Butterflies and Moths of Yavapai County, Arizona

Posted on April 13, 2017 by GarryRogers

My Butterfly and Moth Checklist, Yavapai County, Arizona is complete. The book includes species lists from the Butterflies and Moths of North America (BAMONA) website with minor adjustments from the Arizona Game and Fish Department (AZGFD). Conservation ranks are from the AZGFD website. All the species names link to photos and descriptions on the BAMONA website.

Yavapai County covers a large, diverse region in central Arizona. It includes mountains with mixed coniferous forests, foothills with evergreen woodlands and shrublands, and wide valleys with desert grasslands. My place is on the edge of a small riparian forest beside the Agua Fria River in Lonesome Valley. The site is home to many butterflies, moths, and other wildlife. The discussion and photographs in the book focus on this area.

The book has only 30 pages. I might have it printed for my use, but I don’t expect to offer it for sale. Since it has color pictures, it will be expensive to print (around $12). The PDF version of the book is free. Look the PDF over and let me know if you want a printed copy. If there are several requests, I’ll have it formatted and printed.

The PDF has some advantages over a print copy. It has fillable fields and links to species descriptions and photographs. Used on a tablet, it will serve as a notebook and reference for field use.

Specialists reviewed the species lists, but I proofed the introduction myself, never a good idea, so there might be an error or two. Please add a comment or send an email if you find a mistake (thank you!).

Arizona Wildlife Notebook Revised – #Wildlife, #Arizona, #Conservation

Posted on October 3, 2015 by GarryRogers

Arizona Wildlife Notebook

A new edition of the “Arizona Wildlife Notebook” is available.

In the year, 2015, lethal heat waves and storms made it clear that humanity was changing the Earth. Anyone who paid attention to the news knew that Earth’s animals and plants were disappearing.

This figure from the review by the World Wildlife Fund (2014) shows that, from 1970 to 2010, Earth’s animals declined by 52%.

I have come to believe that nature conservation is the great challenge of our time. Human beings are imposing a mass extinction that will eliminate almost all animals on Earth. We may not be able to stop this, but I believe that the Notebook will be useful for anyone who hasn’t given up and wishes to work to protect Earth’s creatures.

Arizona Species Conservation Status

For this edition of the Notebook, I added more information on conservation. The table below shows group status for species that AZGFD specialists consider critically imperiled (S1), imperiled (S2), and vulnerable (S3). It also shows group status according to the Endangered Species Act (ESA) for Threatened (LT) and Endangered (LE) species. I didn’t include butterflies, moths, damselflies, and dragonflies in this table because the status of most species in those groups is unknown.

Many species that the AZGFD says are critically imperiled are not given national recognition and protection by the U. S. Endangered Species Act (ESA). It seems that only after species are mostly gone that protection becomes available. Thus, the ESA achieves very little overall protection from biodiversity loss.

ARIZONA WILDLIFE CONSERVATION STATUS
Species Group	Total minus Exotic & Extinct	AZGFD S1+S2+S3	ESA LT+LE
Amphibians	31	18 (58%)	2
Birds	451	260 (58%)	9
Fish	40	40 (100%)	13
Lizards	67	27 (40%)	0
Mammals	189	64 (34%)	15
Snakes	76	35 (46%)	1
Turtles	10	6 (67%)	2
TOTAL	864	450 (52%)	42

The third column shows how many species AZGFD considers at risk. For instance, all native Arizona fish species are at risk, and about one-third of native Arizona mammals are at risk. Being “at risk” usually means that numbers are dropping. The principal causes are construction of buildings and roads, and invasive plants and animals.

Click–Arizona Wildlife Notebook–for a free copy of the 168-page book formatted as a PDF “fillable form.” If you like the book, tell others. Write a review for Amazon: http://mybook.to/AZWildlifeNotebook , or Goodreads: http://bit.ly/1Mkgmei. If you would like to review a printed copy of the book, send a note using the form below. Thank you.

Now that you’ve downloaded the book, you have a conversation-starter for tonight’s warm-up party for World Animal Day!

Help wanted on tracking biodiversity from space

Posted on August 12, 2015 by GarryRogers

“Conservation organisations and space agencies are being called on to join forces to decide how changes in biodiversity can be monitored globally. What, exactly, should be measured by satellites?

“Biodiversity refers to the different types of life found on Earth. While it is a measure of the variety of organisms in ecosystems, it is difficult to quantify because it cannot be assessed in physical units, unlike other aspects of global change.

“Biodiversity is not evenly distributed, but varies greatly around the globe as well as within regions. Among other factors, the diversity of all living things depends on temperature, precipitation, altitude, soils, geography and the presence of other species.” www.esa.int

GR: Here’s a new call: This post mentions a recent study that concluded that half of all Earth’s wildlife has died. That study did not use satellite information. If we relied on remote sensing from satellites, we would not know that most animals had died. We can’t identify animals or most plant species from space. We can’t see them, count them, or study them. We need to get all our spacers on the ground with clipboards counting animals. Of course, sitting at a desk, sipping coffee, studying a monitor is much more comfortable than being outdoors. But what will they do if all the animals die?

Annual Changes in Hummingbird Migration Revealed by Citizen Naturalists

Posted on March 25, 2015 by GarryRogers

By Victoria. “Imagine circling the Earth twice on foot while drinking your weight in flower nectar each day. That’s the human equivalent of what Calliope Hummingbirds do, by wing, twice a year, in their migrations between Washington and Mexico.

“Using data from the eBird citizen-science project, researchers patched together hummingbird sightings from more than 300,000 checklists across North America to track the central hub of migration over a five-year period. Based on the number of eBird sightings at different locations, researchers calculated the average location of hummingbird populations for each day. For example, of the estimated 2 million Calliope Hummingbirds in North America, some individuals were recorded by eBird participants during the study period from 2008 to 2013. Researchers used these sightings to then find the average location of all Calliope Hummingbirds each day and visualize overall movement of the species throughout migration” Source: Cornell Lab of Ornithology.

GR: Calliopes pass through my region, but they are rare here. What’s interesting is that checklists by citizen naturalists have made an analysis possible that could never have been done by ornithologists alone.

The Wildlife Information Centre – SBIF Conference 2015

Posted on March 11, 2015 by GarryRogers

“If you record or are interested in recording wildlife then we would love to hear from you. We can offer advice and support, access to some training and help with managing data and providing data to TWIC. If you would like maps, data or any other information to help you with your recording work then get in touch and we will see how we can help.

“Every year we organise survey work at a number of sites and are always looking for more recorders to help. We also organise public surveys, to encourage as many people as possible to get involved in recording. See the link to recording events to see reports of recent meetings and find out what is going on in the near future. We also occasionally put out special requests for sightings of particular species – see the Request for Data page.

“For help with the identification of particular groups see the ‘List of Local Experts’.”

Source: www.wildlifeinformation.co.uk

GR: Scotland has a smaller population than Arizona, my home state. Yet I am not aware of a comparable program here. If any of you Arizona readers know of a state supported program like this, please add a comment. Thank you.

P.S. Note that none of the wildlife information being collected could be acquired from space.

Majority of Threatened African Amphibians May be ‘Invisible’ Under Climate Change

Posted on September 5, 2014 by GarryRogers

It turns out that the majority of threatened species are “invisible” when using modern methods to predict species distributions under climate change. This is especially true when it comes to African amphibians, many of which are under the threat of extinction.

Source: www.scienceworldreport.com

GR: Simple presence/absence trends are lacking for most species. In Arizona, US, where I live, we lack status and trend information for even common, highly visible, groups such as butterflies (http://wp.me/p26kDO-2ZR).

Learn about species checklists.

Is Outdoor Observation Still Relevant for Nature Conservation?

Posted on March 4, 2014 by GarryRogers

Nature Conservation Needs More Observers

Ben Kilham argues that simple observations are still an important component of conservation science. Everyone can learn to recognize birds and butterflies and note when and where they’re seen. This is the argument I made in the Arizona Wildlife Notebook. The notebook gives Arizona residents and visitors a practical tool for recording animal sightings.

As conservation science increasingly draws from sophisticated models and genomics, does natural history still have relevance? Benjamin Kilham, a dyslexic who has made significant contributions to bear research, builds a powerful case for field observation in his book, “Out on a Limb.”

See on blog.nature.org

Arizona Wildlife Notebook Second Edition

Posted on January 29, 2014 by GarryRogers

Arizona Wildlife Notebook Introduction

Base Layer for Notebook Cover

The second edition of my “Arizona Wildlife Notebook” will be off to the printer (CreateSpace) as soon as I finish the cover. This edition has introductions and checklists for 12 groups of Arizona animal species: Amphibians, ants, bats, birds, butterflies and moths, dragonflies and damselflies, fish, grasshoppers, lizards, mammals, snakes, and turtles. Groups in bold type are new to the Notebook. The introduction to each group covers the group’s conservation issues and provides references for printed and online field guides. The checklist for each group includes scientific and common names and conservation status. I alphabetized each checklist by scientific name, and I included an index for all the common names. Continue reading →

New Arizona Wildlife Notebook

Posted on December 6, 2013 by GarryRogers

Arizona Wildlife Notebook, Second edition

I have completed the second edition of the Arizona Wildlife Notebook! The new Notebook has four more species groups than the first edition, and it has an expanded index. The most important change is in the conservation status for each species. This time, I standardized the information so that future changes will be easier to track. Continue reading →

Arizona Butterfly and Moth Update–November, 2013

Posted on November 14, 2013 by GarryRogers

By Garry Rogers

Arizona Butterfly and Moth Conservation

Two-tailed Tiger Swallowtail (Papilio multicaudata) Arizona’s butterfly.

Butterflies and moths are pollinators and they are food for other species. I know of no harm they cause to human interests. Nevertheless, many die from insecticide poisoning and others decline due to human removal of caterpillar host plants. The conservation status of these familiar animals is mostly unknown.

Butterflies and moths are not thought of as social insects, but they do interact beyond their feeding and mating behavior. I have watched two Monarch butterflies perched side by side patiently taking turns at a nectar source, and many of us have seen two or more individuals swirling around with members of their own and other species. Continue reading →