Part II, Again

One of the best parts about joining the project was assisting in the radio-collaring of black bears. Working on a noninvasive sampling study means we rarely see animals, with most of our "encounters" finding the evidence of an animal being there long before we were. With this study, we collected hair samples and monitored camera traps, so while we often watched hilarious bear videos and too many raccoon or armadillo videos, it was really a treat to get our hands on living, breathing bears. After all, they're the stars of this project! Clay wants to know how many there are in southern Missouri and where so we can protect their populations and encourage connectivity and positive wildlife management.  With that, here are some bear photos: 

Two traps, two bears! The big guy is in the white drum, while the lady bear is in the larger unit. They were most likely traveling separately and arrived at the traps at separate times. The bears were lured into the trap with none other than stale doughnuts... I know, they get me every time, too.

Taking morphometric measurements includes overall body length, girth, tail length, leg length, and even foot and toe length

A very large male American black bear being fitted with a radio collar for the second time (he slipped his first one, the tricky bugger!).

How many guys does it take to weigh a bear? A lot! This male weighed 390 lbs! Before winter of last year, he was 475 lbs... all gained for hibernation in winter. The bear is still anesthetized. Notice I'm not helping.

The lady bear was already fit with a radio collar, so there was no need to anesthetize her. Here, she waits calmly and somewhat curiously for us to lift the trap door. Note: bears are not friendly! Never approach one!

The black bear doesn't have claws as long as it's cousin, the grizzly bear, but they are still very dexterous with their paws.

 The hair snare crew! This bear was the biggest one I have ever seen- I had a hard time lifting his head! His tongue kept lolling out as a result of the drug, which just isn't polite for a photo, so I stuck my hand in his mouth to tuck it in (but he popped it out for our group pic).

Measuring her chest girth.

An older, chocolate brown female black bear who was very pretty. The name doesn't imply the color, as black bears vary from shades of brown to black to cinnamon, and individuals may even change coat color throughout the year.  Again, she is anesthetized in this photo, but she is starting to come around.

During bear captures, one of the things this project does is remove a vestigial tooth- one leftover from evolution and useless to the animal. The underdeveloped canine is removed to age the animal, use for genetic identification, and in a female's case, determine how many parturitions (births) she's had. How cool is that?!

Our little "teenage" black bear male. Estimated to be just over one year, he weighed 150 lbs (but doesn't look like it!). Here, Mat was pouring water over the anesthetized bear because one of the side effects of the drug is losing the ability to thermoregulate. It was a very hot summer and the last thing anyone wants is the drug causing harm (or death) to an animal. 

This photo is a little pathetic, because the little guy is trying to get up but can't because the drug is still in his system. As a result, I'm safe to be this close, but not for long!

Honestly, is there anything more adorable? He is young and will face many challenges in his life, and he will never be friendly, but I love this photo because it's simply a soft, wild  moment (albeit drug induced).

There goes that funny side effect with the tongue again! It has to be frustrating. 

How does this photo make you feel?

Missouri Black Bear Project, Part II- Or, Is That A Squirrel On My Head?

Let's see, where did we leave off? May. The month of May was devoted to setting hair snares for the bear project. In all, we set just shy of 350 snares ("we" being a team of eight! go us!). The above photo was captured by a Cuddyback camera and shows the size and shape of one of our snares (that is bear spray in the holster on my hip). Setting these snares involved determining probable bear habitat using topographic maps, knowledge of bear behavioral ecology and historical habitat selection, and then searching out the private landowners once the public land snares had been set. But mostly, this required talking to people. Communities are the heart of conservation. Non-scientists love nature too, and it never ceases to amaze me what we can accomplish together when biologists share knowledge and incorporate the public. I most recently discussed this issue at the Montana Chapter of the Society for Conservation Biology's Research Symposium, but that will take another posting entirely. For me, the Missouri Black Bear Project really brought home the importance of talking with the public. After all, wildlife doesn't discern what is public and what is private property, and if we are going to save this one planet, we really need to work and talk and laugh and discover together. For the bear project, this required all sorts of public speaking skills, people-reading skills, and occasionally trying to not get shot (you think I'm kidding). I had many an interesting experience standing in someone's house ("should we actually go in? the lights are off..." or "why yes I will have a pop and some homemade cookies!"), having someone's dog (or goat) wanting to kill me, and wondering if the property in the back of the woods was actually a meth lab (Mark and I most definitely knocked on the door of a marijuana house. I almost cried). Perhaps the most memorable was one woman searching for 'something' in her home as we were standing in her living room discussing the bear project. We immediately determined that she did not own the property we were hoping to set a snare on. Power line corridors are often used by wildlife, as people rarely use them and they are excellent trails for animals to travel long distances and exert little energy. We were trying to find out who owned the property next to one such corridor, as setting a snare in the woods near a corridor offered a great chance to draw in a bear: the wind would carry the scent along the corridor and was easy to find for both bear and biologist. The woman was paying no attention to her very upset and very large dog, who had decided he wanted to rip off our faces and was showing us, with precision, each of the teeth he planned to do it with. We were trying to politely sneak out without losing our appendages to the dog, as we had a very long day ahead of us (finding landowners when county ownership maps are outdated is very difficult), when suddenly another woman emerged from under a blanket on the couch we were standing next to. She wasn't really a fan of bears, which I didn't mind, or of being woken up at noon by strange bear scientists; from here she echoed the sentiments of the dog. At the same time the first woman continued to mutter to herself about finding that 'something' to show us.

Well, 'something' literally appeared out of nowhere.

With a flash of brown and an explosion of dust from the curtains,  a very small 'something,' more commonly known as a squirrel, launched herself onto my friend's head. No one can truly be prepared for this, not even a biologist (and I will proudly say that we are prepared for many things). Poor Ryan stood still as a statue, not knowing exactly what was on his head, and calmly asked me, "Is there a squirrel on my head?" The chirping and frantic scratching on his scalp must have given it away. The woman patted the squirrel (still on Ryan's head) and told us the elaborate story of how she had rescued the poor thing from her cats (she did have fourteen on the porch. I counted). A great heart with a love for animals, this woman had scratches up and down her arms from this juvenile adult squirrel, whose name might have been Maude. She loved her squirrel, and she loved that there might be bears in her back yard (her sleepy friend did not. The dog at this point had shifted his focus to the squirrel). Squirrels make horrible pets, but neither Ryan or I had the heart to bring this up, as this woman had spent most of her life rescuing animals or tending to orphaned and injured wildlife. Maude seemed pretty content to use our bodies as living race tracks anyway. Ryan and I were admittedly mesmerized by this tiny, neurotic creature, who didn't bite yet left little scrapes up and down our arms as she darted between us, performing Spider Man-like acrobatics on Ryan's back and trying to make a nest in my hair. However, since collectively we still had more than 200 snares to set at this point, we couldn't hang out with the dusty squirrel or the killer dog for too long. Upon depositing Maude back to her owner at least three times ("she just loves your hair!"), we bid our new friends farewell and politely declined adopting one or three of the kittens on the porch. Out of all my experiences this summer, I like to think that there is one more lady who now talks about bear conservation when shocking her guests with her pet squirrel.

We see a lot of things in this field. We meet people who hate animals, who dislike certain species or find no value in the sanctity of life for native or endangered species. We encounter the remains of wildlife shot by humans, or find ourselves in nervous situations in the woods where there might be illegal steel traps set on the ground before us. We met people who don't like bears, who wanted nothing to do with the project, or who didn't want strangers on their property. Two of our guys got barricaded from leaving a driveway by a gang of bear poachers, and I was harassed on two different occasions by strange men when I was alone in the woods. I even narrowly avoided the flying bullets from some kids doing target practice directly into the woods where I was working. The point is, people are way more crazy than Maude the squirrel. We face problems every day in conservation, and some days it seems like a losing battle. But then we meet the people who rescued Maude from starving to death, or the landowners who find joy and pride in knowing there are bears with cubs on their property. We meet Master Naturalists who want to help us set snares and learn about the project, or tell us their stories about wildlife encounters. We laugh together about the time someone literally ran into the side of a moose, and we share websites and paintings and news stories with biologists and the public alike. The most important thing anyone in this field can do is keep talking. Knock on doors and not only get landowner permission, but get landowner passion. Building relationships (and yes, not getting shot or contracting rabies from unvaccinated animals) is the key to accomplishing any goal, and in the fight to save wildlife populations or connect corridors for wildlife we have to remember to share our passion with everyone, regardless of age or degree or affiliation.  I learned so much and saw so much just by knocking on the doors of private landowners. I was shocked, amused, disappointed, encouraged, fed, yelled at, laughed at, laughed with, hugged, ignored, and enlightened. Mostly I talked about bears, but I also learned about the different ways we can work together to save bears, squirrels, and the world. Not a bad side effect of such a cool project.

Measuring the height of the snare for consistency (bears hopefully leave hair samples when going under or over the barbed wire to get to the scent lure pile at the center).

Mark pretends to construct a snare for the purpose of this photo.

Avalanche Lake

I'm currently in Montana for the Society for Conservation Biology research symposium. But, I'm also here to hike! A photo from one of my favorite places in Glacier National Park. To learn more about Avalanche Lake, go to:  http://www.nps.gov/glac/index.htm .

Missouri Black Bear Project, Part I

This summer I lived and worked in the Ozarks as part of a field crew studying the population dynamics, resource selection, and movements of black bears (Ursus americanus) in Missouri.  The project is being run by Clay Wilton, a master's student in the Carnivore Ecology lab at the University of Mississippi (http://fwrc.msstate.edu/carnivore/students.asp).  The study spans the south central and southeast part of the state and is divided into two seasons, the first having been this summer and covering approximately 20,000 square km. Black bears were extirpated from the state in the 1940's due to excessive and unregulated hunting, loss of forest habitat, and urbanization. Since the 1960's, however, bears have slowly returned to the state, most likely from a combination of better forest management and a successful bear reintroduction project in Arkansas in the 60's. Clay's project, however, will be the first study of its kind on bears in the state, as the population is unknown. Knowing bear numbers and understanding their movements and habitat preferences will be key in future bear management, encouraging expansion, and encouraging positive human-wildlife interaction.

 A bear census is not the same as a human census. One cannot simply walk up to a bear den and ask "how many are you?" A bear census, however, still takes a lot of work, and efficiency is key.  Non-invasive techniques are tools in wildlife research that biologists can employ to save time and gather information on elusive and hard to reach species (or minimize stress on animals). These tools can usually be in the field when we cannot, ie all night and all day, and in several places at once. The methods used in Clay's study includes infrared camera traps and baited, barbed wire hair snares. Camera traps can "capture" and "recapture" animals on film as a means to detect presence and movements of individual animals. Individuals can be identified based on photos, as these cameras are triggered by movement to shoot film and video. In the case of this project, we set up more than one hundred cameras across the study site at hair snare locations. Barbed wire hair snares are a means to collect hair samples from animals for DNA assessment, species identification, and other laboratory tests.  Barbed wire wrapped around trees surrounds a bait pile, usually covered in scent lures or food, to entice an animal to enter the corral and hopefully leave a hair sample in the process.  This method is not painful to animals, as thick fur coats protect the skin from scratching. This summer, we created and managed more than three hundred hair snares.
 
In order to set these snares and cameras, we covered both public and private property in search of probable bear habitat. It took our team four weeks to set all of the snares, and the remaining two months of the study to bait and to check for samples.  Additionally, our field crew was able to attend the radiocollaring of black bears, since the study assesses the movements of individual animals as well.  The GPS collars provide animal locations every ten minutes, so Clay is able to download the collar data via satellite and create maps of animal movements (which is totally cool, because you can watch a bear walk a twenty mile trail and literally pass within feet from your snares and not enter one, or you can imagine that a bear is reading a good book because he/she sat in the same patch of woods for eight hours). Because bears are crafty, we also had to venture out on occasion to retrieve a dropped, or slipped, GPS collar.

Due to the size of this summer's study site, our field crew split up and lived in two different field houses, with Clay traveling between the two each week to cover snare locations.  My field house was on Caney Mountain, an awesome conservation area outside of Gainesville and home to everything imaginable, from wild hogs to bats to skunks. On days off, we often traveled to the North Fork river for kayak trips and fishing, or into town to use the internet, as we had no cable access out in the boonies. We also formed a front porch mountain band comprising of guitars, harmonica, a mandolin, and beer. As the only female on this study, I often reminded myself that although we shared one bathroom, we more importantly shared an interest in carnivore ecology...

Please visit the Missouri Black Bear Project's website for more information and cool photos (look for the hair snare crew!) as I compose Parts II and III of the study: http://www.fwrc.msstate.edu/carnivore/mo_bear/index.asp

Technical Difficulties

Ok, I know it's been two months, I'm sorry! This job has me out so remotely that we don't have phone service or internet access. With a six on, four off work schedule, I never find time to update this site on all the cool things we've been doing this summer.  This will change this week, however.  Check out this photo of an anesthetized black bear until my update:

Art

I was finally able to give my Christmas present to my parents.  My stepfather entered the hospital on Christmas Eve and didn't leave until the end of January.  He spent five of these days in a coma, due to a severe case of double-lobed pneumonia.  Luckily he has, finally, fully recovered.  Because he was so ill over the holidays, and I left for Montana right after he was discharged, I left this painting with family in Charlotte, NC.  On my recent visit to NC I retrieved it and was finally able to give it to them! Chalk pastel rubs like chalk, so it does not travel or ship well when unprotected.  I found a photo of a clouded leopard similar to this painting; the captive animal was standing against a white backdrop and I was stunned at the beauty of the cloud-like pattern contrasted against the blank background, so I did my best to create my own version.  Note the overly-large feet and abnormally long tail characteristic of the endangered species.

Lions, Tigers, and Bears... Literally

Generally my absence from this site means one of two things: I'm either really busy and can't be bothered to upload photos and stories, or I'm not doing anything worth noting.  When I was at the Smithsonian, I didn't discuss the research much, mostly because the clouded leopard project is part of an international consortium and I was only at liberty to discuss my intern project.  However, for the past eight weeks I've been out of the field, but I'm getting ready to go back!

I left Whitefish in the middle of March and returned to Houston.  I love coming home.  I rarely spend a lot of time with my parents, and since my stepfather's near-fatal case of pneumonia this Christmas, I've been looking forward to a few weeks at home.  I was also able to visit North Carolina, where I grew up and went to college (Go Pack), to see family and a few close friends.  Since returning from Whitefish, however, I've definitely missed the deep-snow environment and the anticipation of coming up to a trap in hopes of finding a bobcat.  Roberta has closed her final winter field season and is getting closer to writing her dissertation! Unfortunately M5 and M6 never showed up, so the data from their collars is lost.  Hopefully these two cats are doing well in the forests of the Flathead and have not come to any harm, but that is a likelihood in this field.

I've been in the application and interview process since late January, and I'm so excited to begin the summer season in two weeks.  I came very close to accepting a research position on mountain lion and bobcat telemetry, and I was very interested in a study on bluebirds (birds are under-appreciated, you know).  Instead, I am heading to the Ozarks to work on the Missouri black bear project!  So, I've literally worked with lions, tigers, and now bears (Carolina Tiger Rescue adopted three lions last fall... I need to upload the photos!).

Why bears, you ask?  Isn't this woman like the future crazy cat lady? Well, probably.  I really enjoy carnivore, specifically feline, ecology, but the larger North American mammals share similar habitats as well as drawing parallels in the methods used to study the biology and ecology of these animals.  Ultimately, I'm hoping to collaborate with a research institution within the next year on a master's thesis involving bobcat or mountain lion physiological response and home-range patterns, but the techniques used for such a project can be learned from any mesocarnivore or carnivore project.  Specifically, non-invasive techniques are on the rise for learning about wildlife, and the project I will join in two weeks aims to determine the black bear population in the state of Missouri.  Employed through Mississippi State University, I will be collecting hair samples for DNA assessment to determine the population of resident animals in a study site encompassing about 20,000 km squared (how do you do the superscript on this site?!).  More or less, this project is a bear census. Since we won't be able to walk up to a bear den and ask, " how many are you?" like in a human census, the project is employing non-invasive hair snare collection stations. In summary, these stations involve the use of barbed-wire being wrapped around a group of trees (think geometric shapes) with something to lure them past the wire, such as old donuts or fish oil (I've had extensive experience with fish oil, and let me tell you: next to cheetah feces, there is nothing worse than the smell of fish oil. Unless you ask my cats.).  Don't worry- the barbed wire is not nearly as horrible as it sounds!  Bears, like so many wild animals, have two coats: a thick, dense undercoat that serves to insulate and protect, and a longer outer coat that is water resistant.  If a bear walks under a barb on the wire, then, he or she would not have nearly the reaction were you or I to come across it.  The idea centers around the bears being drawn to the smell of the lure and leaving a few hair samples on the barbed wire for us to come and collect.

Unfortunately, bears were extirpated from Missouri by 1940, mostly due to unregulated hunting and trapping as well as urbanization and intolerance.  Bear reintroductions in Arkansas began in the 1960's and black bears have recolonized north into Missouri since.   The Missouri Department of Conservation, Missouri Department of Natural Resources, United States Forest Service, and the National Park Service have collaborated with the hopes of determining the current bear population in southern and central Missouri in order to mitigate future human-wildlife conflict and to also learn about and encourage the conservation of suitable black bear habitat.

We will be working under Clay Wilton, a graduate student at Mississippi State University.  Per his involvement with this project, he is studying population dynamics, resource selection, and movements of black bears in Missouri.  Although it is not a guarantee, we are hoping to put out the remaining radio collars for his project this summer, meaning that we will be trapping bears in a similar fashion to that of the bobcat project.  I'm quite excited!

For more information about the project, as well as to see some cool photos, visit the project website at:
http://www.fwrc.msstate.edu/carnivore/mo_bear/


Photo credit:  The new photo is from a National Geographic wallpaper. Unfortunately none of my bear photos from Montana are very clear, so I'll have to wait until I get to Missouri to snap some better ones!