Mt. Adams

I have been in Washington for ten days, and in those ten days we've received almost as many feet in snow!

 Teri's car is buried in snow.

We are currently staying in Trout Lake, a quaint little town at the base of Mt. Adams, the focus of our surveys the month of January. The first two days, we hiked over nine miles on snowshoe! I don't think anything can condition a person for that much snowshoeing because of the specific muscles used for the activity. Needless to say, all of my preparation and work getting physically ready for this was thrown out the window on the first mile. I am sure I will echo thousands of snowshoers with the simple phrase: omg.

Those first two days involved a trek to set one of the remote infrared cameras for the project. I am working for Jocelyn Akins, a PhD student at the University California Davis on the Cascades Carnivore Project.  Her objectives include the conservation genetics of the montane red fox (Vulpes vulpes), their habitat selection, and monitoring species of interest from a management and conservation standpoint.  Additionally, we are also searching for wolverines (Gulo gulo) if we can find them. Wolverines are rare in the lower 48, as they require extreme snow conditions through breeding season to flourish (with loss of habitat and hunting contributing to population decline). The cameras are motion-censoring devices that take photos when any animal approaches the bait we secure to a tree.  Hair snares collect any hair from the animal in it's attempt to steal the bait, and the hair is collected by us for genetic analysis in the lab.  The majority of the time, our meat is stolen by methodical American martens (Martes americana). On our second day, we happened to encounter one very curious little marten from a distance of about five feet, who watched us with hesitant but insatiable curiosity for almost five minutes- I wonder if we were the first humans he had ever seen?

  A rather curious marten

 Marten or red fox hair samples?

I am working with Teri Lysak, a tracker through the non-profit Cascadia Wild, and she is teaching me everything there is to know about tracking animals! This involves everything from species identification to gait style, taking measurements of various gaits, and identifying ideal conditions to track an individual. For more information on Cascadia Wild, look for the link at the end of this posting.

The first day involved a short snowmobile ride to our trail head, and a 2 mile hike up into the woods to set our camera. This involves placing a camera at the right height across from the bait, which is nailed to the tree in chicken wire. Copper pipe-cleaners are set up below the bait so hairs might be snagged from any visitors.  On this first hike, after I had huffed and puffed quite a bit, I came across some tracks I had never seen before:

Old wolverine tracks. A bear track straddle (or girth from one foot to another)  is wider than the wolverine's (because of weight).

I quite literally (and perhaps unprofessionally) thought, "What the hell is that??" when my snowshoe tips intersected this strange, and yet slightly older, set of tracks. Track conditions change daily, meaning that snow level, snow compaction, and temperature are just a few things that affect how reliable a set of pawprints may look in the snow. To me, these old (old by the fact that they were slightly melted out and full of debris blown into the recess of the foot pad) tracks resembled bear paws by the length of the track... but bears are currently in hibernation. Only a crazy bear would come out in the beginning of January for a stroll, despite low snow levels and higher than normal temperatures (it's still freezing!). As this was my first day, I waited for Teri to come down the huge hill we'd just trekked to solicit her opinion.

Silence.

Then, she muttered something along the lines of "There's no way." and "Are you kidding me?" It's true, folks... on day one, we had found WOLVERINE TRACKS!

Teri the tracker

Here I must note the audacity of the wolverine. Wolverines, though not well known by the public and difficult to study because of the terrain they choose, hold down home ranges of more than 200 miles and travel at a near-constant speed to tour and maintain the rule of their domain. Wolverines have been known to win fights against 800 pound grizzly bears over food, and at a mere 50 pounds, these animals traverse the most difficult and dangerous terrain known to man and animal without batting a furry eyelash. Unfortunately, they face extinction in our lifetime due to fragmentation between suitable habitats- meaning that the few individuals who live in Point A are unable to travel to Point B to spread their genetics because of humans and climate change. Shortly put, however, research like Jocelyn's is working to mitigate the threats to carnivores like the wolverine, and when evidence suggests the presence of a wolverine in a new area, it is most certainly our job to encourage the expansion and protection of both animal and area to encourage future success for the species. My friend Doug Chadwick is a biologist turned journalist and the author of the wonderful book "The Wolverine Way" and describes the wolverine:

"I still don’t really understand what makes wolverines tick. But I learned that they tick at a higher metabolic rate than other animals their size. If you were to picture them as organic cruising machines with a souped-up carburetor, you wouldn’t be far off the mark."

So go the Gulo tracks. Since we were supposed to be looking for red fox tracks, however, we returned the next day to backtrack some fox tracks we saw this day.

Backtracking (or forwardtracking) for this project involves looking for genetic material: scat, urine, or hair samples. As biologist criminologists, we are collecting samples to store and send to a laboratory at the University of Montana to be analyzed for genetic relationships, identification, etc. So, we returned the next day intending to backtrack some red foxes... but we found fresh wolverine tracks!

Fortunately, the wolverine tracks crossed the red fox tracks regularly, so we were able to hit two birds with one stone, so to speak. We tracked this wolverine for more than two miles (which is not as easy as air miles, or as the crow flies, or whatever you consider when thinking of two flat miles!): up, down, around, but mostly up. I'm pretty sure he/she covered this distance in less than thirty minutes judging by the inconsistent gait: lope, walk, trot thing. It took us three hours! I was reminded of the male wolverine from The Wolverine Way who ascended 9,000 ft in elevation in 90 minutes without stopping... just because he could. This would be why the wolverine is so bad ass, folks.

We watched him intersect with the fox tracks periodically, wondering why the trails were so well traveled. We lost the tracks occasionally because the snow was too hard for him to sink into in some places, and I managed to walk by a huge scat pile!  I'm not sure how anyone can miss a giant pile of bone and hair... but then again, that's why many eyes are good.  Wolverines scavenge bones and can digest the tough stuff many other species can't, so we are hoping that there is some Gulo genetic material in the samples!

 After day two, we completed an Avalanche Safety Training course. I feel a little smarter, and perhaps slightly more reckless in my activities as a biologist in the wilderness. My poor mother can rest assured that I am prepared and capable (as much as a 130 pound human can be against the elements, anyway).

The rest of the week involved a lot of waiting it out, unfortunately. We received four feet of snow below 2000 ft elevation! That's a lot of fresh powder. Teri and I went out on the sleds two days to try and check cameras, but between getting the truck stuck and turning the sleds or getting bogged down, we only managed to set one camera and check another the remaining part of the week. However, we do have foxes on camera! Cascade red foxes are unlike anything I've ever seen- they have so much coat variation amongst individuals within a species. They are rather similar to black bears in this sense. Similar to coyotes, these red foxes can vary in shades of red, bronze, amber, brown, black, and grey. Smaller than coyotes and thought to use higher elevations, these silent canids often go unnoticed and manage to flourish in a deeper snow environment.

I write this from a little table in the Big Horse Brew Pub in Hood River, OR. Jocelyn lives in Hood River, and yesterday we checked a camera in Mt. Hood so we could accomplish something in spite of all the snow! The one thing I love about wildlife research is the opportunity to learn the stories of the people who share my passions. I enjoy exploring the little tourist towns, having a great microbrew, and resting until my next trek into the wilderness. Until next time!

Just another view from the office- I have a hard job, but one of the most amazing in the world!

I really wanted to take a "winter photo" to put on this site... just a simple photo of me smiling in the snow. Instead, I lost my balance on those darned snowshoes and this is what we got. Perhaps its more indicative of my personality. I'll post the better version at a later date! Never lose your childlike wonder, I always say. Or humility. 

For more information on Cascadia Wild, visit:

http://www.cascadiawild.org/

For more information on the Cascades Carnivore Project, visit:

http://cascadescarnivoreproject.blogspot.com/

Cascades Carnivore Project

Today I accepted an offer to join a research team in southern Washington state studying wolverines and cascade red foxes! This project is the PhD research of Jocelyn Akins, a student at UC Davis, and focuses on carnivores in the Cascade Mountain Range. Specifically, this project is investigating the presence of the threatened wolverine (Gulo gulo) and the cascade red fox (Vulpes vulpes cascadensis) through winter surveys and genetic material. In short, I'll be snowmobiling all winter (over old volcanoes!) and snowshoeing or skiing into remote locations to monitor camera traps and collect hair and fecal samples from animals. The overall goals of Jocelyn's initiatives are to maintain biodiversity within this range by monitoring species of concern and determining important areas of habitat use.

I'm really looking forward to this project, as I became intrigued with the wolverine through Doug Chadwick's book "The Wolverine Way" (I recently met Doug at the Montana SCB Research Symposium). The wolverine has had many problems in the lower 48 due to habitat suitability, connectivity, and low population numbers. With such low numbers, the wolverine clearly needs to be listed as an endangered species, and yet the species has been denied the listing twice in the last five years. Currently the species is listed as warranted but not precluded under the Endangered Species Act, meaning that while there is need for them to be listed as endangered, there are more important species ahead of wolverines on this list.  I know far less about the cascade red fox, so I am really excited to get started on this project in January.  Red foxes are amazing mesocarnivores, and between low population numbers and humans feeding them and taking them as pets, learning more about their distribution and habitat selection will be an important step in their conservation in Washington.

I'm excited to get back into the snow (though it won't be as cold as it was in Montana!) and hone my snowmobiling skills.  It's going to be a challenge!  Washington state is beautiful, so I'll have plenty to soak in on days where I'm huffing and puffing or shoveling snow out of my pants.  It's a real treat to have the chance to study the wolverine and learn about the cascade red fox, two rare species, so I hope to have lots of photos this winter.  I can't wait to learn and share with you.  More to come!

For more information on the project, go to: http://cascadescarnivoreproject.blogspot.com/

To learn about author Doug Chadwick and his awesome book "The Wolverine Way," visit: http://www.patagonia.com/us/patagonia.go?assetid=51801

Loving the recent cold (about -5F here) at Avalanche Lake in GNP! I can't wait to get to Washington!

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: