Big‐game hunting is a valuable resource for outdoor recreation opportunities, an economic driver for state and local economies, and the primary mechanism for funding game and non‐game wildlife management. However, hunting license sales are declining, leading many state wildlife management agencies to re‐evaluate funding and management structures. Understanding the mechanisms behind such declines, and diagnosing the persistence of such trends is necessary to anticipate license fund fluctuations. To examine hunter recruitment and retention rates, we analyzed a data set of >490,000 deer and elk license records from 2002 to 2011 from the Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks' Automated Licensing System. We used a temporal symmetry model in a mark–recapture framework to estimate hunter retention, recruitment rates, and population change, and then used population change estimates to forecast future hunter populations. We used covariates of gender, age, residency, and license price to improve model parsimony. Millennial generation hunters increased during the 11‐year analysis, and this was driven by high recruitment rates of young hunters, especially women, but recruitment decreased dramatically as youth aged. Because Baby Boomers constitute such a large proportion of the hunting population, decreases in recruitment and retention in this cohort drove declines in the Montana hunter population. Increasing license price decreased the probability of recruiting and retaining hunters. The hunter population was stable until 2006, but has been declining since that time with nearly a 50% decline in hunter recruitment from 2002 to 2011. © 2014 The Wildlife Society.

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In western United States, both mine reclamations and renewed mining at previously abandoned mines have increased substantially in the last decade. This increased activity may adversely impact bats that use these mines for roosting. Townsend's big‐eared bat (Corynorhinus townsendii) is a species of conservation concern that may be impacted by ongoing mine reclamation and renewed mineral extraction. To help inform wildlife management decisions related to bat use of abandoned mine sites, we used logistic regression, Akaike's information criterion, and multi‐model inference to investigate hibernacula use by Townsend's big‐eared bats using 9 years of data from surveys inside abandoned mines in southwestern Colorado. Townsend's big‐eared bats were found in 38 of 133 mines surveyed (29%), and occupied mines averaged 2.6 individuals per mine. The model explaining the most variability in our data included number of openings and portal temperature at abandoned mines. In southwestern Colorado, we found that abandoned mine sites with more than one opening and portal temperatures near 0°C were more likely to contain hibernating Townsend's big‐eared bats. However, mines with only one opening and portal temperatures of ≥10°C were occasionally occupied by Townsend's big‐eared bat. Understanding mine use by Townsend's big‐eared bat can help guide decisions regarding allocation of resources and placement of bat‐compatible closures at mine sites scheduled for reclamation. When feasible we believe that surveys should be conducted inside all abandoned mines in a reclamation project at least once during winter prior to making closure and reclamation recommendations. © 2010 The Wildlife Society.

Effective conservation of rare species requires an understanding of how potential threats affect population dynamics. Unfortunately, information about population demographics prior to threats (i.e., baseline data) is lacking for many species. Perturbations, caused by climate change, disease, or other stressors can lead to population declines and heightened conservation concerns. Boreal toads (Anaxyrus boreas boreas) have undergone rangewide declines due mostly to the amphibian chytrid fungus Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis (Bd), with only a few sizable populations remaining in the southern Rocky Mountains, USA, that are disease‐free. Despite the apparent region‐wide occurrence of Bd, our focal populations in central Colorado were disease free over a 14‐year capture‐mark‐recapture study until the recent discovery of Bd at one of the sites. We used recapture data and the Pradel reverse‐time model to assess the influence of environmental and site‐specific conditions on survival and recruitment. We then forecast changes in the toad populations with 2 growth models; one using an average lambda value to initiate the projection, and one using the most recent value to capture potential effects of the incursion of disease into the system. Adult survival was consistently high at the 3 sites, whereas recruitment was more variable and markedly low at 1 site. We found that active season moisture, active season length, and breeding shallows were important factors in estimating recruitment. Population growth models indicated a slight increase at 1 site but decreasing trends at the 2 other sites, possibly influenced by low recruitment. Insight into declining species management can be gained from information on survival and recruitment and how site‐specific environmental factors influence these demographic parameters. Our data are particularly useful because they provide baseline data on demographics in populations before a disease outbreak and enhance our ability to detect changes in population parameters potentially caused by the disease. © 2016 The Wildlife Society.

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