Dr. Hoof Stock

This  is the title of a book by Norm Owen-Smith, which has been influencing my thinking….

Jane facilitated a meeting with Education, Animal Care and Natural Resources, and Animal Health departments.

Kelley explained our goal: Sustainability

To refine a management strategy that will sustain captive populations in a manner that meets the needs for genetic diversity, herd health, social flexibility and ecosystem health.

Management options for collaborating institutions:

• Current:  Small enclosure setting- Year around conception–> run females with one bull and take away the young males at puberty; enclosures too small for more than one mature bull
• New: Large pasture setting- limit possible conception to several months–> trade out intact bull & vasectomized bull, to synchronize births to occur at seasonally good times for lactation, calf weaning, and recovery of female body condition after weaning.

We want to collaborate with other institutions to keep herds that are…

• Socially adept–> stable matriarchal hierarchy and bachelor groups to socialize young males
• Genetically healthy–> do not breed with close relatives
• At balance with the natural pasture (*sustainable–> natural resource management)
• Physically healthy–> e.g. we would be concerned if  the vasectomized bull was overworked because females continued to cycle at 2-3 week intervals when not pregnant.

Andrea Lewis is  one of the students from University of Louisiana at Lafayette, who came to

Fossil Rim during spring break.  Now she is finished with summer school, she wants to

complete her project and present it at a medical conference in November.  This post is where

we can exchange ideas about interpreting her observations and putting the info in the context

of the broader project.   We look forward to dialogue, Andrea!

 --- Jane

Please go to the PHOTOS page to see where we upload photos to picasa.

Here are instructions:  How to Upload Videos and Pics to Google Maps!!

Working together on a team that bridges the cultures of management and science is a tough task, one that we would do well to talk about more explicitly.  Here is an essay that got me thinking, so in the spirit of food for thought:

collaboration

Hofmann (1988 ) classified grazing ruminants into three basic categories along a continuum. These three categories are 1) the grass-roughage eater, 2) the intermediate feeder, and 3) the concentrate selector. Concentrate selectors are best illustrated by the white-tailed deer, the intermediate feeder by the goat, axis, and fallow deer, and the grass roughage eater by the cow.

The differences in the three categories of ruminants relates chiefly to the [change in] the rumen over evolutionary history. Grass-roughage eaters have the largest rumen relative to body size and have the most highly developed rumen relative to the other types. Because of the more highly developed rumen, grass-roughage eaters may subsist on lower quality diets that are less digestible. Digestibility rates are governed primarily by forage species and stage of maturity of the forage when consumed. Grasses, especially the C4, or warm-season, grasses are typically lower in nutritive value than are the diets selected by the concentrate selector. Concentrate selectors have a smaller rumen relative to body size and the least developed rumen relative to the other types. Concentrate selectors must choose diets that are highly digestible and have short residence times in the rumen. Typical diets include annual forbs and leaves, buds, and twigs or woody plants; these forage items are commonly referred to as browse. Intermediate feeders, as the name suggests, may subsist on either type of forage base.

Waterbuck are described in the literature as grass-roughage eaters. Thus, their forage base of choice will be the introduced (bermudagrass) and native grass species found at Fossil Rim. While the current population of waterbuck at Fossil Rim is low, [one hypothesis is that] exponential growth of the other species at Fossil Rim, in particular fallow deer, is creating increased competition for a decreasing amount of forage resources. [According to this hypothesis, t]he reason resources are decreasing is that woody species encroachment into the grassy meadows at Fossil Rim is reducing the forage base required by the waterbuck at the same time the number of competitors is increasing dramatically.

[If w]aterbuck calf mortality has increased recently [in the newborn age class, o]ne hypothesis for this [possible] increase might be that female waterbuck are not able to maintain adequate body condition during critical lactation periods, thus reducing the ability of the calf to adequately develop and successfully be recruited into the herd. Reduced forage availability could therefore affect either the female during gestation and post-parturition and subsequently impact the calf. An alternative to this hypothesis might be that the calf, post weaning, is unable to obtain adequate nutrition due to the intense competition for the decreasing levels of resources.

From a purely management standpoint, two recommendations would be made. The first would be to immediately implement a woody species management program. While certain levels of ash juniper will be required to maintain golden cheek warbler habitat, open areas must be maintained for the grass-roughage eaters such as the waterbuck. The other recommendation would be to reduce the number of animals at Fossil Rim. The current high population is not sustainable.

Larry

[For more scientific sources on this general topic of herbivore plant interactions, see  Bibliography ]

[editorial changes in brackets by Jane 6/19/08]

Here are some instructions that you can download:

How to Upload Videos and Pics to Google Maps!!

Another option is to convert a video in quicktime format to a flash file format (fle), using macromedia flash 8.  For clips that are 6 min, the optimal window size is 320 pixels.  If the clip is 3 min.,  a window size of 480 pixels should work fine.  It is a trade off among size, quality and the speed of delivery.  Using Dreamweaver 8 or 9, you can then insert the flash file into a webpage.  It will be imbedded with an automatic link to the software to play videos in flash format.

1. Go to mail.google.com and sign on with the information provided by our team leader

2. On the top menu bar, choose [more...] and scroll down to [maps]

3. Toggle the index tab on the left menu to [my maps]

4. Choose [Waterbuck One]

5.   Click on [Satellite] in the upper right corner to view the satellite photo

6.  For the [Collaborate] option on the left menu, click on [edit]

7.  Choose your icon, place it in the location, click and type in the date and time information, then upload the jpg file name for your photo.

We are thinking of counting proximity, aggressive interaction, courtship interaction, and following/leading by Lucifer. This is Renee’s directed study project for spring 2008.

Here are sample data sheets: proximity data form

Interaction Form

We need to know how castration and vasectomy of bulls influences their interactions with each other, the females and other species.  We are interested in their affiliative interactions (e.g. courtship, following) and assertive interactions (e.g. threats, displacements, head swing, sparring).   We observed Lucifer (vasectomized) and Toby (castrated and hand raised).

The initial management question was “Q1.  what are the weaning ages for all species at Fossil Rim”. The data compiled from the literature are in a table provided by Adam, which you can see on the above page [About Waterbuck]. However, we want to know if weaning differs at Fossil Rim compared to other sites. To answer the question, we need to agree on what we mean by “weaning”, because large calves may “comfort suckle” without getting milk. We know from other studies that age of weaning may be delayed when nutrition in solid food or water is not available to calves. To start answering this question, we are focusing on the Waterbuck. To provide a focus during our initial observations (Jan. 4-11) we chose to narrow our first question to “do calves of various sizes (small, medium, large) get access to a variety of food resources (milk, hay, grass, pellets)?”