A8 — BAKER CITY HERALD
TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 7, 2021
LOCAL & STATE
Biologists study climate change’s eff ects on elk
‘We are defi nitely
concerned,’
researcher says
By DICK MASON
The (La Grande) Observer
STARKEY — Rocky
Mountain elk in Northeastern
Oregon may fall prey to climate
change.
U.S. Forest Service research
biologist Mike Wisdom and
Casey Brown, a research biolo-
gist with the Oregon Depart-
ment of Fish and Wildlife, are
among a growing number
of people who are concerned
about the role climate change is
playing in nature. Wisdom and
Brown are helping conduct a
Starkey Project study aimed at
determining if climate change
will hurt Rocky Mountain elk
reproduction.
The study is not complete
and intensive data analysis
remains to be done, but its
preliminary fi ndings indicate
that climate change could
cause elk populations to decline
in Northeastern Oregon and
other areas.
“We are defi nitely con-
cerned,” Wisdom said.
The reason for the worry
is that rising temperatures
resulting from climate change
are reducing the amount of
time quality vegetation is avail-
able to elk.
“The nutrition window for
elk is shifting,” Wisdom said. “It
is more compressed.”
Climate change’s impact
Wisdom said cow elk now
have less time in the spring
and early summer to build up
fat reserves, which are critical
for having successful pregnan-
cies and producing the milk
needed to raise their calves.
“Lactating females have
higher energy demands and
thus are more sensitive to
climate change,” he said.
Brown said that in the past
the most nutritious vegetation
available to elk, grasses and
forbs fl ush with new growth,
were available in Northeastern
Oregon from early spring to
early summer. This vegeta-
tion is now available on a less
nutritious — but still valuable
level — from early summer
to mid-summer, followed by
a brown period when there is
little precipitation, from mid-
July through the fall, a time
when most of the vegetation
available is dried out and offers
little nutritional value.
Today, the best forage for elk
is available for about two fewer
weeks than before, and the
“brown” periods runs three to
four weeks longer.
“There is now a more
pronounced period of low
precipitation during the sum-
mer and fall,” said Wisdom,
co-project leader of the Starkey
Project with Darren Clark of
the Oregon Department of Fish
and Wildlife.
Brown anticipated, when
she and research biologist
Priscilla Coe started their plant
study at Starkey in 2015, that
they would fi nd less forage
was available to elk than three
decades ago. But she was
surprised by how much it had
decreased.
“It was greater than I
thought it would be,” she said.
Rising temperatures are
impacting vegetation growth
for a number of reasons, Brown
said. Snowpacks in mountains
are melting earlier and faster
each winter and early spring.
Previously, snowpacks would
melt slowly, allowing rivers and
streams to maintain strong
fl ows longer.
“Winter snowpacks before
provided a steady, slow delivery
of water to the region dur-
ing the spring and summer,”
Wisdom said.
Slow melts of winter snow
meant that moisture needed
for the growth of grasses and
forbs was available longer,
giving cow elk more time to
consume them and develop fat
reserves needed for successful
pregnancies and lactation.
Another climate change
factor that may be hurting
elk is that much more of the
precipitation the region is
receiving is now in the form
of rain rather than snow. The
change is hurting elk because
rain runs off faster from the
region in streams and riv-
ers, unlike snowpacks, which
slowly disperse moisture as
they melt.
“Replacing snow with rain
is not good for elk,” Wis-
dom said.
Jim Ward/Contributed Photo
A Starkey Project study is helping to determine if climate change is hurting Rocky
Mountain elk reproduction by leaving less time in the spring and early summer
to build up fat reserves, which are critical for having successful pregnancies and
producing the milk needed to raise their calves.
Groundbreaking work
Biologists understand how
changing weather patterns im-
pact the growth of grasses and
forbs because of extensive stud-
ies conducted at the Starkey
Project site in the 1990s by Coe
and research biologist Bruce
Johnson, now both retired.
The biologists measured plant
growth at plots there through-
out the year and determined
how changes in temperature
and precipitation in the region
impacted it.
Wisdom admires how
forward thinking Coe and
Johnson were when they did
their study in the 1990s.
“It took a lot of foresight,” he
said. “This was before climate
change was a major issue.”
The plant study conducted
in the 1990s by Coe and John-
son was followed by Brown and
Coe’s study from 2015 to 2019.
Brown and Coe measured
plant growth at the same plots
used in the 1990s study.
The Starkey Project, based
at a 25,000-acre fenced facility,
is a joint wildlife research proj-
U.S. Forest Service/Contributed Photo ect conducted by the Oregon
A Starkey Project study is helping to determine if climate Department of Fish and Wild-
change is hurting Rocky Mountain elk reproduction.
life and the U.S. Forest Service
at the Starkey Experimental
Forest and Range, 28 miles
southwest of La Grande.
The project is designed
to measure the population
response of deer and elk to the
intensively managed forests
and rangelands of the future.
Research at the Starkey Project
began in 1989.
Research done at the Star-
key Project is one reason scien-
tists understand how critical
it is for cow elk to develop fat
reserves needed for successful
pregnancies and to raise their
young. The Starkey Project site
is one of the places that body
fat levels of cow elk were mea-
sured during a breakthrough
study by John and Rachel
Cook, a husband and wife team
of biologists who were working
for the National Council for Air
and Stream Improvement.
The Cooks compared levels
of body fat in cow elk to their
pregnancy rates and their lac-
tation levels. They did this with
elk that were easy to handle
because they were comfortable
around humans after being
raised at the Starkey Project
site by the Cooks.
“They did groundbreaking
work,” Wisdom said.
Mountains of animal, plant
and atmospheric data have
been collected at the Starkey
Project site the past three de-
cades. It includes temperature
statistics indicating that in the
past three decades the average
monthly temperatures there
have risen 2½ to 3 degrees.
Such temperature jumps
are concrete and disturbing
evidence of a changing world,
Wisdom said.
“Climate change has
already occurred,” he said. “It is
not hypothetical.”
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