1:00 - 1:30 pm
Lynx and Wolverine Update
Kerry Murphy
Yellowstone Center for Resources

Transcript

Kerry Murphy:  And if you'll remember back from our lynx uh project,  our lynx survey and detection project  in Yellowstone it span from the planning stages 2000. And uh we started in the field work  uh which span 2001 to 2004. And it was essentially a survey  and we were there to document the presence and distribution of lynx in the park. And uh, before I get to far down the road I want to acknowledge my uh, coauthors, Tiffany Potter who was the lead technician on the project and spear headed the field operations managed the day to day affairs.  Pete Lundberg who succeeded Tiffany when she left.  Tildon Jones who is still with us today. Technicians on the project and  my other coauthors were Kerry Gunther who helped designed and implement the project and noted tracker Jim Halfpenny
who works for Naturalist World down in Gardiner.  So we had a (unclear) of technical expertise and professional expertise uh on the project.

Uh, so, uh, the project  involved two different principle methods of survey. Uh, the first method was in snow-tracking. And we have three ways in which we tried to detect lynx in the park via snow-tracking and that was one through the old fashion way and that was just get out there on skis.  Uh, the second was via snowmobiles.  Uh, we recognized that we could cover a lot more uh distance in the park by using snowmobiles and then we also used aircraft, both uh, helicopters uh and airplanes.  And all that was winter work and what we did was we picked the best habitats; uh we consulted the experts in the literature and identified what we called pride potential habitat for lynx.  And essentially was the unburned mature forest of the park  emphasizing the Spruce Fir Communities and mature Lodgepole. In the survey we excluded habitants on the Northern Range because through our cougar work both mine and Tony (unclear) follow up we had a good survey on the Northern Range and then we excluded all the 1988 burns or fires that were uh more recent than that.  So we didn't feel like we needed to visit those burns because the snow accumulation levels uh in those areas were such that they wouldn't support snowshoe hares.  As you remember,  lynx are highly tied, particularly in the winter  to snowshoe hares.  So no snowshoe hares,  you're probably not going to find lynx there. In the summer it's a little different story.  Abundance of small mammals that are vulnerable and uh, lynx can use those types of prey as an alternative. But uh, their distribution is principally limited throughout North America by the  her restricted to the distribution of snowshoe hares. So we have the snow tracking surveys going on during the winter and then we used the National Lynx Detection Protocol developed by the forest service and that was a national effort to detect lynx after it was listed in 2000. And we followed that survey protocol for the most part.  We had a large array of transects that we deployed on the east side of Yellowstone Lake and that called for transects  based at two mile intervals  on a grid and each transect consisted of about five of these hair snare stations.  And those stations were set up to attract  lynx. They had a visual attractor. They had  a uh, uh, pie plate and they had an olfaction or smell based  attractor,  uh, catnip oil and some other things. Uh, glycerin and some other ingredients mixed up that would attract lynx once they to the individual snare was sitting on the tree. So the idea is the lynx would see the visual attractor from a distance and then come in and smell the snare on the tree and be attracted to it.  It was impregnated with catnip and they would rub on it. We would come back  at two week intervals and collect the hairs and we sent them into the Conservation, uh, Carnival Conservation Genetics Laboratory in Missoula and they analyzed them using MTDNA analysis and uh, actually separated out the coyotes,  and the bears,  and the snowshoe hares and uh, the deer even that rubbed on these things. They could actually differentiate uh individual lynx. Not only lynx to species but their sex and if the quality of the sample was good enough they could identify it right down to individual.

So  essentially we had two different methods of survey going, one during the winter and one during the summer.  Now we deployed the  National Lynx Protocol grid on the east side of Yellowstone Lake and that effort was repeated from summers 2001 all the way through 2003. And then in 2002 and 2003 as well, we kind of drew from the national protocol equipment, the snares,  and the pie plates and all the design of those individual hair snare sites. And we just said, “Hey, we've got a little bit of extra time, we're going to go to the other best places in the park to see if we can detect lynx.” So instead of laying out a big time intensive grid like we did on the east side of Yellowstone Lake,  we went to the Gallatin; and then we went to the west side of Yellowstone Lake;  and then we went to the northeast entrance and we just put out various numbers of hare snare stations, varying from two to eleven and just trying to get hits by lynx so that we could improve our information.

So if I can remember the numbers, as best I can,  in terms of the survey effort in terms of snow tracking surveys I think we had ,uh, about 139 different surveys that we completed  over, uh, three or four winters and they totaled over 650 linear kilometers of transects. And those transects through the various winters 2001 -2003 were very well distributed uh, uh, throughout the park. Then onto 2004 since we thought we had accomplished our survey objective in detecting lynx in the first three years. Meaning we had a very widespread effort in detecting lynx in the park we focused our efforts of the east side of Yellowstone Lake where we already had detections in 2001-2003. So in 2004 we focused on the east side of Yellowstone Lake and that was an effort to document the minimum population size.

Audience: Laughter

Kerry Murphy: All right, ( I'm not seeing my screen here so do you want me to just run through? I'm going to have to skip ahead.... whispering.... so do you want me to just run through?) Okay, all right,  that works. Let's go to our detections. Again, uh we had surveys both winter and summer and uh, combined lynx detections totaled 10 over the four year period.  We had 3 definite. Definite would be DNA based detections.  We sent the hairs off to the lab.  We either picked up hairs along lynx tracks or we plucked them off of hair snares and uh so that was a definite.  That was DNA based. Probable was we're  following a set of lynx tracks in the snow and all the track diagnostics are supportive of lynx presence, and the snow accumulations, the wind and the sun didn't obliterate or make the diagnostics difficult to read. So that's a probable and a possible is you look at the tracks, and you say to yourself, “Well it could be a lynx but there's so much snow in the track; there's so much sun and there's so much wind we can't really tell whether  it's a lynx or not.” So for you guys I would put my bet with the three definites and  the probables and say well the possibles, well  maybe.”  All those detections occurred on the east side uh, uh, of the park and  in the central plateau area of the park.   And nine were by snow tracking and one was by hair snare. So in terms of survey effort it was much more productive in terms of that the snow tracking effort than the hair snare effort. And while I'm looking just for some reason looking at some of the rangers, I want to I want to thank and acknowledge the ranger staff and maintenance staff who supported the project.  Folks like Michael Keeter were very generous with their time in training our technicians and me and Kerry Gunther  in winter survival and that kind of thing.  It was very important that we had that kind  support and  very appreciative of  it as we are of the YCR support and the Yellowstone Park Foundation support for the funding.

Okay, here's  a lynx track,  the first one Tiffany found on the east side of Yellowstone Lake.  The diagnostics are all there.  It's a felid type of gait.  There's probably about six feet of snow and uh, given the flat type of terrain and dark  type of terrain there's not much crust on that snow. And so the individual uh lynx or about a male lynx would be about 25 to 30 pounds. He's not sinking that uh that deep in the snow.  There's only one other thing, that that could be if you followed that gait pattern and saw that consistently in the snow; there's only one other thing that could possibly be and that would be a mountain lion; but it's not a mountain lion because he's not sinking that deep. Also a mountain lion probably wouldn't walk that narrow log like there up there in that upper left hand corner.

Okay, to sum up the distribution of our detections.  Again on the east side of Yellowstone Lake there were 10 or 11 detections total. Uh, also slightly in the central portion of the park representing a minimum of about 4 individuals we detected offspring in 2002, 2003, and 2004.  One offspring each potentially uh with the same female. So we detected offspring in back to back years. The presence of offspring in the population indicates  residency.  You don't normally see nomadic large carnivores that are in the transient or nomadic phase of their life breed and produce offspring. They generally have to be familiar enough with the resources of the area to actually support offspring. So we probably have some semblance of a resident core of individuals over this time span. And that's key because up until this point as of  about 2002, we were thinking in the early years of the survey based on the information we had from Yellowstone and what the forest service had from their uh, national lynx surveys that they had done in the  ecosystem that possibly lynx had blinked out uh of the Ecosystem, very possible. But uh,  this information, especially Tiffany's detection in 2003 and  then Pete's detection with Tildon Jones in 2004 indicates again residency and breeding and possibly the individuals that were produced might be recruited into the population.  And this is kind of a self perpetuating kind of idea or hypothesis that we have that the Yellowstone Ecosystem is marginally capable of sustaining itself in terms of it's lynx population. As opposed to the alternative theory which is lynx produced in Canada and Northwest Montana where they have long standing well established resident populations produced lynx offspring that eventually emigrate from those populations and immigrate to the Yellowstone Ecosystem. Actually uh crossing I-90 and potentially augmenting our populations here in the ecosystem. There's very good evidence that lynx following high levels in Canada do migrate across the U.S. Boundary into Glacier Park and Northwest Montana and have an augmenting type of effect. Well, that hypothesis was also advanced for us as far south as Yellowstone that that phenomena might actually be occurring. So this is evidence that there could be some self sustaining aspect to our Yellowstone Ecosystem situation or at least the park.

Okay, in addition to our lynx surveys we also had the benefit uh of documenting all our uh other  large uh, and mid size carnivores known to be in the system, either combined using hair snares or based on snow tracking with the exception of the fisher.  That was the only one we didn't detect. So there are spinoff benefits.  We did detect 4 wolverines.

Okay, for the future of what we want to do in the park in terms of our lynx surveys, we'd like to repeat this survey say at five to ten year intervals to compare uh, order of magnitude population sizes as best we can and document changes in distribution in the park and also  it's very worthwhile to call individuals who submit siting records and get their phone  number on the observation form, follow them up and see if we can detect  changes in distribution in the park as well. Right now we're not proposing a full on study of the few individuals that we have on the east side of Yellowstone Lake because one the   logistics would be very difficult and  would require remote camps and intensive logistics; and two we're a little nervous about handling the only two or three individuals in the entire park population. So we are a little shy about that. So that's our future approach. Now that we've collected data for three to four years how are we going to apply it? Very important. Well I've been impressed with uh with quite frankly with how much utility the lynx uh, uh  how much utility the lynx data have had in the environmental planning and the section seven consultation process that we have to go through with the Fish and Wildlife Service. Under section seven we have to insure uh to the extent possible that our uh  our activities don't have adverse effects on the species. We follow lynx conservation strategy that was primarily designed for the forest service and the BL land and some of the other federal agencies that tend to be more extractive in nature. Well this document puts some constraints or tries to put some constraints on national parks. And it's a fairly difficult type of mind field to negotiate and having the lynx information that we have now has been very instrumental in moving ahead with the Fish and Wildlife Service in terms of the consultations. And of course, uh, for the future, uh, as I indicated  the lynx uh our present information will be very useful as baseline information.
All right, to put Yellowstone Park uh in the context we plotted all the lynx detections in the system from 1998 to uh present.  And uh as I said in the early years from 1998 to about 2001 we were operating on very few detections in the system.  So we had uh, we had a couple of radio collared individuals uh marked by the forest service.  We had  another detection in 2001; we had another one, uh from uh, in 1999 from the forest service hair snare grids and Sunlight Basin and the Crano Creek area and that was about it; except one detection we had in 2001. So the scenario then was was in my view was pretty bleak.
But things have kind of turned around very dramatically in uh succeeding years with our detections, more detections on the east side of Yellowstone Park.  Dan Tyres  recently uh got word back that he detections in 2003 uh of lynx in the North of Gardiner and another in the Cooke City area.  Here's a detection we made just by Happenstance down in the Paradise Valley; turned out to be probably a male lynx. Then the blue stars are lynx detections this winter made by uh Nate Byrd, a fellow who lives uh in Jackson  who worked on the lynx project.  Started it up; on his own survey and actually came up with what appears to be two to three individuals in both of these locations with reproduction possible. This may be a  uh, uh circumstance unverified uh of  lynx presence; a female  with a couple of kittens. So my point is the scenario for lynx is a lot brighter than I thought it was and the prospect for recovery uh of the species in the ecosystem is looking a lot better. With the recovery of the 1988 fires and the forest regeneration associated with that we might see uh various areas of  the ecosystem uh, uh,  much higher potential to support snowshoe hares and that in turn could generate an increase in lynx numbers. And I  want to thank and acknowledge all our uh various contributors. Uh, before I get into the wolverine uh project, upcoming wolverine project are there any questions on lynx?

Audience Member:  Is there any comparison on DNA between the Yellowstone ones and the Canadian populations?

Kerry Murphy:  They haven't run that analysis yet. When they accumulate sufficient sample sizes then they'll be looking at that a little more closely.  Uh, that various question reminds me to say that one of the lynx that Tiffany detected, the female with the male offspring in 2003, was in fact one of one of the detections they made at Togwotee Pass, one of the detections made by Nate Byrd  on Togwotee Pass  just this winter. So it appears that that male kitten, that one kitten actually survived  to disperse and then ended up down there at Togwotee  Pass.  Indicating that yeah there we are getting a little semblance of recruitment to drive the population and that's key.

Any other questions?

Okay, the wolverine project is uh going to be a function of  uh the Yellowstone Center for Resource, Yellowstone National Park and our partner the Rocky Mountain Research Station. The Rocky Mountain Research Station if you are not familiar with them out of Missoula, they are one of the research arms of the U.S. Forest Service.  So your typical forest service unit uh the Gallatin, or Shoshone or Bridger-Teton they don't have their own research function like we sometimes do within Yellowstone National Park.  They go to their uh, research stations in various locales in the Western United States to get their uh research information. Jeff Copeland is a wildlife biologist with the station.  He's the foremost authority on wolverines in the lower 48 states.  This is uh going to be uh his second or third uh wolverine study. Our other cooperators  are those National Forest Units were the study is going to occur.  The Shoshone, the Gallatin uh the Bridger-Teton our academic base  will be  the and reference point will be the University of Montana.  Wyoming Game and Fish Department will be cooperating with us as well; Kathy Thomason shop is a cooperator;  The Rocky Mountain CESU  out of Missoula and potentially Montana  Department of Fish and Wildlife Parks;  but there involvement is pending at the current time.  Morris Hornocker  my advisor for my outline project here in Yellowstone and noted carnivore biologist apply summed up the wolverine in the publics eye.  He said, “For centuries the wolverine has had a public relations problem. Indeed, tales of the wolverine's fierceness and habit of menacing trapper cabins and trap lines had lead to a negative public image that has impeded awareness of the species beauty and ecological role in mountainous areas. In the early 1900  Ernest Thomas Seton described the wolverine as a whirling, shaggy mass of gleaming teeth and eyes, hot breath and ferocious that chases grizzlies, mountain lions and other carnivores. The early historical accounts that demonized wolverines and disrupted picked them as almost supernatural in character;  probably from a basic lack of information about the species.  Largely because they are rarely seen and inhabit remote inhospitable terrain.”  Of course the wolverine is circumpolar  in distribution so a lot of our impressions and historical perceptions of wolverines stem from uh, it's behavior and public attitudes toward species in the old world.  Wolverines in Scandinavia prey on domestic reindeer and also prey on wild animals uh wild ungulates desired by hunters. So there's a natural  uh, propensity to think as the wolverine as a competitor; and some of that old world thinking and influence is carried over into, into uh, North America.

Regardless of it's reputation wolverines carry some very strong appeal for the public; probably because they insight our imagination and crystalize our vision of wilderness.  Certainly as much as the uh large North American carnivores.

So, who is this mysterious animal? Uh, in height he's approximately 15 inches at the shoulder; he is about 30 inches long. Typically they tend to be solitary, except for family groups associations of siblings.  The adult males are about 32 pounds at maturity and the females are about 20.  Wolverines have very large ranges and they are capable of very long range movements. Uh, adult wolverines range in territory or home range size from about 200 square miles to 400 square miles which is very large for their size. An individual wolverine is capable of a movement, easily capable of a movement that exceeds 22 air miles in a day.  So this is uh, uh, tremendous mover and he's got tremendous  uh endurance. 
Okay,  part of our lack of information on wolverines particularly in the New World stems from a lack of studies. The stories indicate the studies that have been completed on wolverine only 5 have been published and 2 of those are in the lower 48 states; In the Bob Marshall Wilderness  and a study done by our partner Jeff Copeland ,uh , in central Idaho.

Uh, the Rocky Mountain Research Station and the Wildlife Conservation Society, uh, currently have 2 studies that are ongoing. The RMS studies are in the Pioneer Range of South Central Montana and Glacier National Park and the WCS studies are in the Madison-Gravely Centennial Range  that complex there and uh south of us in the Teton Range. So we see our effort as an opportunity to collaborate with these guys and where appropriate  combined data sets uh because we expect some pretty low sample sizes to go with such a low density critter on the landscape. We do have wolverines in the park.  Our  sighting records as of about 2002 had 182 different sightings and of course they are going to vary uh in quality. And more recently we do have good uh sightings from ranger staff and fire suppression staff of wolverines on the east side of the park.  So,we know that they are there; there's no question about that.  I saw one at Sportsman Lake as I said in the lynx slide show, we detected 4 wolverines total park wide and 2 of those were on the east side.

So, Why would we want to study wolverines in our system? First  is we have uh tremendous lack of basic information that drives processors or can drive processors such environmental planning and consultation if the species is listed.  Always liken our lack of information to a grandfather clock.  If you've ever messed with a grandfather clock, tried to fix it, it's broken you soon find out that if you don't understand how it works you're in trouble. And it's the same thing with our uh understanding uh effects various effects of park activities on resources.  You have to know the basics, the basic ecology of the animal;  it's movement patterns and density and those kinds of things if you're going to effectively work to conserve it.
There's some preliminary indications that wolverines are sensitive to human activity, particularly snowmobile disturbance and skiers disturbance around the natal denning period uh in the high elevation areas.  And that occurs during uh late February and March.

So there are some early indications of sensitivity there.  All three forest service regions in this area have identified the wolverine as a species of special concern. Likewise the BLM mostly because the species  because wolverines tend to breed late in their lives.  Uh, they start breeding at three years of age and they of course a species inherently low density. There is a propensity for them to blink out simply because of those parameters.

Wolverines have been petitioned for listing twice, uh and twice those petitions have been denied. But we think wolverines may be going on the same track as lynx did  for lynx there's repeated petitions and denials then eventually they were listed in 2000. Uh, the timing is right.  The other agencies are highly supportive of inter-agency based study on the east side of the park and the expertise is able through the Rocky Mountain Research Station. And we see it as an opportunity as well for public education and outreach. And I'll talk about that.

How are we doing to date for the study? We've identified various milestones we, uh, need to hit to get started.  We identified our forest service cooperators and state agencies.  We quarried wildlife biologist in the east side of the system to find out what they thought the information needs should be.  We obtained partial funding through  uh, Kathy's Shop Forest Service and partial through Yellowstone Park Foundation.  We've completed a draft study plan and we've initiated the process to obtain the necessary permits uh for Yellowstone two weeks ago we applied to and received approval on our study plan within Yellowstone Park. And that was granted by the Research Improvement Review Committee. So we're real happy about that.  What we  have to go through a similar process with state agencies and uh the Forest Service.  So if all goes well, uh, our time table is to start constructing traps, uh, that will capture the wolverines,  (I'll describe those in a minute) in this summer.

Our, uh, objectives are fairly boiler plate fairly basic. This is the first study of wolverines uh in  the park. They relate to breeding and residency status, demographic characteristics, den sites, uh, linkage between the, uh, Yellowstone Ecosystem, uh, and other populations in the Northern Rockies and  something unique their  possibility of interactions with other carnivores.

We also have and educational goal. We think, uh, we can change public attitudes, at least on our periphery and among park visitors. We think this is an important, uh, step or we need to make progress toward reshaping the publics view of the species so we can in gender conservation support.  Here's a polygon of the study area.  It's a uh, in the most expansive  kind of a approach which would include the Gallatin, portions of the Gallatin National Forest if we obtain a permit to trap through Montana Fish Wildlife and Parks; extending all the way South to the South Fork of the Shoshone. This is again an inherently low density species and you need a large area  to accumulate the sample sizes of marked individuals. But of course we won't be able to cover that area, at least not right off the bat.  We are going to focus our efforts basically between uh, the two roads that extend from Cody to the, uh, Northeast Entrance and from Cody to Sylvan Pass.  So part of that core area of 3,800 square miles, uh, includes the east side of Yellowstone Park and a majority of the Shoshone.

Okay, that area  of course encompasses the uh, the uh, Absaroka Spine and it's a high elevation area.  Wolverines typically inhabit areas greater than 8,000 feet. And this area has the requisite elevations to support wolverine.  The areas wilderness and character as you know and will provide a nice reference area for the WCS Study sites and the Rocky Mountain Research Station sites that tend to have more recreation associated with them.  So we will in effect it will be sort of a reference or control area for those areas as well.

Here's a picture of the trap type that we are going to uh deploy and the trap of course is constructed of logs.  We've already got the logs stored down at Stevens Creek.  Some of the maintenance staff a couple of years ago were kind enough to put those and leave those there for us and we think we can carry these things 100 to 200 yards into the woods away from the roads. The Cody road to Northeast Entrance and down Soda Butte and then the east side road, Sylvan Pass, Cub Creek and those areas; just 100 to 200 yards off the road.  They need to be accessible so that when we catch a wolverine we can get a veterinarian uh into the site. The trap has a hinge door on top; we'll bait it with road killed ungulates or beaver carcasses. And there's a little mechanism in the back with a uh, uh, a  vise(unclear) such that when the animal pulls on the vise (unclear) or pulls on the bait it pulls a cable in a crack in the logs and it triggers the vise (unclear) and the trap shuts.

Okay, this is what the trap looks like when it's deployed. Snowy types  conditions we'll have the bait hanging in the trees, not shown there;  that'll kind of an olfaction attractor. And that will bring wolverines.  They can detect, uh, scent, a bait that's hung in a tree for 2 miles away.  Amazing animal.

Okay, when we have a wolverine in a trap, we use a little push-pull to immobilize it. Pull it out of the trap we can instrument it with uh GPS based transmitters and new technologies. Uh, allow for that even meeting the size constraints of the animal and will be able to monitor the uh,  animals position either through satellites, through remote downloads on the ground or from the the air or store onboard technology.
And they've had reasonably good success with this and Rocky Mountain Research Station for wolverine and lynx. Uh, but the technology is always iffy and uh as a back-up we plan to instrument wolverines in their uh, their abdominal cavity. Uh, a little uh implant transmitter and that would be a back-up in case the radio collar failed.  And this would be done by a veterinarian. That's one of the reasons why we need to have the traps near roads.  We need to get a veterinarian to the site to do the work relatively quickly. The combined weight of the implant transmitter and the collar is less than 4% of animal weight which is perfectly reasonable.

Okay, the implant transmitter if appropriate and we need to do it we can piggy-back with
other projects or initiation or own flights but we're hoping we won't have to have frequent flights to do the project for a lot of different reasons.  Uh, but if need be, uh, we'll use, uh aircraft to track the animals.  During the Spring we'll pick up the number of aircraft based,  aircraft flights to find wolverine dens. This is a series of dens used by a wolverine in a high in (unclear) in Glacier Park.  And we uh need to document characteristics of those dens and then later what we'd like to do  is uh when there's sensitivity to disturbance to  (unclear) and their rendevouz sites or nearly out of the dens we can  capture them there and  if we can get a wolverine to the site,( yeah with chuckle), a veterinarian to the site  we'll implant them as well.

Another component of the project is snow-tracking wolverines on an opportunistic basis.  We want to document fine scale habitat selection. How they move with respect to natural features and uh, anthropogenetic features like roads and that kind of thing; this gives a very fine scale type of information. As I indicated uh, we have uh and objective for community outreach and education. We're going to partner with Janet Ambrose  and Bob Furman summer 1996  to outreach to kids in the community and those that visit the park and uh try and uh provide them wolverine information and get them thinking in the conservation bent and  then also of course we'll pursue  the traditional means of interpretation in getting the words out about the project and the values of the species.

So, to sum up the project, it was driven by a strong need for information not only within
Yellowstone Park but the other agencies as well. The project is sanctioned by the Greater Yellowstone Coordinating Committee.  They see the need for it and our inner agency partners Forest Service Individual Units and the Rocky Mountain Research Stations see the need as well. Uh, we have and education and outreach program.   We think we can actually change values of some people, particularly children.  And we've obtained partial funding for the project.  Are there any questions? Yeap

Audience Member:   Um, the GPS collars;. Are you going to collect data  at about the same rate  that you are for the wolf collars

Kerry Murphy:  It will be variable.  Initially, we will specify, well not initially, it will be variable.  It can be we may specify the programing the collar once every two hours or maybe as little as three times per day.

Audience Member:  And you can program that depending on the seasons?

Kerry Murphy:   You bet, you bet!

Audience Member:  Can you describe the other transmitting system?

Kerry Murphy: The implant?

Audience Member:  Yeah,

Kerry Murphy:  The implant is just basically a radio collar in a cylinder and the antenna for the transmitter is wrapped around the battery, okay. And it results in a very reduced range on the signal but the implant is favorable to a collar because wolverines are like bears; their neck is about the same size as the head.  So it's very easy to take the collar off.
So that's why you want to go with an implant type  system as opposed to a collar.  And the surgical process itself is about the same as spaying an animal. Same thing, takes about anywhere between 12 and 21 minutes.  I've done it but I prefer not to do it; especially on an animal like this.  I've done it on muskrats and beaver and that kind of thing.  It's very doable.

Kathy:  Actually we are running quite a bit  over on our time, so we have to move on

Kerry Murphy: Sorry Kathy