Summer and Fall Research '10

It has been a while since my last post, I thought I would give a recap on summer and fall research. Currently I have started, and am almost finished with, my first semester at Mississippi State University as a Graduate student. Despite my absence, a lot of work goes on every fall up north. This summer ended with 3 wolves, 2 bobcats, 7 coyotes, and 18 bear with collars. We also had captured 44 fawns with collars. To date 14 fawn mortalities have occurred. In June-September wolf and coyote howl surveys were conducted with pretty good response from the wolves, but response was lower from coyotes than last year. In October deer camera surveys were conducted to estimate a population size within the study area. GPS collars are also starting to blow-off and are being collected to be re-furbished to be used again next year. As the snow is starting to fall up north bear dens are also being located, and their entrances marked, so we are better to able access them in a month when there is heavy snow on them.
Currently we are getting geared up for winter deer trapping, bear den checks, as well as carnivore capture which we are going to try during mid-winter this year rather than spring.
I head up north December 8th and we will start male bear den checks shortly after that, as well as deer trapping. If you ever want more information please visit http://fwrc.msstate.edu/carnivore/predatorprey/index.asp, this is the official project website.

- Tyler

Spring Research '10

Now that summer is here I thought I would post some of the events of spring. I graduated from Northern Michigan University on May 1st and although I officially started my graduate research assistantship May 16th, I started working on the project May 2nd. The crew is bigger this year, we have a total of 16 people 5 dogs and a cat. We had to rent a second house to fit everyone, so currently 12 people are in the "Big House" and 4 are in the "Lake House Shack".
Carnivore trapping started off right away with a bang, 2 wolves within the first week, 5 coyotes, and 2 bobcats. Bear trapping started up at the beginning of June as foothold trapping began to tapper off. We already had 7 bear collared from winter and have caught 8 this spring. Currently collared we have 3 wolves, 7 coyotes, 3 bobcats, and 15 bear.
Fawn captures and VIT tag searches went great this spring as well, starting in late May fawns started dropping and the tagged pregnant doe we caught this past winter provided ~60% success in finding their fawns. To date we have caught and collared 46 fawns this spring, we have not caught one for about a week now as they can outrun us on roughly 99% of encounters.
My howl survey research has been going well, currently I am eliciting howling from the collared individuals, the 7-mile marsh wolf pack is proving to be very responsive this year, and I have gotten one response from the Hayward Lake wolf pack as well. Responses have been slow from coyotes compared to last August but with whelping coming to a close things will hopefully be picking up for the July howl survey.
Spring has been great and Summer is looking quite fantastic as well, bear trapping will continue through August as well as Howling surveys through September. If anyone would like to know more feel free to e-mail me a tpetroel@gmail.com

- Tyler

Winter Research '09-'10

Winter has come and gone quickly, a very light snowfall for Michigan's Upper Peninsula this year. Although I did not spend all my time down in the study area because of classes and my thesis proposal, I was lucky enough to go down during some weekends.
Most of the field work has been deer trapping using clover traps, but because of low snowfall totals food has been more abundant and the deer haven't been "yarding" as nicely this winter but the deer trapping crew did well despite that and has caught and collared 20 doe. Currently they are rocket netting for deer but I have not been down to experience that.
Track surveys were also conducted but the snow failed to cooperate with getting many completed. The bobcat hair snares seemed to work well, and it is great to get out in the woods and bait for bobcat with roadkill deer.
The bear that we captured and collared this summer needed the GPS batteries changed out as well as checking on cubs of the year from females, den checks went quite well. Both females I worked on had 3 cubs each and a third female had 3 yearlings.
Spring is fast approaching and soon carnivore trapping will start, can't wait to catch some coyotes and wolves again! I will be graduating May 1st and starting my graduate research assistant position soon after. Talk to you all this summer.

- Tyler