Patrick Cross

Thanks! Got an unexpected wave of high quality reports following the High Country News article, have a short manuscript in preparation, pushing ahead with our short video, and our volunteer crew from last spring is wondering when we are going back out there... so I'd say things are going well!

Thanks!

Thanks Jason: sorry we couldn't make it work out last summer, but yes I'd be more than happy to come down next summer if possible. Always looking for reasons to make a trip to Red Lodge!

Hi Steve, Good to hear from you. Yes, this is the last year for the ol' A-Frame: I tried to enjoy it as much as possible this winter (200% of average snowpack! - literally had to dig down to access the front door in March!), and we are putting it to good use this summer with the field crew that is doing aspen browsing/release assessments in the Park and water sampling on the Yellowstone in Paradise Valley. Going to miss that place - that's one reason why I made sure to include it in our otter crew group photo. But looking forward to our future digs! I don't think Anicka's Olympus is a film camera (as you said, tough to find a developer these days, especially since she and her husband live in Cooke City) - I think it is just slick retro styling. I will check with her though and let you know if it is. All the best, Patrick

Hi Angie, We will be working on the analysis this summer and fall. Unfortunately, our sample size ended up being pretty small and it might be hard to make any strong conclusions from it. We need more data, and trying to collect it all in one day in one big sweep just might not work: for example, the team on our highest elevation transect did not record any otter sign (and that team included an experienced mountain guide/former wilderness ranger from the area as well as a PhD ecologist), and yet the previous week one of those guys happened to be skiing in the exact same area and did see tracks! But fortunately, (1) we learned a lot about how we might run this project different next time, (2) our volunteers did great work, had fun, and want to come back and volunteer again, and (3) we DID get some data, proving the concept and demonstrating the ability of citizen scientists to get out there and do the work well. Also, one of those sets of tracks WAS substantially smaller than a track right next to it, and therefore may represent a juvenile, which would be an exciting find! I will be doing some statistical analyses on track sizes to determine if (a) the measurements of that track were significantly different than adult tracks, and (b) the measurements of that track were significantly different that juvenile tracks. So in short, I think this project has just begun! But what we did accomplish this go around still is notable, and will make a great video (after all, getting perfect results in natural sciences almost never happens, and communicating that to the general public is important) and possibly even make a peer-reviewed journal article too. Thanks again for your support!

Or maybe cutthroat trout heads... thanks!

Thank you, Marypat! And thanks for your support and all your help getting the word out about this project. We will be sure to name an otter "Old Neutriment"...

Thanks for the kind words and generous contribution, Steve! I think you know as well as anyone how much we care about the Beartooths and its inhabitants (and how much we like getting out into the Beartooths to study its inhabitants!)

Cool photos, and congrats on getting funded! In the weasel photo, is that a hunk of black bear hanging in the tree? And for your wolverine traps, interesting to see you use dimensional lumber instead of more natural materials like Copeland's original log cabin trap design (although I do recognize that good logs "might" be hard to come by in your study area, and that the resident willows ain't gonna' cut it for a wolverine trap.) Do you think there is any loss of trap efficacy using the dimensional lumber? It would be interesting to do (albeit difficult to fully control and interpret) a comparative test in a forested environment. Shaping the natural materials just so does seem like it would be a time-consuming pain on-site, whereas the dimensional lumber seems like it would save a lot of time (when I built those traps for foxes I did not have to be so precise since a fox won't chew his way out like a wolverine would)....

Thanks, Sarah, and good luck with your exciting project as well!

The free software ML-Relate might be worth looking into for a cheap way to assess relatedness... good luck!

You're welcome, Angie! For effective research (as in, to make the most of limited time and limited funding), we usually need to focus on a very specific set of questions. Yet to actually have an important impact, we need to make sure to place those questions in the context of the bigger picture (there's probably an ecosystem metaphor here). I had a college professor who would always say "it doesn't matter how many primary feathers are on the wing of the golden-crowned warbler" (or something like that), "what matters is: who cares about these birds and their feathers? why is counting them important? what is the gap in knowledge we are addressing with this research?" So thanks to experiment.com for providing this "lab note" section, allowing us to put things in context, provide more background, and have conversations like this. And thanks to you, Angie, for your interest and support!