We georeferenced Western Pond Turtle (Actinemys marmorata) and Painted Turtle (Chrysemys picta) locality records in western North America, compiling diverse institutional data sets, including data from 9 US states and Canadian provinces. For the entire range of the Western Pond Turtle and the western range of the Painted Turtle, we assessed counts of distinct locations from historical data, and analyzed distribution patterns temporally and spatially. Western Pond Turtle observation records were compiled from year 1850 to 2011, and Painted Turtle records were compiled from 1805 to 2011. For the Western Pond Turtle, 2935 locations were compiled range-wide; using a 500-m buffer criterion to aggregate adjacent coordinates to assess distinct localities, we consolidated these to 2111 discrete sites. We compiled 2953 locations for the Painted Turtle, which consolidated to 1219 discrete sites in the United States using the same 500-m criterion. The mapped data illustrate spatiotemporal patterns, which can be used to advance new efforts toward turtle management in northwestern North America.

Winter activity patterns of bats in the western US are poorly understood. The recent introduction and subsequent westward spread of white-nose syndrome (WNS) has decimated hibernating bat populations in eastern North America and created an urgent need for scientists to understand basic information about bat ecology during the winter season. We used acoustic monitoring to document the activity patterns of bats outside of 3 hibernacula in western Montana from January through April, 2011. Acoustic monitoring has been suggested as a potential surveillance tool for detecting WNS; however, baseline information must first be collected to test this technique. We detected bat activity during every month of the study, with activity increasing each successive month. Bat activity was highly correlated with temperature at sunset; however, we detected activity at low temperatures similar to those reported in the literature (−3.4°C). Almost half (47.8%) of all bat passes occurred within 2 h after sunset, and we recorded very few bat passes during diurnal periods (0.1% of total). We also found variation in activity rates among the 3 sites. This study establishes that bat activity occurs outside hibernacula during the winter season in western Montana and at temperatures not typically associated with bat activity. We recommend additional acoustic monitoring to document the winter activity patterns of bats and further assess potential use of the technique as a WNS surveillance tool in western North America.

Investigations of insular populations of Rock Ptarmigan (Lagopus muta) in Alaska over time are uncommon. We documented changes in spring density of Evermann's Rock Ptarmigan (L. m. evermanni) on a portion of Attu Island, Alaska, from 2003 through 2009. Populations were 8.5 birds/km² in 2003, decreased by approximately one-half in 2004 (3.8 birds/km²), and continued to decrease in 2005 (1.9 birds/km²), 2006 (0.8 birds/km²), and 2007 (0.6 birds/km²), reaching a low of 0.3 birds/km² in 2009. The overall decrease from 2003 through 2007, and 2009 was approximately 97%. We conclude the most reasonable explanation for the decline was poor recruitment (90% decrease from 2003 to 2006) of young (subadult  =  yearling) to the spring population, possibly related to natural cycling of the population. We could not identify specific factors to explain the low recruitment.