Living Outside: Just another normal day out here

Today I went out into the wilds with park Wildlife Biologist, Roger. We went and picked up 5 of the last traps (hair snags) from the Marten project I wrote about back in August. In all, Roger estimated he placed 60 traps throughout the summer along the highway 20 corridor and it took us about 6 hours to remove just 5.

It was a fantastic day, we visited two traps on the east side and then three traps on the west side. One of the east side traps had suspect grizzly hair on the snag, and the entire trap was mangled. On the west side, we had less success, and one of the pieces of chicken was still left on the tree (gross). We trampled through the woods and talked about anything from pika projects to skiing this winter. I'm happy to say, I have a new backcountry ski partner! We also discussed some possibilities for graduate involvement in the winter time, which would include skiing, traps, and skiing. hooray.

Anyway, just to give a 20 second history on the Marten project, the Pine Marten is a small little guy that needs a pretty good home range in order to be viable. It is also one of the species in the North Cascades complex that they believe to be healthy and in abundance. So, this project is to test to see if hwy 20 acts as a barrier for martens, causing isolated populations to be formed. There are traps set on both the north side and the south side of the highway which will catch the hair of the pine martens when they go for the gross meat under the hoods of the traps. The hair samples are then transferred to a lab in BC where they identify the DNA from the hair samples. The researchers are then able to figure out if the martens on both sides of the highway are sharing the same DNA, are possibly even the same martens, or do not share any similar strands. The results will then show if the population is isolated, or if the martens are willing and able to cross the street to make friends with the other martens.

Here are some photos from today.