Wednesday, November 7, 2007 - 11:00 AM
237-6

Endangered Species Research at Fort Hood, TX in Support of Military Training.

Bruce MacAllister1, Tim Hayden1, and Michael Baranski2. (1) US Army Engineer Research and Development Center, US Army ERDC CERL, PO Box 9005, Champaign, IL 61826, (2) Jones Technologies Inc, Landham, MD 12547

This research on the Golden-cheeked Warbler was conducted on Fort Hood, Texas between April and June, 2006. Subject matter experts on fort Hood were consulted and helped determine which areas of the installation contained suitable GCW habitat but were not already included in The Nature Conservancy’s intensive study program. Researchers then surveyed one of these areas, documenting the presence of GCW, the numbers of birds seen or heard here and the demographics of the species within this new study area.  This research was conducted to determine if data collected in the intensive study area has been successfully extrapolated to other areas of habitat on the installation. 

Our data showed that territory density was lower than those found on TNC’s intensive study areas, which may be the result of a lower number of territorial males present here due to habitat constraints, but pairing success was very similar to the data collected by TNC.   However, the number of territorial males producing ≥ 1 fledgling observed in this study was considerably higher than TNC’s estimates.  This may be due to inaccurate identification of non-banded males the study area.