extinction than those of their dowdier cousins. Dr. Doherty studied how bird populations have changed in the continental United States and southern Canada over the course of 21 years, from 1975 to 1996.