Mustelid Mystery

Mustelid Mystery

by WoodGuide | Dec 6, 2021 | Exploring Nature, New Hampshire, Track and sign, Wildlife

Mustelid Mystery This weekend, I was hiking in the White Mountains when I came across a conspicuous fecal deposit right in the middle of the trail, so naturally, I just had to take a picture and investigate further! First, some background as to the habitat and other...

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Only five days into camera trapping at a new locat Only five days into camera trapping at a new location (this time aiming to camera trap fishers), and I already captured a cute resident on camera. This is bushy-tailed woodrat. These extraordinary rodents create giant homes out of leaf litter and twigs, and I inadvertently set my camera trap right next to/sort of over top of this woodrat's home. Of the five nights my camera has been out, this guy or gal has showed up thrice. In addition to the woodrat, my camera also captured photos of a VERY active Douglas squirrel (the western equivalent to the red squirrel in the East), a mouse (some species of Peromyscus), and a chipmunk (some species of Neotamias, there are like 3 species of chipmunks here that look very similar). My goal is to photograph whomever left a particularly interesting scat I found on this 4.5 ft diameter Douglas fir log. One suspect is a fisher, but it could belong to a gray fox too, or even a skunk or oposum. Either way, here is to hoping that another week at that location will yield more results! #awoodswalk #cameratrapping #wildlifephotography #camtraptions
The sun was shining and the mountain top still car The sun was shining and the mountain top still carried the cool, refreshing morning air. My team and I were out to deploy cameras along a ridgeline in the mountains of northern California with the goal of detecting fishers. A long and steep climb up a freshly bulldozed fire break loomed above us. Dust curled upwards with each step as we ascended the slope. In the middle of the fire break, a large print caught my attention. It was a mountain lion print, a very fresh lion print! Beaming, I exclaimed, "Woah! Mountain lion tracks!" I barely got a response from my fellow techs as by this point in the season, they have become desensitized to me stopping to look at tracks 😅 To me though, this was an awesome discovery! The tracks couldn't have been older than the previous evening. The detail was simply exquisite. I had only seen lion tracks once before, on one of my last hikes in the Olympics the previous summer. These were exceptional though. Conveniently, the mountain lion took the same route as us up to our predetermined camera site. In this photo, the very crisp and clear track is the left hind (denoted in blue). If you look closer, you can also see the 5th digit and the bottom of the palm pad of the left front track obscured to the left and down from the hind track (denoted in purple). #awoodswalk #tracking
Behind the scenes of camera trapping a Humboldt ma Behind the scenes of camera trapping a Humboldt marten. #awoodswalk #martes #wildlife #martens #browningtrailcamera
The past six weeks, I've been leading an @oregon.i The past six weeks, I've been leading an @oregon.inr.iww team to survey for Humboldt (coastal) martens in the Coastal Range, California. We baited 135 hair snares, once a week, for 4 weeks, to collect genetic samples of martens and other local mammals. The objective of this project is to estimate marten abundance and evaluate the influence of forest conditions and recent wildfires on abundance patterns using detections of martens at hair snares and remote cameras. While managing the array of hair snares and cameras, I also deployed two of my personal DSLR camera setups. I placed my DSLR cameras ~50 meters away from the project's survey stations, so as not to interfere with animals visiting the hair snares. My cameras were unbaited and set along routes I thought martens would use. Thanks to @camtraptions PIR V3 sensor and my experience with marten behavior and ecology, I was able to photograph this beautiful adult male coastal marten on a Douglas-fir log. Coastal martens are a CA state endangered and federally threatened population segment of Pacific martens that rapidly declined in the 19th and early 20th centuries due to overharvest. Forest loss and changes in forest management practices are thought to have limited their recovery and connectivity, and increasingly frequent and severe wildfires pose a major threat to their contemporary persistence. "The Conservation Biology Program of the Institute for Natural Resources at Oregon State University is conducting non-invasive surveys for coastal martens to estimate population abundance and habitat relationships in collaboration with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Oregon and California Departments of Fish and Wildlife, Oregon Department of Forestry, Green Diamond Resource Company, and the Yurok Tribe. Our research activities are permitted under U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Recovery Permit PER0046327, California Department of Fish and Wildlife Section 6 authority, California Department of Fish and Wildlife Scientific Collecting Permit S-191150011-19141-001, Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife Scientific Taking Permit 068-24, and Oregon State University Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee review."
After two and a half weeks of being along this gam After two and a half weeks of being along this game trail, I didn't have many critters come through my camera trap: only two spotted skunks, this deer, a Douglas squirrel, and a Stellar's jay. I was hoping for a bobcat, cougar, or gray fox along this well worn trail, but no luck, despite originally finding a bobcat scrape. As it happens with ungulates in front of cameras, this deer put on a show. It triggered my sensor over a hundred times, most of which were bum shots haha This past week, I moved this camera trap setup close (over 30 m away) to one of our hair snare locations that picked up a marten on camera. Stay tuned for updates on the new location. #awoodswalk #cameratrapping #california #camtraptions @camtraptions #wildliferesearch
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