Survival and growth of northern bobwhite offspring post‐translocation

Abstract

Continual population declines in northern bobwhites (Colinus virginianus) have prompted the use of population restoration techniques in conjunction with habitat management to restore their populations. We tested the site familiarity hypothesis to determine if translocation to new environments affected offspring survival and growth rates of bobwhites. We used bobwhites from north Florida and translocated them to a study site in Brunswick County, North Carolina, USA, and monitored birds during April−October 2016 and April−October 2017. We used the corral capture method and modified‐suture technique to capture and radio‐tag chicks to evaluate offspring growth and survival rates of resident and translocated bobwhites. Offspring survival varied by year and age. We did not find any difference in offspring survival rates of resident and translocated individuals, lending no support to the site familiarity hypothesis with regards to survival. Offspring of resident bobwhites did not grow at a faster rate than offspring of translocated bobwhites, indicating a lack of support for the site familiarity hypothesis in terms of physiological development. Survival, however, is a more important metric for determining post‐translocation population dynamics, and our results indicated that translocated bobwhites can reproduce and raise offspring similar to resident counterparts, but both had low survival. © 2019 The Wildlife Society.

Edge density affects demography of an exploited grassland bird

“…Alternatively, predation rates may be density-dependent such that as bobwhite densities increase, so do mortality rates (e.g., Whitfield 2003). In previous studies, the primary cause of bobwhite mortality during the breeding season was predation (Taylor et al 1997, Sisson et al 2009, specifically predation by mammals and birds, as well as snake predation on chicks (Lunsford et al 2019). Furthermore, as bobwhite population densities increased, so did predation rates from avian predators (Taylor et al 1997).…”

Landscape Connectivity Influences Survival and Resource Use following Long‐Distance Translocation of Northern Bobwhite

“…The lower than expected survival rates on our study sites was concerning, especially given the timing of attrition on our sites compared to other studies. Numerous factors such as site familiarity, experience, and timing of releases are known to influence survival (Lunsford et al 2019). We did not observe differences in survival of translocated bobwhites between ages (adult vs. juvenile) or sexes (female vs. male), suggesting that accumulated past experiences and sex‐specific behaviors did not have a substantial effect on acclimation to and persistence in the novel environment.…”

Environmental and behavioral factors affect northern bobwhite offspring survival

“…However, the Lunsford et al (2019) analysis was done over a longer survival period (> 90 days post hatch ver-sus 21 days post hatch in this paper) that may have obscured the effects of rainfall that occurred in the first few weeks of life, that is, other variables affect survival later in the development period. Also, the importance of parental behavior was precluded from Lunsford et al (2019) because not all broods in that study were sampled as they were in this study not allowing the inclusion of parental behaviors. There may be a confounding or an interacting influence of rainfall and parental care that needs future study.…”

“…Brood capture, chick data collection and radio-telemetry methodologies are outlined in Lunsford et al (2019). Broods of radio-tagged bobwhites were captured when estimated chick ages were 4-6 and 11-16 days.…”