California and a Bobcat

Happy Mother's Day! I don't know about you, but my mom has been there for every tear, giggle, and adventure in my life, particularly in the last few years when I realized I wanted to become a wildlife biologist (unfortunately for her, this still includes me chasing her with the lizards and frogs I catch, just like when I was five years old). Thanks, mom!

Greetings from California! This girl is perching on the west coast (for the first time, I might add)! I am super stoked to start the summer field season on the Sierra Nevada Carnivore Monitoring Project. I'm really looking forward to brushing up on old skills and learning new ones, such as working with track plates and learning more about fishers and martens. I'm currently in a little town called Barstow, which is about 300 miles from our destination in Shaver Lake. Mark and I broke up the drive from TX to CA with a stop in the Texas Panhandle. We have had one hell of a trip. It's our third cross-country trip together and my seventh overall, and by far the best. We had the treat of watching a wild bobcat, with time to ruminate over the experience.

On our way through the beautiful Texas Panhandle, we spotted the bobcat in the middle of a horse pasture. With private pasture land for miles, I was surprised to see a bobcat in such open terrain (more due to my experience of bobcats preferring montane forests rather than the abnormality of the behavior, though with such little cover, I was still impressed). At first we thought it was a grey fox, and then a coyote. As we pulled a u-turn, I was bursting with excitement when Mark realized it was a bobcat (actually, I believe I let out a few expletives to illustrate said excitement). The cat had something in it's mouth, and when we came to a stop about one hundred feet away we saw it was a prairie dog. We've all seen episodes of National Geographic and witnessed the raw audacity of predation second-hand, and while we didn't witness the chase, I don't think I have words for the short moment that this bobcat calmly forced the last breath from his prey. Once he caught his breath and realized we weren't threatening or particularly interesting, he began to enjoy his hard-earned meal. For almost thirty minutes we watched what we estimated to be an older male (based on size and location) eat, alternating between the sound of crunching bones and an occasional cool glance in our direction. We started the truck and pulled forward once when a curious and hungry horse galloped in our direction- we didn't want our cat to lose his meal. Once the horse angrily galloped off in the opposite direction, we returned to our post, where I quietly belly-crawled a few yards closer for some more photos. Here are my favorites:

When the cat decided it was time to go,  we were shocked to discover that his front left leg was broken at the 'elbow.' Likely the result of a car strike, missed gun shot, or possibly a trap (farmers don't like bobcats, but they control prairie dog numbers, which destroy pastures), his chances of survival are slim. He looked on the thin side, yet it is one hell of a predator that can successfully hunt a prairie dog in an open pasture. While a car strike is often uncontrollable, we discussed the human threat to carnivores. Sadly, the issue is all too common with predators: farmers, hunters, and anti-carnivore enthusiasts try to control carnivore populations, legally as well as illegally, and often harm incidental captures or escaped targets with their methods. While hunting and trapping is part of the North American model of conservation, our country is currently in the middle of an ant-carnivore craze, and with the bobcat having no hunting or trapping restrictions in Texas, along with (for some) a lack of understanding of the benefit of carnivores (in this case, helping to prevent the destruction of pasture), this cat is going to have a hard time. The experience was bittersweet, and all we can do as biologists and conservationists is work with the community to ensure prosperity for four legged and two legged creatures alike. 

Like the new look? I'm hoping to eventually move to a different domain, so thank you for following and reading. Please note the site name alteration!

Kerr High School

Last week I attended Kerr High School's annual Career Day here in Houston to discuss what it means to be a wildlife biologist. I decided to make a poster board to better highlight the things I do, or want to do, and the many amazing things my friends and colleagues have participated in as well. Lucky for me, Kerr High School is a magnet school, meaning that students have to apply for admission and are as a result quite bright and eager to carve successful paths into the future. As I expected, the science world was underrepresented when I arrived, with only myself and a veterinarian to vouch for research-based and animal-related careers (discounting the human medical profession). I was shocked, then, when a handful of students sought me out directly because of their interests in wildlife biology, field work, marine sciences, laboratory work, and other areas of research. To know that wildlife biology has a future in this young generation is very comforting! It was a lot of fun to help students dissect their interest in animals and explain the differences between veterinary medicine and wildlife biology, as a lot of students don't know that being a biologist is really an option. The simple poster board I brought along was most helpful, not only in drawing students to my booth, but in helping them articulate what they want to focus on in college. Because I was unaware of a lot of opportunities until the end of college, I had plenty of information available for varying stages of aspiration: from high school ages to major choices to internships and job opportunities. I brought along The Sand County Almanac by Aldo Leopold, which is considered to be a landmark in the conservation movement and inspires a responsible relationship between people and the environment. Students pored over my lab books, got excited about wildlife rehabilitation volunteerism, and asked so many questions I could hardly keep up.

At one point, I was surrounded by almost fifteen students at once! It was pretty awesome to learn what these students are interested in: marine biology, forest ecology, ornithology, cell biology, working with animals... the list went on. I'm so happy I made little handouts with website information and internship opportunities; I don't think chocolate chip cookies could have disappeared more quickly! We even connected over twitter- social applications and website are growing tools in science and conservation, and no media should be excluded. These young people- curious, intelligent, passionate, shy, and kind- are the future of all fields of conservation. It empowers me to know that not only are we are changing attitudes towards nature, we are changing actions towards nature. After my experience with the awesome Kerr High students, I lost my voice for a day, but I regained some fire in the belly.What an awesome day. You guys rock!

 

Wildlife Biology: where a picture is worth a thousand words

For more information on internships, job opportunities, and graduate information in wildlife biology, visit:

  

 http://wfsc.tamu.edu/jobboard/

http://www.conbio.org/Jobs/filter.cfm?groupid=5

http://www.conservationjobboard.com/Category/wildlife-jobs

For local wildlife experience (Houston), visit: 

http://www.twrc-houston.org/

http://www.houstonzoo.org/

Thanks to all my rad friends and colleagues who submitted, or let me steal, photos:

Tor Bertin

Megan Brown

Mark Cancellare

Katie Needham

Roberta Newbury

Kimberly Oldehoeft

Michael Wickens

Clay Wilton

Sierra Nevada Carnivore Monitoring

I am excited to announce that I will be joining the Sierra Nevada Carnivore Monitoring Project this summer in central California! I will be working for the US Forest Service on the long term program assessing the status and trend of the Pacific fisher (Martes pennanti) and the American marten (Martes americana). The study takes place in the beautiful Sierra and Sequoia National Forests and involves conducting systematic surveys throughout the region to estimate habitat use by the fisher and the marten, and to detect declines in each species over a ten year monitoring period. A combination of noninvasive techniques- hair snares, camera traps, and track plates- are used for this study to detect animal presence and monitor wildlife genetics. The project monitors population trend and expansion via presence/absence surveys and using microsatellite allele frequencies for genetic monitoring.

Jody Tucker of the University of Montana is currently running this project for her PhD, and I am excited to continue with Montana connections as I work towards graduate school. Most people unfamiliar with the field of wildlife research are surprised to find out that graduate school is not as simple as undergraduate school- one does not generally apply to a university, get accepted, and then join a lab with an available project. It is entirely the opposite, with everything being contingent upon funding, research interests of both professor and student, availability, and competition.

In the meantime, I am stoked to go to California and study the marten and the fisher, both of the weasel family. The fisher is a large terrestrial mustelid (related to the wolverine and the second largest in the family). It is not, contrary to it's name, a hunter of fish, nor does it live on the ocean. Shortly put, fishers live in dense canopy forests, are viscous and adept hunters, and have historically been heavily trapped for their fur. Fishers are of particular conservation interest in California because the remaining Sierra Nevada population is small and geographically isolated, and as a result this carnivore, slightly larger than a domestic cat, is warranted for listing under the Endangered Species Act in the West.

The marten is the third smallest member of the weasel family and is a ferret-sized carnivore considered a sensitive species by the Forest Service. Like the fisher, martens prefer old-growth forests, and logging is largely responsible for their habitat loss and population decline, as new-growth forests do not provide the canopy cover and habitat requirements for populations to thrive. My experience with martens is that they are capable of stealing bait no matter how securely you affix the meat to the tree, but they are also fantastic hunters and very curious animals.

Here is a link to view my marten encounter from Washington:

Curious, Thieving Marten

I can't wait to get out there and meet the crew! I'm also awaiting the results of a few other applications, so more updates to follow. Additionally, my hip recovery is almost entirely complete- woo hoo! Thanks for following- be sure to share with friends and family and spread the message about wildlife research and conservation.

For more information on the Sierra Nevada Carnivore Monitoring Project, visit:

 http://www.rmrs.nau.edu/people/jtucker/

http://www.fs.fed.us/r5/snfpa/am/monitoringreport2005/fishermarten.html

California Dreamin'

Photo by M. Maly

Shenandoah National Park

Injury

I'm sad to report that I am no longer working on the Cascades Carnivore Project, as I tore my hip flexor on the job and have had to resign my position. What a bummer!

I sustained the injury while tracking on a particularly long day, and I mistakenly thought that it was an overworked muscle. Long story short, I did in fact really hurt myself, and the recovery period is six weeks (it's not a complete tear, whew! A severe strain with small tears is a lot easier to mend.). Foxes and wolverines don't wait around for people, so I'm back home in Houston for physical therapy and healing so I can continue working this spring.

I pre-condition for any research position I accept, as the physical demands are often many and being able to keep up obviously means having high cardiovascular endurance, strong joints, and muscle strength. In this field, you have to stay in shape, and jobs will weasel any last shreds of weakness from your body. Since this project involved a lot of snowshoeing, I worked hard in the weeks prior to arriving in Washington to ensure a strong pelvis and high endurance so I wouldn't huff and puff and fall down all the time. Having snowshoed last winter in Montana on the bobcat project, I was not at all concerned that I would hurt anything. Unfortunately, not all things are preventable.

The injury makes for a decent pub story, however, in that I got hurt while tracking a wolverine. Doug Chadwick (author of The Wolverine Way), calls the wolverine an "unmitigated badass" and I couldn't agree more. We followed this guy up and around and he ran and he walked and he loped and he followed fox trails and scaled creeks... but he mostly went up. It took us four hours to follow him three miles, whereas he most certainly covered that distance in less than an hour. In the days following that I worked on the injury, the southern Cascades were covered with almost five feet of  snow, making it difficult to check cameras and track animals (there were no tracks!). Undoubtedly, it made my hip worse, but I'm very fortunate that I didn't post-hole (crashing through the snow on one snowshoe) and tear it completely.

I'm really happy to have had this opportunity... I would have preferred to still be up there, as the season runs through the end of March. I really enjoyed my time in the Cascades learning red fox ecology, tracking the elusive wolverine, and refining my tracking skills. I also loved the snowmobiling! All in all, despite what is a very inconvenient injury, I'd still chalk it up to a good experience.

Currently, I am rehabbing, completing a grant application for graduate school, applying for and interviewing for my next research position, and discussing graduate school opportunities with various professors.

For more information on the Cascades Carnivore Project, visit: http://cascadescarnivoreproject.blogspot.com/

One Quarter Century

It's midnight, so it's officially February 6, which means it's MY BIRTHDAY!

25. Twenty five. One quarter century.

Wow. It's crazy! I can't even believe I've lived this long! It's like I'm an adult! As children, we think about an age like "25" as a dream-like concept. We imagined our whole lives as The Far Away Future: we planned our education, fairy tale weddings, and interior decorating plans through Barbie and her friends (ok, some of us did. Don't judge). Well, there wasn't a Barbie biologist around when I was a kid, so I came into my passion towards the end of college, when the Future became Now.

And Now is the time to make a difference. 

I devote my time on this webpage to advocating wildlife conservation. We are fighting an uphill battle to save thousands of species from extinction, and I'm lucky enough to assist in projects that study some of these animals and promote their preservation in the wild. I have numerous goals I want to accomplish within this field of research, and although I've crossed some off in the two years since graduating, here are a few of the goals I hope to accomplish in the next 25 years:

- Get a graduate assistantship for my master's degree in carnivore ecology
- Achieve a PhD in the same field
- Work with National Geographic and Animal Planet television for public education... yes, I want you to enjoy wildlife projects with me via tv!
- Write, speak, and present issues and ideas in wildlife conservation to varied audiences: children, presidents, scientists, family, friends, and international collaborators
- Own a pair of Christian Louboutin heels (not for field research, obviously... for wildlife benefit events!)
- Study as many of the felid species as I am able, starting with bobcats, lynx, ocelots, snow leopards, clouded leopards...
- See the wolverine placed on the endangered species list, and then removed from it (among many others)
- Meet celebrities with influence and get them out in the field with me to help spread the message (hello Ellen DeGeneras, Leo DiCaprio, Jason Mraz, Simon Cowell, and President Obama)!
- Foster the realization for the ever-pressing need to care about the earth- right Now, not later

These goals are the tools I plan to wield in the fight to save the world. Seriously. I'm only 25- I can be lofty like that. I want to illuminate the importance of natural resources, to illustrate the dire need for saving, not spending, the fruits of our earth. Most importantly, I want to ignite passion and compassion for wildlife conservation. I want you to share nature with the birds, carnivores, insects, and omnivores that walk the wilds, and I want you to work to conserve and protect what's left of it so the future will have more, and not less. I want to laugh with you, learn from you, and share with you my passion, my unyielding determination, and my insatiable curiosity in the pursuit of protecting all that is wild. But, I need your help. I'm only 25.

Thanks for all your support, reading, tweeting, laughing, and working to spread the message and achieve goals in wildlife conservation. I love you all!

Stillwater Lake, Montana

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!