“Whoa! What is that!?” exclaimed Dustin as he walked by an area I had passed just moments before. As I turned around and walked towards him, I noticed glistening light brown fur sprinkled with white spots just beneath the tall grass.
The brown mound of fur was an elk calf, probably no more than a day or two old. I had missed stepping on it by no more than a foot. Since beginning my project placement this summer, I have had to learn to see animal sign (and animals in general) while hiking between data collection points. Situational awareness in the field is perhaps one of the most valuable skills I have learned through my project placement.
Reading the Land
Having grown-up in a Southern California suburb my idea of wildlife animal tracking has been based solely on action/adventure films—stealthily following carnivore tracks through dense forest and reading clues of animal sign, such as tufts of fur stuck to branches, that eventually lead to the carnivore’s den. However, my initial idea of animal tracking left out the most conspicuous and foundational evidence of animal sign—scat. Recognizing animals by the brown gifts they leave behind and learning to appreciate the significance of their droppings has been a lesson in patience, observation, and framing.
Animal identification requires analyzing the scat’s size, color, shape (twisted or smooth), and composition (fur, bone, blood) takes time to investigate. Considering that examining these characteristics often means finding a stick and picking the scat apart, I was not particularly interested in tracking at the beginning of the summer. Framed differently, however, spotting and identifying scat can be a rewarding experience tying us to wildlife. In this context, scat tells us that the landscape we are standing in supports charismatic wildlife, such as foxes, coyotes, bears, cougars, and wolves. Depending on the scat’s freshness, we could be only hundreds of feet away from wildlife—which (at least to me) makes scat more exciting.
Shifting Focus
As I mentioned in my first post, many of the project study sites in Waterton Lakes National Park (WLNP) burned during the Kenow wildfire last September. Dissimilar to prescribed fires, which burn with mixed severity, the Kenow wildfire burned with mostly high/extreme severity in a large proportion of our study areas. Therefore, data collection for the first half of the field season has focused on analyzing fire severity within the study sites using grassplots and aspen transects. Because aspen fire response is greatest the second year after a fire, data collection on fire response this year will focus on the park’s grasslands. Within the aspen fire severity data collected my favorite metric was counting the new aspen sprouts, especially when the sprouts showed evidence of browse because it shows the trophic cascade between aspen, fire, and elk at work. Because the aspen stands have already begun to show regrowth, Cristina has decided to map the size of the regenerating aspen stands using a Trimble (mapping grade GPS).
Now that we have finished collecting fire severity, data fieldwork will transition to analyzing grassland regrowth. This will involve identifying the various grass species within plots and determining whether they are native or non-native, among other metrics. Since arriving in Waterton nearly 3 months ago, the study sites around the park have undergone a remarkable transformation. Areas that were barren in late April have since exploded with color.
Citizen Science
Living in Waterton and interacting with people from all walks of life has also been an eye-opening experience. This week we are welcoming our eighth group of citizen science volunteers. Each group has been unique, with volunteers coming from as far as Europe. A handful of volunteers have been contributing to citizen science through Earthwatch for years. One volunteer from group seven has been on 17 Earthwatch expeditions!!! Every volunteer so far seems to have a unique personal interest in environmentalism and has caught onto the methods quickly. While in the field, all participants seem to re-establish their own unique and personal relationship with nature, something we discussed at length during our seminars with Rob last summer. Volunteers also seem to be less stressed after working outside for a week and experiencing wildlife and everything Waterton has to offer, reaffirming the idea that there is something healthy about being outside.
Working with many of these volunteers has reinforced an idea that I learned at the beginning of this master’s program: you can be passionate about conservation but it doesn’t have to be your entire career. Most volunteers this season have careers outside of conservation, but come on Earthwatch expeditions to get into the wilderness and learn more about this ecosystem. This is something that keeps coming to mind as I search for jobs that will begin after I finish this program in August. However, the more I think about it, I keep coming to the conclusion that (at least for now) I wouldn’t be happy doing anything but conservation.
Wrapping it Up in Waterton
This upcoming week will be my last in Waterton as part of this field crew. Leaving Waterton and the friendships I have made will be extremely difficult. The final two weeks of my placement will be spent in the Earthwatch Headquarters in Boston, where I will be shadowing Cristina and learning first-hand how a global non-profit functions.
More than anything, my experience in Waterton has shown me the type of leader I want to be and the interpersonal skills that make a leader successful. As I said in my last blog post, clear communication throughout this project has been integral to achieving project goals. Working on this Earthwatch project has also solidified my interest in research and using GIS to showcase the outcomes of conservation actions and analyze spatial data. I absolutely love being in the field and hope to find more opportunities to develop my knowledge of data collection methods in the future.
Exploring Waterton has also yielded the opportunity to see wildlife I have never had before. On a trip to Banff last week one of the tour guides asked people to raise their hands if they had seen certain species—moose, deer, elk, coyotes, grizzly bears, black bears, squirrels, and chipmunks, among others, and I was able to raise my hand each time.
The Nelson Institute: Environmental Conservation Leadership Projects 