The thing about researching and monitoring wildlife is that the subjects of such pursuit expend no effort to accommodate the comfort of those doing the monitoring. Instead, researchers need to adapt to the conditions in which these animals live in order to develop a complete picture of populations and behaviors. Blistering heat, freezing cold, harsh weather: it’s all just part of the job.
To prepare for winter conditions, a GBI crew working alongside the USFS to conduct carnivore monitoring, underwent a five-day training on completing their work in backcountry snow conditions. On Monday, January 6, the crew, consisting of Macy Sonius, Shelby Normand, Lydia Hoffman, and Parker Jensen, received an introduction to the project, which would involve setting up trail cameras and bait stations in the Nez Perce Clearwater National Forest in Idaho and the Deschutes National Forest in Oregon. On Tuesday, a full day was devoted to avalanche awareness, communication, route finding, forecast interpretation, and beacon use. On Wednesday, the crew hit the snow for snowmobile training, covering operations, maintenance and repair, and troubleshooting. Thursday was all about snow tracking, including identifying tracks, non-invasive species sampling protocols, and snow collection protocol and filtering. And Friday closed things out with drivers training and wrap up activities.
All of this pre-field work is intended to ensure that the crews can be safely and effectively deployed in support of the USFS’s multiregional goal of conducting surveys for various species in priority wildfire crisis landscapes, including fishers, lynxes, wolverines, martens, and montane red foxes. Specifically, the GBI team is tasked with conducting lynx and wolverine monitoring surveys using trail cameras, track plates, snow tracking, non-invasive genetic sampling, and eDNA sampling. Additionally, the work will entail pilot testing on new field and data analytic techniques such as automatic scent dispensers, AI based photo data management, or AI or morphometric based identification of species or sex via tracks, and electronic data collection systems.
