Impacts of oil and gas development on duck brood abundance

Abstract

The extraction of oil and natural gas from reserves in the Bakken Formation has increased from 2004 to 2017 in North Dakota and northeast Montana, USA. High development areas overlap substantially with wetlands and grasslands identified as high priority for waterfowl conservation in the Prairie Pothole Region. To test for anthropogenic disturbance on waterfowl brood abundance, we conducted repeat‐visit waterfowl brood surveys during 2014–2017. We tested hypotheses about disturbance and brood abundance using hierarchical zero‐inflated Poisson models and a spatially and temporally explicit disturbance index within 3 radii (0.32 km, 0.64 km, 1.51 km). Model selection supported detection and abundance parameters that were consistent with previous research and suggested that brood abundance was higher in landscapes with high densities of small, shallow wetlands. Our analysis also demonstrated a negative relationship between abundance and the disturbance index for the smallest spatial radius (0.32 km); however, the effect size was small and predictions suggested that <1% of the broods in the sample population were affected. Considering this relatively weak negative relationship and the continued role of wetlands as the primary factor influencing brood abundance, we recommended that managers continue to focus conservation efforts in landscapes with high densities of small, unprotected wetlands, even in the presence of oil and gas development. © 2019 The Authors. Journal of Wildlife Management Published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. on behalf of The Wildlife Society.

Multiscale nest‐site selection of ducks in the western boreal forest of Alberta

“…While other evidence from North Dakota suggests a small negative effect of oil and gas development on brood abundance; however, the effect was only evident for a small percentage of the population (Kemink et al, 2019) and there was no evidence for pair avoidance during settling (Loesch et al, 2021).…”

“…In North Dakota's Bakken formation, nest survival was driven mostly by grassland cover and there was no effect detected from oil and gas development (Skaggs et al, 2020 ). While other evidence from North Dakota suggests a small negative effect of oil and gas development on brood abundance; however, the effect was only evident for a small percentage of the population (Kemink et al, 2019 ) and there was no evidence for pair avoidance during settling (Loesch et al, 2021 ).…”

Application of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles and Thermal Imaging Cameras to Conduct Duck Brood Surveys

“…Pagano and Arnold (2009) conducted repeated brood surveys along roadsides in the PPR to create a 3‐occasion encounter history for each brood, and used closed‐capture modeling (Huggins 1989, 1991) to correct for detection probability to estimate duck productivity (Pagano et al 2014). Walker et al (2013) used binomial mixture models (MacKenzie et al 2017) to estimate brood occupancy of individual wetlands, methods that can be scaled up to estimate brood abundance (Carrlson et al 2018) and duck production at spatial scales relevant to management actions (Kemink et al 2019). Although statistical advances have improved estimates of duck production, brood surveys—conducted from a roadside or by walking up to a wetland—are still subject to practical constraints, such as locating broods partially obscured by emergent vegetation (Pagano and Arnold 2009).…”

Integrating dynamic processes into waterfowl conservation prioritization tools

“…Brood abundance is often influenced by environmental factors like pond abundance, pond size, weather and climate (Amundson & Arnold, 2011; Bloom et al., 2012; Carrlson et al., 2018; Kemink et al., 2019; Walker, Rotella, Schmidt, et al, 2013). The inter‐annual variation we observed could reflect these environmental factors as well as high nest survival rates.…”

“…Both technicians and automated software techniques were used in combination to classify the resulting imagery. Specific methodologies can be viewed in previous publications (Carrlson et al., 2018; Kemink et al., 2019; Walker, Rotella, Schmidt, et al, 2013). We used these shapefiles in addition to data collected by observers during the surveys to parameterize the models.…”