Field Ecology 101--Epilogue

This post contains photos we still wanted to share, but didn't necessarily fit in other sections of the blog.







View looking south off the ridge road

















View looking down South Canyon















Megan with a swallowtail butterfly

Erin and Grandpa Hal discussing the merits of a robber fly

Here is the crew taking a lunch break during trap set-up.

A possible sighting of the last child in the woods?

Kevin and children having fun on the drive out by Willow Creek Overlook

Family Photo with Linda Bear
(subtitled "How to Keep Mom Happy: Take Her Bear Trapping")

Thank you "Uncle" Josh and "Grandpa" Hal
for making this outing one with lasting memories.
We love you!

Field Ecology 101--Part 5

Second Bear Capture! Sunday, 1 July

We decided that the ox wasn't in the mire, but a bear may be in the trap, so we stayed one extra day in hopes of catching another bear. It was well worth the wait. Besides, by Sunday we had quite a crowd of people out there: another former grad student and friend from NM, Hal's wife, daughter, and daughter's boss.

The bear looked like another small one, so Hal dosed it for 100 lbs.

Once again, when it was pulled from the trap, we realized it was bigger than anticipated. We gave it an additional dose of drugs to keep it asleep. We were happy to find out it was a female, large enough to be fitted with a radio collar.

This bear got everything: a radio collar, ear tags, measurements taken, a tooth pulled for aging, and a hair dye job (as requested by other BYU researchers who are analyzing bear diet through hair analysis).

She had previously broken a canine. We extracted a small premolar to send to Matson's Lab for age determination. Bear teeth have rings on them (like trees) and a cross section of a tooth reveals how old a bear is.

Here are Josh and Larisa weighing the bear--she was 140 pounds, rather skinny. Hopefully she will put on a lot more weight in the fall.

We shaved an area of fur, dyed it, and then dyed the long hair next to it to see if growth rate of hair can be determined. This bear will be visited in her den in early November when the growth will be measured.

Front feet

Hal named the bear "Linda" after Linda who is pictured here in the pink shirt. They shared the same hair color.

Field Ecology 101--Part 4

Creatures of the Night

Hal brought out his mist net to catch bats just for fun (have we mentioned yet how accommodating he was to our children?). Friday night we went to a small pond in South Canyon, strung out the net, and waited for birds and bats to come for a drink and get tangled in the net.

This violet-green swallow got caught right at dusk. It had beautiful, iridescent colors.

Silver-haired bat (Lasionycteris noctivagans)

Long-legged Myotis (Myotis volans)

Long-eared Myotis (Myotis evotis)

Hal caught a poorwill off the road on the drive back to the cabin. This nocturnal bird has a huge mouth to catch insects in flight.

Irony of ironies: The following day, Bert DeLambert asked if we had had a good time catching bats. While we were gone, he and his wife were sitting out on their porch enjoying the evening and had watched a large black bear come down to the pond, take a drink, and pick up an old dead fish lying on the bank before walking away.

Field Ecology 101--Part 3

First Bear Capture! Thursday, 28 June

Josh had a captured bear in one of the traps he checked in Horse Canyon. When everyone completed trap checking, we went to the capture site together to work it. Here Megan and Ian are getting their first look at a trapped wild black bear. It wasn't very happy about the situation and snarled and chomped its jaws at us.

After looking at the bear and estimating its size, we got the tranquilizing medication prepared in the jabstick. Here Grandpa Hal is explaining the process to Ian and Erin.

Josh had the honor of jabbing the bear. There is a hole in the screen large enough for the jabstick to fit through. It is an intramuscular drug, so you want to aim for the rear end or thigh area.

Once the bear had been jabbed, we recorded the time on the data sheet and then relaxed for 15-20 minutes to give the tranquilizers time to do their job.















We yelled and poked the bear to make sure it was asleep before removing the door. This bear didn't move at all when Josh yelled at it, but when he pulled up the door, it raised its groggy head, looked right at us, then flopped down again. We quickly replaced the door, gave the bear some more drugs, and waited a bit longer for it to go to sleep.










After pulling the bear from the trap, we realized that we had underestimated its weight by about 50 lbs. He was still twitching his lips and flinched when we punched in the ear tags.












Since he was male, we did not put a radio collar on (only females are collared in order to follow reproduction). He got ear tags and we took a few measurements, then left him to wake up. He was very stinky and messy. Oh, we also cover the eyes to keep the dust and dirt out of them. They tend to remain open with the drugs. Each bear has a capture number, but we also name them just for fun. Hal decided to name this bear "Brother Young" after our family.


Check back in a month or so to see if we ever got the video clip of the process posted!

Field Ecology 101--Part 2

Bear Sign

Each day, at least one of the 20 traps had a disturbance even if it didn't catch a bear. While checking traps, we frequently saw bear tracks along a road, or occasionally found some bear scat. This particular scat was on the trail leading up to one of the traps, which, for some reason, the bear chose to ignore. Its tracks showed it came within 10 m of the trap--very frustrating! But we had a lot of evidence that there were several bears within our trapping area.

Other Wildlife

We saw a lot of mule deer, often a mother with twin fawns (no photos of these, sorry, but trust us that they were very cute). Additionally we saw wild turkeys with their chicks, elk, wild horses, a golden eagle, cows (guess they don't really count as wildlife, but since they graze all over, we encountered them daily), and pronghorn. Kevin and Ian saw a couple of coyotes too.

At the Pond

The DeLamberts gave us permission to use their boat and ride out on the pond during the afternoons when we had no bear captures. The children took their nets and enjoyed catching tiger salamanders. Some of the salamanders still had gills. Two of them are now residing in our backyard ponds.

Kevin and Josh teamed up to capture the first frog, after which the children caught many more using their nets. Kevin also had to catch a garter snake--he couldn't let us only appreciate the mammals on this adventure. Erin soon became adept at spotting frogs along the shore, and Ian assisted her in catching them.

And now for the bonus question: What is this? Submit your entries in the comment section for this blog. The winner will receive a 4X6 framed copy of the photo (just kidding). Actually, we'll post the winner's name later and tell the story behind the photo. *Those present at the time this photo was taken are not eligible for voting in the contest.