Prioritization of Threatened and Endangered Species Sound Research on Army Installations

Abstract

Executive SummaryThis report represents the first year of a continuing study addressing the effects of military training sound on Threatened and Endangered Species (TES). The purpose of this study was to prioritize specific TES of concern from the U.S. Army Environmental Requirement and Technology Assessment (AERTA) species list.The primary objective for this project was to develop a prioritized list of TES for future sound research relative to military training sound effects. From these recommendations, future sound research could be developed, initiated, and established with the goal of protecting TES, while also allowing Department of Defense (DoD) installations to train to standard and maintain operational readiness.The primary research objective for future sound research will be to determine the impact of certain types of military training sound on TES. This will require the development of a dose-response threshold relationship for quantifying animal response to sound levels and stimulus distances, and relate these to reproductive fitness parameters.A second objective is to develop and disseminate cost effective techniques for documenting the effects of training sound on TES populations. These techniques include the capability to characterize sound stimuli, to document behavioral responses, and to determine resulting population level effects due to military sound. Achieving these objectives will provide a means to manage impact on both military training capability and TES, but will also provide a factual basis for mitigation and management protocols and guidelines. This research will directly address the #1 Army Conservation Pillar User Requirement, which is concerned with impacts of military operations on TES.Ten primary factors were used to develop a prioritized list of TES for future sound research on U.S. Army installations. These factors included: 1. Number of installations with verified occurrences of AERTA-listed TES; 2. Level and type of military-based restrictions and their affect on installation-wide training capability. Both temporal (e.g., land-use restrictions during the breeding season) and spatial (e.g., back off distances from known TES use areas with restricted activity zones) restrictions were taken into account in rating overall training level restrictions for each installation(s) where specific species occurred.

Recommendations for Improved Assessment of Noise Impacts on Wildlife

“…A threshold audiogram provides the sound level that the animal can barely perceive as a function of frequency (pitch). An audiogram of the study species is useful to guide interpretation of noise-response data (see Delaney et al 1999 andDelaney 2002 for examples). We present example audiograms (Fig.…”

“…The potential impact of noise on wildlife is a topic of concern (Grubb and Bowerman 1997, Hayden et al 2002, Pater and Delaney 2002, Lawler et al 2005 because of federal mandates such as the Endangered Species Act and the National Environmental Policy Act and because the nature of anthropogenic noise is complex and pervasive (Grubb and King 1991, Grubb et al 1992, Bowles 1995, Larkin et al 1996, Delaney 2002. Noise impacts on terrestrial animals can take many forms, including changing habitat use and activity patterns, increasing stress response, decreasing immune response, reducing reproductive success, increasing predation risk, degrading conspecific communication, and damaging hearing if the sound is sufficiently loud (Bowles 1995, Larkin et al 1996.…”

Training Restrictions on Army Lands Due to High Priority Endangered Species

“…Sound propagation and use of smokes and obscurants in this zone is prohibited during the times of year bats are using caves. Bat Management Zone 2 consists of a 1,932-meter radius around caves; sound production and habitat alteration is limited in this zone (Harland Bartholomew and Associations 1994, Delaney 2002, 3D/Environmental 1996a. These buffers equate to 130 hectares (0.52 percent of the installation) of training land during the summer when gray bat maternity colonies are onsite, and 280.3 hectares (1.1 percent of the installation) during the winter when Indiana bats are using their hibernacula (Shapiro and Hohmann 2005).…”

“…The Army is in consultation with USFWS regarding a translocation plan that would relocate tortoises on the installation to non-installation lands, with the exception of designated conservation areas. Pre-expansion installation acreage is over 642,000 acres; including restrictions on 20,000 acres of desert tortoise critical habitat that is off limits to all military activity with the exception of foot traffic (Delaney 2002). If the translocation proposal is successful, over 100,000 acres of the newly acquired land and over 19,000 acres of the pre-expansion lands would be opened to training (USFWS 2004 …”

Vibration monitoring results near a bat hibernaculum at Mammoth Cave National Park, Kentucky, March 2016

“…Disturbance of hibernating bats from human activity is recognized as an important element in the decline of Indiana bats within its range (Delaney, 2002). Arousing bats during hibernation can reduce fat reserves in bats and can affect species survival.…”