Wisconsin Public Television

Transcript: In Wisconsin #910

Air Date: January 13, 2011

Patty Loew:

Welcome to In Wisconsin. I’m Patty Loew. This week, new scientific research on Wisconsin weather.

Man:

I always joke that Wisconsin hasn’t necessarily been getting hotter, we’ve been getting less cold.

Patty Loew:

The DNR launches a massive new study on Wisconsin’s white tail deer herd.

Man:

This is a way to involve hunters directly in the field research, alongside of us, and that’s exactly what we want to do.

Patty Loew:

This is a pine marten. See what new research reveals about its survival in our state.

Man:

There isn’t a manual out there that says, Heres how you introduce martens into Wisconsin.

Patty Loew:

Plus, It’s a perfect time to soar with the eagles on the Wisconsin river high above Prairie du Sac, next on In Wisconsin.

Announcer:

Major funding for In Wisconsin is provided by the people of Alliant Energy who bring safe, reliable and environmentally friendly energy to keep homes, neighborhoods and life in Wisconsin running smoothly. Alliant Energy, we’re on for you. And Animal Dentistry and Oral Surgery Specialists. A veterinary team working with pet owners and family veterinarians providing care for oral disease and dental problems of small companion animals.

Patty Loew:

About this time of year, some people in Wisconsin wish for warmer weather. New research at the University of Wisconsin on climate change reveals by 2055, our climate may look more like Missouri’s. But at what cost economically and environmentally? As part of our new quest environmental reporting project, In Wisconsin reporter Art Hackett started researching that idea last summer to find out what is being done to prepare for climate change across our state.

Art Hackett:

While arguments over climate change continued, scientists from universities across the Midwest have been at work trying to figure out what climate change will mean to Wisconsin’s economy and its landscape.

Alex Ireland:

Less so out here, but as we get closer to the pond, there are lenses of water and soupy peat material.

Art Hackett:

In the Northern Highlands and American Legion State Forest, Alex Ireland is mapping the shores and bottoms of wetlands to figure out what they were like centuries ago during a warmer past.

Alex Ireland:

As we go down core towards the point, we see seeds of aquatic plants and slightly less organic matter.

Art Hackett:

Ireland is from Lehigh University in Pennsylvania. Hes part of a team headed by UW-Madison botany professor Sara Hotchkiss.

Sara Hotchkiss:

Your back gets exposed to the sun sometimes. We’re studying how the level of the lakes has responded to past climate changes. Recently lake levels have been very low up there, and we want to put that in perspective.

Art Hackett:

The scientists are trying to predict what the area will be like in a warmer future. If the area changed from a lake to a bog in a warmer past, will it change back again?

Michael Natara:

You know the changes we’ve seen have been on the old end of the temperature scale. I always joke that Wisconsin hasn’t necessarily been getting hotter, we’ve been getting less cold. That really means that really during winter and springtime is where we’ve seen the greatest warming of our temperatures. We’ve seen a lengthening of the growing season by up to two to three or four weeks in the central part of our state.

Art Hackett:

Chris Kucharik is an agronomist overseeing research to see how corn and other crops commonly grown in Wisconsin will respond to warmer temperatures.

Chris Kucharik:

We might benefit from some of those changes. Extensions in the growing season undoubtedly are going to help us. We might be able to plant crops earlier, but you can’t go too early. I don’t see us planting corn in February at some point in time. Then we’re out of sync with radiation coming from the sun.

Art Hackett:

But thats only one part of this project. Researchers here in Arlington are studying new cropping patterns for a different reason. What if by growing something differently farmers could help climate change less rapidly? Kucharik’s license plate reads FIXCO2. He’s working with plants, which can fix carbon dioxide, taking it out of the atmosphere and storing it as plant matter. Trees such as these densely-planted poplars are an example.

Chris Kucharik:

Because its fast growing, it can accumulate a lot of biomass, basically woody biomass, in a short period of time. We can take a lot of Co2 out of the atmosphere, soak it up into the biomass, turn it into wood chips, pulp and things like that that can be used as biofuel or feed stock for liquid biofuels.

Art Hackett:

Other test plots contain other crops also suitable for conversion to fuel such as ethanol. Miscanthus is a tropical grass native to Africa, which can grow more than ten feet high. Kucharik says Wisconsin may be too cold for it, at least right now. Theres also switch grass. Kucharik says it incidentally served as an indicator of change. By August it was starting to turn brown.

Chris Kucharik:

It seems to have reached its point where it’s decided it’s going to be mature and it is going through its natural process that we normally might not see until mid-September.

Art Hackett:

Climate researchers point out that weather and climate are two different things.

Mike Natara:

A lot of times the general public thinks about what has been happening recently. For example, what’s happened in the last few weeks, last few months or even a year, and they think of that as more as climate change. But the problem with that is climate change and the warming that we’ve been noting really is about long-term changes over the course of decades.

Art Hackett:

But the winter of 2009-2010 fit the warming pattern. When we sent a photographer to take pictures for the story on September 15, 2009, it was 84 degrees, thats 12 degrees above normal for that time of year. These folks didn’t need to bundle up just yet. Nearly two months later the Almanac shows that on November 8 and 9, the highs were still 71 degrees. A fact that many people in southern Wisconsin likely forgot a little over a month later. Madison was buried under 13 inches of snow.

December was a little cooler than normal in 2009, but look at the other months. Temperatures were above average nearly every month thereafter. The University Ridge Golf Course opened three weeks earlier than ever. Is this climate change? We don’t know yet.

Michael Natara:

This is a high emission scenario. If you look in terms of the winter, now we’re talking, for example, northwestern Wisconsin projected by the end of this century to be about 13 degrees Fahrenheit warmer. That’s a huge change in what we know as Wisconsin’s winter. The length of the snow season for a lot of Wisconsin may be shortened by a couple of months later in the century. We’re talking about a dramatic change in the length of the snow season. There will be a lot of lakes that won’t be freezing.

Art Hackett:

Note that the projections shown in these maps are based on the amount of Co2 in the atmosphere. Over the past year, there was a back and forth in the media over weather global warming was something scientists cooked up or not.

Sara Hotchkiss:

It’s one of the most thoroughly vetted scientific consensuses ever put together. But of course, humans are humans, and there are some glitches and sure, oversight could be better. Its such a rock solid consensus that people generally have smiled a bit at the news cycle.

Chris Kucharik:

I would rather go out and talk about climate change and say no, we don’t have to worry about it. I would much rather give that picture to the public. I would be not doing my job in a credible manner and it would be ethically wrong for me to basically lie about the facts.

Patty Loew:

New research from the University of Wisconsin could help forecast thunderstorms and snowstorms. Satellites can detect shifts in the air above 15,000 feet, and that information can improve advanced warning on the ground. Researchers are now working on ways to get that information into the hands of radio and TV stations and the general public.

We mentioned our new adventure called Quest centering around Wisconsin’s environment. For more information go to QuestWisconsin.org for a multimedia approach to our environmental reporting.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is going ahead with plans to remove the gray wolf from the federal endangered species list in Wisconsin, Michigan and Minnesota. Wolves were hunted to near extinction in Wisconsin before they returned to the state on their own. But now theres a growing concern by some hunters that the deer herd has been decimated by predators. This week Frederica Freyberg shows you how the DNR is responding to those concerns with a massive field research project that’s about to get underway across Wisconsin.

Frederica Freyberg:

The man with the so-called H-antenna Chris Jakes, research scientist for the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources.

Chris Jakes:

Most of my graduate training was with big game research.

Frederica Freyberg:

Jakes experience with big game animals will soon be put to use with Wisconsin’s white tail deer. The animal is a state icon. Source of commerce and controversy. Hunting prize, and now the subject of two gigantic research projects brought about in part by the concerns of hunters. The first is called the big buck study. It’s a five-year project that will address this question.

Chris Jakes:

What is the percentage of bucks that die annually by way of hunting?

Frederica Freyberg:

At the same time, the DNR with conduct a shorter, three-year study on fawns to answer this concern.

Chris Jakes:

How many fawns are getting killed by the various predators, and at what rate across northern and east central Wisconsin? Weve got expanding wolf populations and there is evidence to suggest that our black bear population also is greater than we previously thought. Weve got coyotes. Weve got bobcats. And we’re trying to better understand the impact that all these predators are having on fawn survival.

Frederica Freyberg:

Two studies on the whitetail makes for one gigantic effort.

Chris Jakes:

It is the biggest in the history of Wisconsin. The buck study is a $1.5 million research project. We want to capture 90 animals, or 60 bucks, annually over two study areas for four years and radio collar those animals. In addition to those, we want to capture an additional 100 bucks annually per study area and ear tag those individuals. We’ll likely be capturing up to 4,000 to 5,000 animals over the life of this study. A big, big effort.

Frederica Freyberg:

They plan to stick to oh two study sites. One near Clam Lake. The other in central Wisconsin, Shawano, Waupaca, Outagamie counties. Large areas, and they have many collaborators including individuals.

Chris Jakes:

We have over 200 of our hunters now who have signed up as official research volunteers to help us out.

Frederica Freyberg:

Still, they need more.

Chris Jakes:

We especially need help with capturing animals. That’s a long-term proposition. We’re going to be out there for ten weeks every day of the field season.

Frederica Freyberg:

If you like tracking animals, this volunteer opportunity could be highly interesting with some unusual visuals.

Chris Jakes:

We’re going to be deploying helicopters with net guns. Well also follow up with ground trapping efforts. Rocket nets? Just a big net that is propelled by rocket canisters that we’ll shoot over the tops of animals. Drop nets.

Frederica Freyberg:

Capture, track, collar.

Chris Jakes:

This is what we’ll be fitting on the fawns. This is an expansion breakaway radio collar.

Frederica Freyberg:

There are many parts of these research projects that experts say play to the skills of hunters of all ages.

Chris Jakes:

We’d love to have all of these volunteers, if they have kids, bring the kids out. You know, the youth is our future and we want to get our youth hunters as excited about this. A lot of hunters have voiced concern that they aren’t listened to and their input is not valued. This is a way to involve hunters directly in the field research alongside of us and that’s exactly what we want to do.

Patty Loew:

For more information on how you can volunteer for the DNR deer research study, go to our website at wpt.org and click on In Wisconsin. There are additional interviews with Chris Jakes about the project and what hunters should do if they come across a deer with a radio collar.

The slow recovery of another animal native to Wisconsin continues to puzzle researchers in the northwoods. It’s a mystery that centers around an animal my tribe, the Ojibwa, call waubeshay. Its a small but very fierce predator. And the clan symbol for the warriors in my tribe. In Wisconsin reporter Jo Garrett shows you what is being done to save the elusive pine marten in Ashland county.

Jo Garrett:

This is a story we’ve been following for many years.

Man:

Did they climb a tree, jump off a tree?

Jo Garrett:

A mystery.

Man:

They’ll go in and out of the log.

Jo Garrett:

In the endangered species genre. A mystery to be solved by detective work.

Man:

That animal we caught yesterday? We caught her over here. Now shes over this way.

Jo Garrett:

Through tracking and elegant traps.

Man:

Look at that grass in there, for something for them to stay warm.

Jo Garrett:

And teamwork.

Man:

This camera here is the infrared, and that only works at night.

Jo Garrett:

The mystery centers on this animal, the pine marten. A tiny and tough predator. Weighing in at one to four pounds, this member of the weasel family was always part of the Wisconsins northwoods. The animal was driven from the state by fur trapping around the turn of the century. A recovery effort began in the early 1990s.

Man:

There we got her.

Jo Garrett:

Here is the mystery. Unlike other animals that have been reintroduced in the state. Pine martens have not thrived. In fact, over the last decade, their numbers have declined. Current numbers? Researchers estimate that there are fewer than 200 in the Nicolet National Forest, and only 30-100 in the Chequamegon. Heres the question. What’s the story with Wisconsin’s martens?

Jonathan Gilbert:

Minnesota has several thousand martens and Michigan has several hundred. So, they’re not quite the same densities, but both are apparently doing well and thriving. Yet, we’re stuck in the middle here with an endangered species. I think shes probably this way.

Jo Garrett:

Jonathan Gilbert is a biologist for GLIFWC, the Great Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife Commission, and hes studied martens for decades.

Jonathan Gilbert:

There are all kinds of fresh tracks all through here. She’s been in here. This is where she’s hunting and stuff.

Jo Garrett:

Armed with new, more precise information about exact specifics in habitat that martens prefer.

Jonathan Gilbert:

Shes telling me she likes this spot a lot. This is an important thing. Now Ive learned something from her. I’ve learned these stumps are important and those are useful places for them.

Jo Garrett:

Gilbert, and GLIFWC, and fellow researchers from the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources and the Natural Forest Service joined forces to start a new three-year recovery effort. Their goal? Thirty martens brought in from Minnesota every year for three years. For a total of 90 new martens in the state. How is it going one year in? Gilbert gave us an update on the first year’s twists and turns.

Jonathan Gilbert:

There isn’t a manual out there that says, Here is how to introduce martens into Wisconsin.

Jo Garrett:

One very nice thing that happened in study year one involves this study subject. Meet Cherie.

Jonathan Gilbert:

We put some of these trail cameras that everyone is familiar with now. We put it on a maternal den site, that is, where we thought where a female had young.

Jo Garrett:

In a first for Wisconsin researchers, they caught this. Cherie emerges from the entry to her den at the base of a cedar tree. Look what she has.

Jonathan Gilbert:

We actually got pictures of the mother carrying the young out of the den site. So it was very cool. And so we were able to actually document that reproduction was reoccurring.

Jo Garrett:

In addition, they found another pocket of pine martens. The area used for the recovery project stretches for some 20 miles in the Chequamegon. Thats larger than the researchers previous study area. And happy, it holds martens.

Jonathan Gilbert:

We found some martens down there that were native animals, that were living there, that had been there all along, and we didn’t know about them. They occur over a wider area. And there is probably more of them than we thought in the past. So that’s all good news.

Jo Garrett:

Understand, these woods are still way short on martens. A sustainable population is around 1,000 animals. They need 700 to 800 more. The work of these researchers trapping Minnesota martens is critical.

Jonathan Gilbert:

We wanted 20 females and 10 males.

Jo Garrett:

They almost got it. The first year tally was 10 males and 16 females. Keeping to that nearly two to one sex ratio was no an easy task. Gals like Tweak can be elusive.

Jonathan Gilbert:

Its somewhat of a challenge to get more females than males. They’re typically harder to catch. Males are more curious usually, and perhaps more reckless. They tend to go into the traps easier, especially young males. We’re all used to those. [laughter]

Jo Garrett:

Okay, you trap the animals, but then what? You’re looking at one of the biggest changes in the project protocol, this holding pen.

Jonathan Gilbert:

When we talk about bringing animals from one place and putting them in another, there are two ways you can release them, a hard release and a soft release. A hard release is just like it sounds. You go catch them someplace else, you bring them over here, you open up the door to the container and let them go.

Jo Garrett:

But the researchers wanted to keep the martens to the special pre-selected areas, chock full of the kind of habitat that researchers knew martens need to thrive.

Jonathan Gilbert:

When they take off and run away, they may be running from very good habitat to poor habitat. And we don’t want that to happen.

Jo Garrett:

So, soft release. Hold them for a few days. Get accustomed to the woods, and then just prop the door open and let the marten sneak out and settle in. Well, the martens had their own idea.

Jonathan Gilbert:

Once we opened the door and let them go, well, they tended to wander anyhow. I think the furthest one was 20 miles that he moved. And so, that kind of was not really meeting our objective of trying to hold them in the place.

Jo Garrett:

In addition, a few martens chipped their teeth trying to chew their way out of the holding pens.

Jonathan Gilbert:

Its not the whole tooth thats gone. Its just the tip of the tooth would be broken off.

Jo Garrett:

Still, unacceptable.

Jonathan Gilbert:

For a predator, that’s not a good thing. That’s what they use. Thats how they make their living.

Jo Garrett:

Their goal is to try to learn as much as they can about the species, but still protect the individual animal. It’s a constant trade-off.

Jonathan Gilbert:

Each animal has its own frequency on the collar.

Jo Garrett:

For example, without radio collars it isn’t possible to track the animals. Without tracking, there is no information on how the animals, like Frank here, are doing. But collaring has a down side.

Jonathan Gilbert:

More weight for them to carry when they’re hunting or escaping predators. They have to squeeze into tight places to hunt, like martens do to get mice, sometimes thats a negative

Jo Garrett:

To mitigate the negative, a trade-off. Before they started the project they agreed to collar only half the martens they brought in. One year in, they made another refinement.

Jonathan Gilbert:

We had an animal that was 450 grams. Put a collar on her and just looking at her it was like no, that is not good. We established a minimum weight below which we wouldn’t collar the animals.

Jo Garrett:

The collars weigh around 30 grams.

Jonathan Gilbert:

Putting a 30-gram collar on a 400-gram animal you’re getting close to 10% of their body weight. Thats too much.

Jo Garrett:

They still plan to collar half of the martens but the marten must top 600 grams. One more refinement in this three-year project.

Jonathan Gilbert:

It’s a great opportunity to work with such a, you know, such a cool species. I’m already thinking about the next steps. I’m warming to her. Yeah, you want to come out?

Patty Loew:

This past year 30 martens from Minnesota were trapped, 20 females and 10 males, and then turned loose in prime habitat in northwestern Wisconsin. We’ll keep you posted on their progress.

Once endangered but not anymore the dramatic comeback of the American bald eagle in Wisconsin. It’s an inspiration for other states. Every winter, bald eagles are attracted to the open water and prime fishing on the Wisconsin river below the dam at Prairie du Sac. This weekend is the perfect time to catch a glimpse of these majestic birds as you’ll see in videographer Frank Boll’s video essay.

Patty Loew:

Incredible birds to watch. If you’d like to see them soar, this weekend is the 22nd annual Sauk County Eagle Watching Days. Go to our website, wpt.org and scroll down and click on In Wisconsin for more details. If you go, they suggest you stay in your car for best viewing and use your car as camouflage.

Goat farming. Stem cell research and environmentally friendly airports are some of the reports we’re working on for the next edition of In Wisconsin.

Liz Koerner:

To ensure passenger safety in winter, airports like General Mitchell in Milwaukee use large quantities of de-icers, but are they safe for the environment? I’m In Wisconsin reporter Liz Koerner. Researchers are looking into the water for answers.

Art Hackett:

It’s a camp for kids to discover the science of stem cell research.

Woman:

And empower them and give them the confidence they need to think about a future career in science.

Art Hackett:

I’m Art Hackett. Ill put this unique camp under the microscope.

Patty Loew:

Plus, specialty cheese made from goat’s milk and made in Wisconsin.

Woman:

The one thing that we have that nobody else has in the tremendous history and heritage of cheese making.

Patty Loew:

See how goats could tip the scales in Wisconsin’s favor. Join us for those In Wisconsin reports next Thursday at 7:30 right here on Wisconsin Public Television.

Finally this week, we take you to the Brule River in Douglas County. The Brule is a popular spot year round and runs about 45 miles. The water flowing in the Brule River is much more reliable than many other surrounding rivers, due to its untouched quality. Enjoy the winter sunset and have a great week In Wisconsin.

Announcer:

Major funding for In Wisconsin is provided by the people of Alliant Energy who bring safe, reliable and environmentally friendly energy to keep homes, neighborhoods and life in Wisconsin running smoothly. Alliant Energy, we’re on for you. And Animal Dentistry and Oral Surgery Specialists. A veterinary team working with pet owners and family veterinarians providing care for oral disease and dental problems of small companion animals.