BRN 9-2 (uncompressed) - Flipbook - Page 63
Another example: As I happily surveyed deer at Mount
Elden one wintry December morning immediately after a
windstorm, I noted a thing of interest. The earth had about a
foot of snow on it and on top of the snow was a fair
scattering of fresh, dark brown pine seed. My Þrst impulse
was to randomly establish plots in the snow and count the
little brown seeds in each selected square meeter. But, I
repressed the feeling for fear that the snow would melt
before I Þnished counting. I felt the longing, and remorse of
the artist who fails to capture the beauty of a fading sunset.
To quote Goethe: ÓMore light! More light!Ó Actually, that is
not so profound - I once had a pet raccoon that could turn on
an electric light.
compulsive behavior, I decided it was time to connect the
dots.
I tallied all my dots by year for ponderosa pine for all trees
with and for all those without green cones in mid-summer.
For each year, I matched the percentages of pine trees with
green cones with the numbers of poults per wild turkey hen
surveyed the following summer in the Flagstaff area. With
nine years of data, I found a link between the pine cone
surveys and the numbers of turkey young per hen surveyed
the following summer.
On another occasion when I was surveying deer in winter
near Williams, I happened upon another Òmarble statisticÓ. I
noted wild turkeys feeding in dead needles under pine
trees. I also noted nearby that ClarkÕs nutcrackers were
doing the same. The latter species of bird also feeds on pine
seed. These observations piqued my interest because I had
not recorded any trees with green cones the previous
summer. I guessed that the birds were feeding on
ponderosa pine seed and that the seeds were over a year
old.
Back to enlightenment. I did have a vision at the time of
wild turkeys walking around on a crust of snow picking up
the pine seed. The vision was not real, but the probability
was. With a single observation, I realized that ponderosa
pine cones did not release all of their seed in late October.
These seed could be available for wildlife use into winter
when deep snow covers the earth.
The thrill of discovery in this case was tied to one observation or to what is known among mathematicians as the
Òmarble statisticÓ - it only takes one marble to tell which way
the ßoor is leaning. Mathematics on a roll?
To evaluate the possibility that turkeys feed on two-year-old
seed, I reran the analysis of pine trees with cones and turkey
poult data. This time, I arbitrarily multiplied twenty percent
times the percentage of trees with green cones each year
and added this value to that of the next year. The transformed pine cone data did a better job this time; they now
explained forty-nine percent of the variation in the numbers
of poults per turkey hen. The chances of having a match
between pine mast production in the fall and poults per hen
the following summer rose to ninety-seven out of one
hundred. In the world of wildlife statistics, these odds are
almost as good as a marble roll.
Of course, one person can not count everything. He or she
must rely on what others have counted, measured, and
observed. Thus, we have the joy of reading - and I have read
that ponderosa pine seed are the primary food source in
winter for wild turkeys in South Dakota.
Dr. Mark Rumble, another person who likes to count in South
Dakota, determined the number of calories per gram for the
mast of several plant species, including manzanita fruit and
seeds, ponderosa pine seeds, and overcup oak acorns. Of
these sources of calories for wildlife, the seed of ponderosa
pine was highest in calories per gram. In fact, ponderosa
pine seed was believed to be the number one reason wild
turkeys fare so well in the Black Hills of South Dakota. So,
after reviewing the information and after nine years of
And, because weÕre on a roll here; notwithstanding the
mental image of a fastidious dung beetle, a valid question
would be: ÒWhat does all this counting have to do with
wildlife management?Ó Well, if heavy pine seed crops
translate to higher turkey poult production and survival,
perhaps we need to look at what it takes to produce more
pine seed.
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