Notes from the Field
Subject: Forest Carnivore Study Update
From: Roger Christopherson - Wildlife Biologist
Hi
all,
Well, update #1 was met with such great reception that I figured more
of a good thing can't hurt. So, moving along, the past 2 weeks were
spent checking the 20 camera stations that we installed during the first
2 weeks of the project. Overall, things went extremely well. However,
there were some moments of harsh reality as we were pelted with rain,
sleet and snow while deployed on Ross Lake and the trials and tribulations
of contending with those bitter cold temperatures in the upper Stehekin
Valley when your fingers are so frozen they loose their dexterity and
ability to grasp a pencil. And the best part is when they finally come
back to life!!! Ouch!!! Or, how about the time a couple of us inadvertently
brushed against a tree harboring the essence of skunk lure! It would
ruin the fun if I told you whose chair we sat in next!! We love our
jobs!!!
Briefly, all camera stations were found operational and free of any
major technical malfunctions. This in itself was an amazing surprise,
given any number of things that could go wrong (ie., dead batteries,
connector cables chewed by small mammals, snow loading, flash inoperable,
film not advancing, leaky gaskets, corrosion of connector terminals,
etc.). However, from a nontechnical standpoint, we did experience a
couple of "situations" (but not "problems"). For
example, at a couple of sites the bait was nearly devoured or stolen
with no remains. Typically, these sites had a lot of detections, which
therefore exposed all the film prematurely. This is to say we lost a
couple of sampling days at these sites, hence they will require a slight
extension to meet the required 28-day sampling period. We anticipated
this happening and allowed extra days in our schedule to compensate
for this. It may mean an adjustment to the original schedule, but won't
affect those interested parties signed up for the week of 17 Mar. 03.
So,
what sort of activity have we documented? Well, during the 2 week period
we retrieved 6 rolls of film. Two of those have returned from the developers
and that's all I can report on at this time. One roll was taken in the
Newhalem Creek drainage where 23 slides were developed to include 14
shots of Pine Marten, 6 Spotted Skunk (skunks are important carnivores
too!), 1 Stellar'sJay and 2 unknown. The other roll was taken in the
North Fork Cascade River drainage where 24 slides were developed including
22 Spotted Skunk, 1 Pine Marten and 1 unknown. Furthermore, something
"big" managed to tear a gaping hole in the poultry wire used
to hold the bait at 2 of the sites in the upper Stehekin Valley. Bigfoot
or possibly wolverine!! Stay tuned for the next exciting update where
film is truth!
I'll try to include some explanations on what all this means in terms
of population indices, distribution, relative abundance, etc. Until
next time....see attached photos.
Cheers,
Roger
