The WOG : employee newsletter of the Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation, 05/2013

              W I L D L I F E • O • G R A M
Continued on next page.
Employee Newsletter of the Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation
May 2013
CONTENTS
Commission Summary.......... 3
2 Decades of Winging It ����� 6
Game Bag.......................... 7
LOYAL Grad True................ 8
Reelin’ in the Years............12
KELLY ADAMS
By Kelly Adams (IE)
and Don P. Brown (IE)
Surveyors seek species at Cross Timbers
ABOVE: Alex Rizzo (W) places a Sherman
trap baited with peanut butter and oats in
hopes of catching a rodent during a recent
species survey at Cross Timbers WMA.
LEFT: A Strecker’s chorus frog was found
on the survey, the first time that species has
been documented in Love County.
KELLY ADAMS
Knowing what species are present
in a particular area is important both
now and in the future. To that end, a
team of ODWC employees is engaged
in a year-long species survey of the
Cross Timbers Wildlife Management
Area in Love County.
The effort is being organized by the
Wildlife Diversity Program, including
Mark Howery (W).
“We’re not just going on bird-watch-ing
trips,” Howery said. “The point is to
document the presence or absence of
species and their relative abundance in
ways that can be repeated over time to
detect broad changes in populations.”
He said ideally, surveyors can return
in 10 or 20 years to the same area to
see if they find any dramatic differenc-es
in the species present in the area.
The Cross Timbers species survey
is the first such survey in quite a few
years. From 2002 to 2005, he said
species surveys were conducted on
Beaver River, Sandy Sanders, Spavi-naw
and Pushmataha WMAs. But over
time, the survey team fell apart.
Now, a new survey team has been
assembled. Department employees
helping with the species surveys
include Melynda Hickman (W), Alex
Rizzo (W), Buck Ray (F), Curtis Tack-ett
(F), Rachel Bradley (IE) and Kelly
Adams (IE).
Howery’s goal is to conduct at
least six surveys on the site during the
calendar year: February, March, April,
May, June. Then one in July or August,
and finally one in the fall. He said he
makes it a point not to conduct any
surveys during important times when
hunters are likely to be using the area.
Cross Timbers potentially contains
about 200 vertebrate species within its
8,200 acres west of Marietta, Howery
said. The survey team attempts to
document the various birds, fish, am-phibians,
small and large mammals by
using techniques that can be repeated
later, such as setting out traps for a
specific amount of time.
Even though these surveys are not
intended as a way to develop manage-ment
strategy, Howery said the area
biologists and technicians can play a
big part in the survey’s success.
He said the area’s field personnel
can provide a lot of information about
the area being surveyed, even though