Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center
Management Progress
Director's Office: Emphases this year have included developing growth in our research program, increasing proposal development for cyclical funding, increasing cooperative efforts with other Federal agencies, developing and expanding our Social Science activities, and expediting return of the Woodworth Field Station to USGS from Fish and Wildlife Service. This has been a year of transition for all of USGS. Director Kirby and several other staff have served on various "Tiger Teams," study groups, review panels, and the like, as the Bureau has attempted to fine tune and more completely integrate its activities.
 Recording weather station | Budget Process:
The $600,000 budget increase received in FY 1999 for studies of grasslands was at risk for decrease in the FY 2000 budget. Thus, much time was spent in documenting the value of the original program and preparing contingency plans for its demise. [These funds were ultimately restored in the FY 2000 budget.] The increment was used for substantial expansion of existing efforts and several new starts. This is the first time grassland ecosystems have been targeted for increase. We are pleased to be able to initiate this new work, and have found enthusiastic partners for this long-awaited expansion. We also received substantial funding assistance from outside parties for the Platte River studies, and continued to partner with the Fish and Wildlife Service and National Park Service on Inventory and Monitoring efforts, evaluations of management programs, and conduct of original research.
Staffing: Northern Prairie hired 11 Temporary Employees in FY99 and selected eight new Term Employees. One new Permanent Employee, Deb Buhl, graduated from our Student Career Experience Program (SCEP) as a statistician and joined the Support Services Section; Robert Gleason continued his SCEP appointment and degree program at South Dakota State University. | |
Northern Prairie provided support for all or part of the graduate program of 16 students and provided advice or served on Committees for 16 more. These students are in Ph.D., Masters, and Post Doctoral programs at 15 institutions including Colorado State University, Eastern Illinois University, Humboldt State University, Iowa State University, Michigan Technological University, Mississippi State University, North Dakota State University, South Dakota State University, State University of New York-Syracuse, Texas A&M University, University of Arkansas, University of Minnesota, University of Missouri, University of North Dakota, and University of Texas.
Contractual assistance was obtained through Jamestown College (16 students) and the University of Arkansas (one student). Research Work Orders supported 30 student technicians from Humboldt State University, University of Missouri, University of Montana, and University of Wyoming.
The Center augmented its paid workforce with yet another excellent class of 41 volunteers who assisted with field work, maintenance, and laboratory and office collections management. We also benefitted from the services of three students from Anne Carlsen Center for Children, which uses assignments at Northern Prairie as development curriculum for their students with special needs, and from the staff of Alpha Opportunities, which provided daily supervision of a Center employee with special needs.
FY99 staff are listed and an organizational chart is provided in Appendix I.
Transition: Emeritus Research Biologist Tom Klett passed away in September, 1999; former Flyway Biologist Jerry (Gerald) Pospichal in December, 1998; former Facilities Manager Howard Thornsberry in November, 1998; and former Maintenance Worker Vernon (Red) Gums in October, 1998. Each will be missed.
Photographer Ray Thielman retired in December, 1998, to devote more time to photography (now a hobby). He continues to live in Jamestown.
Emeritus Staff: Preliminary arrangements have been made with emeritus staffer Paul Opler to develop a cooperative arrangement with the Guanacaste Nature Preserve in Costa Rica. This will include supporting research activities, merging websites, and developing material suitable for all audiences on the tropical ecosystem.
Hal Doty reports he is still busy with his wildlife work, claiming a unique sighting of 66 Trumpeter Swans on the Otter Tail River (MN) impoundment.
Hugh Boyd is finishing the third year of a three-year term as Emeritus Research Scientist for the Canadian Wildlife Service. He has continued to concentrate on evaluating the effects of hunting and comparing hunting activity in the U.S. and Canada. In a continuation of work begun in 1949, he also has been studying geese wintering in western Europe. This includes work with colleagues in Denmark, Iceland, the Netherlands, and United Kingdom, and included a month in Iceland looking at geese during staging, prior to movement to breeding areas in Greenland.
All Emeritus staff were contacted for comment on the Waterfowl Working Group report. Their comments were most helpful in drawing final conclusions, which are now in a manuscript submitted to The Wildlife Society Bulletin.
First Center Director Harvey Nelson visited the Center this year as did Hal Kantrud, John Lokemoen, Ray Greenwood, Arnie Kruse and retired Refuge Manager and long-time neighbor, Harold Burgess.
Facilities Management: During FY99, we completed renovation and expansion of the Center's library, expanding its useful space by about 135%. This permitted moving stored books back into the active shelves, and consolidation of administrative records and the Center's archival research files. Broken sidewalks and door entryways were replaced, several furnaces were switched to propane from heating oil, and the major portion of work to complete a new heating, ventilating, and air conditioning system in the Riverside Complex was completed. The 1965 auto hoist was replaced with a new, safer model. The Center obtained two large dump trucks from the Indiana National Guard that stayed busy hauling rock all summer to rip-rap river banks that have been severely eroding, and a culvert on the main drive was replaced. The Center's controlled burning crew burned four fields and noxious plant control still occupied much time in summer.
GIS Laboratory: The GIS Lab upgraded its capabilities significantly with the addition of two Sun Ultra 60 workstations, an increase in the number of ArcInfo licenses, a Trimble PRO XRS GPS unit, and a Kodak Professional DCS 620 digital camera. Development of GIS coverages for the Red River Basin as support for the Red River Basin Wildlife and Recreation Team was a major Lab activity in FY99. Other significant efforts included development of wetland basin coverage with attributes from digital National Wetlands Inventory data for North Dakota, and importing and constructing Soil Survey Geographic Data Bases as data are received from the Natural Resources Conservation Service. For further information on the GIS Lab, contact: larry_strong@usgs.gov.
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