Sonoma puma

These photos were taken by Rod Jackson on November 2.

It was a little past 12:30 AM when the cat walked past the camera on a farm in Sonoma County. 

Rod directs the  Snow Leopard Conservancy, and is an old hand at camera trapping. 

He has relied on remote camera technology to census snow leopards in the mountain wilds of Asia for three decades. 

He also tests new camera traps near the conservancy's headquarters in Sonoma County.

This particular one was a Sony s600 with a YetiCam controller.

There is a hint of spots on the coat in the upper photo. 

According to Logan and Sweanor, the dappled coat usually disappears by the time the cats reach 2 years of age, but faint markings may persist on the legs until 30 months.

Many thanks for sharing these images, Rod. 

Reference

Logan, K.A. and L.L. Sweanor. 2001. Desert Puma, evolutionary ecology and conservation of an enduring carnivore. Island Press, Washington, D.C.

Gray fox's co-napper

I had missed it completely.

The napping tarantula hanging from the wall of the sandstone grotto.

Behind the sleepy gray fox.

My fellow camera trapper and Cal Fish & Game biologist Craig Fiehler pointed it out to me. 

It seems the spider joined the fox in its high noon siesta.

It just hung there peacefully for at least a half hour.

Just wanted to pointed it out. 

A Trail Camera Curriculum

It's time for an update of Dawn Tanner's school trail camera project I wrote about a few months ago.

Dawn's teaching aid has now been published. 

"Taking Action Opportunities -- connecting kids to wildlife with trail cameras" is a 74 page 12-lesson guide with a DVD.  

It is designed to "help teachers use trail cameras in schoolyards and protected areas to connect students to habitat loss and landscape fragmentation issues and empower environmentally responsible behavior."  

The target classes are elementary and middle schools. 

This is a step-by-step guide for teachers, who also receive a USB drive with the files they need for the lessons, and camera trap photo from three protected areas.

It starts with the simple fun stuff -- learning how to scout and identify animal sign, and then how to set trail cameras in school yards. 

The students then make predictions about which species of mammals will be found in the school yard.

When the photos start to roll in they identify the species and compare their findings with their predictions. 

Compiling data comes next, and that leads to the use of spreadsheets to graph the results. 

Thus they gain an understanding of activity cycles, species differences in the duration of feeding bouts, etc. 

In the classroom they also study dietary adaptations by examining skulls of camera trapped species. 

    

Camera trap findings are related to habitat. 

The kids learn to use Google Earth to compare satellite imagery of their school yard with protected areas in the state and abroad.

The DVD introduces the teachers and students to three Minnesota scientists who use camera traps to study wildlife -- Ron Moen who studies Canada lynx in Minnesota, Dave Smith who studies tigers in Asia, and Hadas Kushnir who studies lion-human conflict in Tanzania.  

Appendices supplement how-to information found throughout the manual, and include a student opinion survey.

Now, what I want to know is how come this wasn't going on when I was a kid?

Huh? 

For more information contact Dawn Tanner by email:  tann0042@umn.edu. 

   

Poison Water guzzlers--predators

The only predators that visited Poison Water were bats, and Townsend's big-eared bat (Plecotus townsendii), seen here, was a new record for our species list.

It didn't show up at the sandstone cave. 

The big-eared bat is most often found roosting in caves and mine tunnels, and is not regarded as a common species, though large roosts of several hundred bats are occasionally found. 

It is also a late flier, beginning to forage well after sunset.  

It's hard to believe and a bit of a mystery, but no bobcat, coyote, gray fox, bear, or mountain lion stuck its head into Poison Water to face the camera trap. 

Nor any striped skunks. 

In summertime in the Sierra Nevada foothills, I've camera trapped striped skunks tanking up two hours before sun set. 

Perhaps 4 days just wasn't enough time, but I would have expected at least to see a gray fox or a skunk.

We need to do more camera trapping at Poison Water.  

Poison Water guzzlers--black-tailed deer

Three black-tailed deer stepped over the boards to drink in the confined space of the spring. 

The one that caught my eye was this doe.  

She has notched ears, which make her identifiable in the field. 

She also has scars on her neck, and they are not completely healed.

I believe there are two punctures on the left side (the right side of the screen) -- there's a large tear at the base of the neck, and a smaller one midway in the track of missing hair.

The angle of the picture doesn't show the right side of the neck very well.

If there is a puncture, you can't see it. 

The skin was also torn across the neck.  

Here's a different view.

In the third picture, you can see scars on the upper left leg and shoulder. 

Any opinions out there as to what might have caused these wounds?

Poison Water guzzlers-thirsty bunnies

Desert cottontails and black-tailed jackrabbits were Poison Water regulars.  

Drinkers in the spring can not easily see approaching predators. 

Which makes you wonder how many have been stalked and caught by bobcats and coyotes while drinking behind the boards of the spring. 

Between rocks and hard places

Some of the most interesting camera trap sets are between rocks and hard places. 

We're talking about caves, mine shafts, lava tubes, natural chimneys, boulder piles, rock recesses, crevices, fissures and other situations you commonly encounter around bluffs and rimrock. 

The camera trapper's usual tools of the trade, like bunji cords, rope, wire, and stakes with special mounts usually don't do the trick where trees are absent and the ground is solid rock or sandstone.  `

So you make a cairn or prop the cam between rocks like I did at the Wind River Ranch last year.

A good wind can move it, and a bear can topple it. 

The ideal tool is an expansion post, but it took neighbor Richard and me a few weeks of desultory discussions about the relative merits of compression springs versus threaded rods before we had a plan.  

We settled on half inch threaded rod as the means of expanding and locking the post in place. 

This is basically the principle of the car jack.

The posts were made from pieces of used conduit (7/8ths inch outside diameter) cut to various lengths. 

We drove nuts into both ends of the posts, and screwed short lengths of threaded rod into one end. 

Several sections of expansion post measuring 36, 18, and 9 inches. 

The middle piece is 2 sections screwed together. 

Then we braised the nuts and rods into place.

Any number of lengths can be screwed together to fit gaps of different size.

The end pieces are the key parts for fixing the post solidly in place.  

A short stationary end piece is flattened like a chisel. It locks into place as you turn the screw by hand. 

The turning end is rounded (a carriage bolt head) or pointed (a lag bolt or a threaded screw machined to a point) and thus can be turned on a 12-inch length of threaded rod.  

It bores into a crevice or an irregularity in the rock. 

We tried it out at the rock recess, and it worked like a charm.  

The post is solidly in place with no wiggle room.