15th Annual Conference on the Adirondacks a Success

The Adirondack Research Consortium’s 15th Annual Conference on the Adirondacks was held May 21-22, 2008 at the Crowne Plaza Resort and Golf Club, in Lake Placid, NY. Lake Placid’s world class hospitality, combined with engaging conference speakers and presentations, and excellent networking opportunities, all contributed to a successful event. Nearly 150 attendees enjoyed a strong program focused on the “Future Sustainability of the Adirondack Park”. The final program and research paper and poster abstracts have been posted on the webpage.

The ARC is busy working on the program for the 16th Annual Conference on the Adirondacks, May 20-21, 2009. Please, mark your calendars! We welcome your thoughts and ideas in the planning process. Watch our web page as more conference planning information will follow in the months to come.

The Adirondacks featured on PBS

The Adirondack Park was featured this spring in a PBS special that premiered May 14, 2008. The feature included many folks that have been involved with the Adirondack Research Consortium since its inception, including Phil Terrie, Bill McKibben, and former ARC president Michael Wilson. From the program summary on YouTube:

Sprawled across six million acres in upstate New York, the Adirondack Park is by far the largest park in the lower 48 states. Yet it is the only one on the continent in which large human populations live and whose land is divided almost evenly between protected wilderness and privately owned tracts. Through the varied perspectives of many passionate characters, this program explores the remarkable history, seasonal landscape, and current state of the Adirondacks.

For more information visit http://www.pbs.org/theadirondacks/. For a sneak peak, check out the YouTube trailer below.

Research Notes: Black bears and human conflict

Recent research by the Wildlife Conservation Society on the habituation of black bears with human food and garbage could have widespread management applications. A May 10th article in Science Daily highlights research that suggests that, "Bears that steal human food sources are just as likely to form these habits on their own or pick them up from unrelated, 'bad influence' bears." The article also refers to research in the Adirondacks on the decline in human-bear conflicts due to the increased use of bear-proof trash canisters.

To view the full article, see:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/05/080507105606.htm.

Research Notes: Shifts in Adirondack winter deer yards

Research on winter deer yards in the Adirondacks was published in the February 2008 issue of the Journal of Wildlife Management by Jeremy Hurst and William Porter of SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry. Below is the abstract to the article, available at the website of the Wildlife Society.

In the Adirondack region of northern New York, USA, severe weather and deep snow typically force white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) to congregate in areas of dense coniferous cover and along watercourses at lower elevations. We examined 16 yards in the Adirondacks and explored the observation that deer have changed their movement behavior to incorporate residential communities within their wintering areas. We compared locations of deer herds in 2003 and 2004 to deer wintering areas mapped during the 1960s and 1970s. Deer were predominantly absent in 9 of 16 historical yards but were present in residential communities within the same drainage. Yarding areas to which deer shifted contained more residential, deciduous, and mixed cover than yards where no shift occurred, indicating that deer in residential areas were using conifer and mixed cover at a finer scale than deer in nonresidential areas. Smaller winter ranges and core areas of marked deer in a residential winter yard further imply greater concentration of resources available in these areas. Marked deer demonstrated flexibility in core winter range fidelity, a behavior that allows for more permanent shifts as habitat and food resources change or as new areas with appropriate resources are encountered. Our study suggests that low-density residential areas in lowland conifer forests may provide an energetic advantage for deer during winter due to the assemblage of quality habitat interspersed with open areas and a variety of potential food sources in environments where movement is typically constrained by deep snow. Managers should consider the potential for changes in use of deer wintering areas prior to land conservation efforts and may need to adapt management strategies to reduce conflicts in communities occupied by deer during winter.