Warm winter nights….and happy endings.

When you wake up in the morning, you never really know what the day is going to have in store for you.  We do, after all, carve out our niche in the world by following the daily habits of small furry critters in a predominantly wild landscape.  We often grow attached to our fuzzy wards (how could we not?).  So when something in our data collection portends trouble for one of them, we mobilize to see what we can do.

Males that we capture and deem healthy enough to carry the weight sport ARGOS collars.  These collars communicate with orbiting satellites to determine the collar’s location and the satellites then relay location information via email right to my laptop.

There’s me in the corner!

Armchair biology.  Technology!  While this sounds like a road to obsolescence for field biologists, we still need to track the collar (and fisher) down when the data tells us something is amiss.  The collars are only on during certain times each day, and during this window the collar transmits once a minute to the satellites.  We’ve got a nifty receiver that lets us track it down via strength of the signal and distance from the collar as it transmits.

Male 190 was released in December 2011, and has been with us a little while.  He’s often seen at female den trees during mating season, and all in all, he’s just a sturdy, well built fellow.  It was distressing, therefore, to see some of the data from his collar suggest that he might no longer be with us.  To figure out if 190 was ok Julie and I looked into when the collar transmits and, lucky for us (sarcasm), it transmits from 5PM – 9PM and again from 1AM-5AM.  With the weather being wet as it has been for a time, we knew it was going to be an interesting hunt.  Just what we enjoy, if you can believe it.  We hoped for a dropped collar, and tried not to think about finding a carcass.  It was wet, getting dark, and we were heading into uncertain terrain.

Andria volunteered to go out hunting with me.  With the rain and the wet muddy roads, going in by truck was out of the question. Not to mention our only access was a long and partially closed road that would have required chainsaws, and more time (and daylight) than we could afford.  So ATVs were on the menu.  We knew the area we were headed to, and had a rough route planned (no one had visited this area since the rain, so all routes are tentative).  After dropping the trucks and heading out on the ATVs we began hearing the signal we had hoped for.  We continued on our pre-planned route, as a time or two doing this has taught me that signals broadcast up from a creek bottom can give misleading readings from a ridge top.  Along the way we had to move downed trees and rocks.

After getting all the way down to where our most recent data suggested 190 may be, we could hear no signals from the collar.  This had me daring to think that maybe, just maybe, he’s still alive – but somewhere other than where the recent points told us he might be.  We rushed as best we could back to the top of the ridge and posted up for a few minutes.  Lo and Behold, the signal boomed in to our receiver and continued to change in direction and intensity, quite quickly.  He was not far from where we randomly stopped, doing his thing and probably oblivious to our racket!  

Relief.   Elation.  High fives.  Back to the truck.  We were able to get out there, nose about, and determine that this guy is still hanging around, though probably weathering the worst of the rain in a tree hole somewhere, shielding the collar from reaching the satellites.  A good nights work, and home before 10PM.

 

UPDATE 2/15/2014:  Activity data from collar came through tonight and shows good readings across the board.  Sweet.

Little Red (ATV) in Big Blue (truck)

Can’t see very far at night on these things!

Receiver and antenna for on-the-go action!

Candid ATV shot!

Stashing equipment after road maintenance.

Back in the truck.

18308

It is Monday as I check the website (seaturtle.org) that allows me access to our Argos data. I go through each tag number, which represents a different male fisher, to see where his travels have taken him and to check his general activities. Today as I get to male 18308 I immediately notice that his collar has been in the same place for 3 days, and the dreaded “0” is unambiguous in the activity data. Those two facts clearly indicate that the male is dead or at the very best has dropped his collar. Tomorrow someone has to go find out which one it is.

Tomorrow (Tuesday) I am scheduled to attend a meeting in Yreka where I will update folks about the translocations’ progress at the Interior Fisher Working Group (a collection of folks interested in fisher biology and management in California and Oregon). Since I’ve committed myself to attend the meeting Kevin volunteers to go find the collar or a dead fisher (or both). I tell him approximately where the collar’s signal is coming from and give him the best locations from our recently downloaded data. I convince myself, as I always do, that all we will find is a collar and no signs that the male is dead.

For most of Tuesday I don’t think much about what Kevin will find. At the meeting I tell everyone that we have documented only 7 fisher mortalities on the project but that this figure might change by the end of today. For most everyone this is a trivial fact and probably impacts the overall tone of my update very little. At about 1 pm I start looking at my phone every few minutes hoping to see a text message that says something about finding only a collar. By five I still haven’t heard anything, and at a quarter to 7 – just before we leave Yreka headed home – I call to see what has been found. The response I get needs no clarification. He is dead.

On the ride home I think about male 18308. I captured him on the EKSA in early 2010 in the first year of the translocation. While he was in the captive facility that year I took to calling him “Big John” primarily just because he was one of the bigger males we had. He was the second male that was released on Stirling and he stayed relatively close to his release location. We tracked him successfully in each year of the study. He was the first fisher we recaptured in late 2010, and he always seemed to be amenable to recapture after that. It’s always exiting to capture our fishers and see how they have done since we last handled them. 18308 was the most exciting to me because he was always the biggest fisher we had (he weighed in at 5.8 kg in February of 2011) and I always wondered how big he would be the next time. We found him at the den trees of females in each year of the study  and sometimes at multiple trees in the same year. Though we cannot yet be definitive I suspect he fathered kits in all three breeding seasons he was on Stirling. He was 6 years old at the time of his death which is pretty good for a wild male fisher. Currently, we don’t know what caused his death and it may take several weeks to learn this – we may never know.  I tracked 18308 for longer than any on the project.

As biologists we probably feel, or at least I do, as though there is some connection to the animals we study. Let’s face it, if I didn’t enjoy working with, and learning about animals, I wouldn’t be doing what I’m doing. At best, the animals are indifferent and at worst they have a deep resentment towards me as I trap and follow them around in their daily lives. Strangely, it is the thousands of hours of effort spent in trapping, handling, and following these animals that causes their deaths to affect me. I enjoy working with and learning about fishers, and each one has taught me something important about what they do and how they live. When they die we lose the opportunity to learn something new about that individual and the species. Maybe just as importantly, we lose the experiences and enjoyment that comes from that learning. I learned a lot from 18308.

18308 at 1st den tree 2010

18308 at best of den tree

18308 after sedation in 2011

Fisher Talk

No particularly exiting news presents itself today, but I thought I would provide some content to distract folks from doing actual work (maybe).

Last year Roger gave a talk about weasels and fishers to a group in Ely, MN (where he currently resides). I’m not sure why I was searching, or found them  but I came across those talks and they are enjoyable so check them out here. There are several videos but once you get to the first link you should be able to find them all. Roger gives some nice general information on fishers and weasels along with some nice slides – he throws in a joke now and then too.

I’m off to track fishers. Enjoy

-ANF-

 

Judging by the Cover

For those of you interested in such things a new book has recently been published on Carnivore Ecology and Conservation by Luigi Boitania and Roger A. Powell (yes our very own Roger). It is full of all kinds of useful information about capturing, handling, tracking, and generally studying those lovable meat eaters that we all enjoy learning about so much. Contributions to the book being made by not only Roger but also by other folks from our project (check out chapters 9 and 13 first) as well as a number of very accomplished researchers.

I have yet to read every chapter, but have already read the chapter on home ranges and movements. A lot of very good information in there, and I assure you I’ll be reading it again. I’ll spare you all from a full blown book review any time in the future as that would probably be painful for all involved.  Yes, some might say I have a conflict of interest here since Roger is my adviser, but hey I”m not one to pull punches when I need to (can anyone tell me how many times the  word “tecs” needs to be on a cover?).

Anyway, if you have some spare cash (and I don’t) it is a worthwhile piece to add to your library.

-ANF-

Spinning in Circles

Yesterday we were able to get a little flight time in one of the CDFG’s airplanes (post picture). The flights are crucial in that we cover the entire study area (and beyond) far more quickly and efficiently than is possible on the ground. This allows us to find animals that have wandered into areas we don’t (or can’t) normally search. It also is a great opportunity to see the study area from a different perspective and that is often a very good thing.

Foothills from telemetry plane

The plane right before takeoff

The downside is that frankly I don’t much enjoy these flights. When we first began the project the prospect of flying in an airplane or helicopter looking for animals seemed extremely exiting. Well, that excitement wore out after about flight number two. A flight entails hours of listening to static over the ear phones. It is cramped and often it is either too hot or too cold. When you do hear something the pilot (who does a wonderful job but probably doesn’t enjoy telemetry flights all that much either) promptly turns sharply so we don’t “loose” the signal and then circles until we feel confident that we have a reasonable location on the animal. I’d like to tell you that I’m so tough that I’ve never felt the tiniest amount of motion sickness during all this, but I’d be a big liar! One out of every three flights I start feeling a little green somewhere along the way. Usually, this occurs when we’ve been doing circle after circle for about 3 hours.

Yesterday’s flight was a mixed bag. We found 14 animals (that’s about 30 circles) of 21 that I was looking for. You can get a rough idea of where animal are by looking for the circles on the included maps of our track logs. Unfortunately, the day was cut a little short because we detected a mortality signal of female 1E03E near Highway 36. Beings that this needed to be investigated we didn’t spend as much time searching for all animals as I would have liked. Additionally, this was “one of those flights” where I don’t feel too well by the end of it.

Track Log and Locations of Flight

Flight path while doing telemetry

Sadly, the day didn’t end any better because the mortality signal turned out to real (meaning there was indeed a dead animal). We  don’t know what killed this female but we are investigating possible causes like predation. Hopefully, we’ll know more soon. We probably would not have found this mortality without the flight – or at least not for a long time. So, despite any personal comfort problems that the flight present, they are extremely important for us to continue and get as often as we can.

-ANF-

The Depths of Despair

Fisher in Box (photo: Tati Gettleman)

Today Rob and I went and checked some traps that Kevin set and opened several days ago. Sadly, we caught nothing! We have adopted a philosophy on the project relating to failure and trapping. Essentially it states that if you display any optimism that you will capture a fisher then you are certainly doomed to failure – you’ll capture nothing. If this goes on for much time at all then you inevitably develop a deep malaise that  can easily transition into despair. About the time that you feel your endeavors are completely pointless and futile is generally about the time that you begin catching fishers.

Male fisher about to enter Trap

This is a peculiar phenomenon that has been observed independently by multiple biologists. Scott Yaeger (our good friend and collaborator from the US Fish and Wildlife Service) initially made me aware of this concept several years back when he noted that he was having good success capturing foxes, but that once he believed he would catch foxes he was unable to ever catch another. Another day while Richard Callas (again friend and collaborator from Cal Fish and Game) and I were trying to catch fisher for the 1st year of the translocation effort, without success, he commented that he has also made similar observations relating the optimism of the researcher to the likelihood of success. In fact, it was during his description that he initially mentioned that we would need to sink into the “Depths of Despair” before we might have any success. Moreover, as Richard noted, the despair must be genuine. If you invoke the depths of despair with secret belief that it will bring success then you will always be disappointed. This is why you always capture animals on the last trap of a long line that produced no other animals, or on the very first trap that you feel was placed in poor habitat and could never catch an animal.

Shelly with sedated male fisher

No work as been done on how many, or if all, the biologists contributing to a project must be in the depths. Perhaps it is neccessary for only 1 truly caring individual to fall into this strange abyss of perceived failure? Maybe more importantly no one has established a statistical link between disposition and captures success, and it stands to reason that no one ever shall. In any case, tonight we sit. Perhaps not quite to the point of despair, but certainly with little hope that our traps, which did so poorly the last few days, will redeem themselves or us.  I include some photos from a happier time when traps were full of fishers and our moods more salubrious.

Fisher in Trap

Fisher Symposium at TWS

It’s that time again!  The annual meeting of the Western Section of the Wildlife Society is being held at Woodlake Hotel (formerly the Radisson) in Sacramento, CA from the 1st through the 3rd of February.

As a special bonus, there will also be West Coast Fisher Symposium from the 31st of January – 1st of February (brainchild of our own Scott Yaeger).  Link to the symposium flyer can be found here.  The format will break from the traditional “project update” and instead invited speakers have been asked to address key questions during a presentation and then join an audience/panel discussion.  This is a great opportunity to interact directly with the researchers (besides, we’ll all be there!).  We hope you can join us as we present and discuss varying conservation concerns relating to fishers!