May 21, 2006

Spring is finally here and the weather is warm and nice (whew!). The snow is pretty much melted so we don't have to follow our old snowshoe trails anymore! The experimental food addition is just about to wrap up for the spring. We have been giving some populations of squirrels peanut butter to test the importance of food to reproductions, natural selection and evolution. Some pups whose mothers have a feeder are growing as fast as 4 g/day whereas kids whose moms don't have a feeder are growing at about 1 g/day and some of these females are losing their litters. Reproduction is just about done for this season (it was a very early one) and so we are nearly finished with our feeding experiment for the season.

We had a grizzly bear (that the crew has named Gerald) on the Lloyd and Chitty study areas. Marylise saw it chasing a moose(!) and then later Ben saw it crossing the old highway on Chitty. From tracks we think it chased the moose all the way from Lloyd (about 5km)!

-RWT & AMc

May 5, 2006

Spring continues to approach in the Yukon. Most parts of camp are now free of snow but there are still sections of the bush that have 1 or 2 feet of snow. It was just this week that we gave up on the snowshoes and have been hitting the study grids in just our boots. A solid crust forms over the top of the snow overnight but by late morning it is pretty slushy.

Breeding on most of our study areas is well under way. We already have some juveniles that have emerged and Mark and Julie are busy tracking down their movements as the juveniles explore possible areas in which to settle. It has been an extremely busy spring and the crew has been working very hard. We have now ballooned to a crew of 14 field technicians and graduate students working in camp. There is still more training to do with the recently arrived crew members but they will soon be trapping on their own. These extra hands, together with the passing of the busiest part of the year for the squirrels means that the crew will have a few more moments to catch their breath than they have over the past few weeks.

To accommodate this enlarged crew we have added a new double outhouse and renovated our kitchen facilities. Each crew member takes their turn to do all of the cooking and cleaning and it is quite a challenge to prepare meals for such a large and hungry crew. All the meals so far have been excellent and the King of Kamp Day's (Quinn) pancakes were especially appreciated the other morning!

-AMc

May 1, 2006

While searching the internet for plans for the new outhouses in Squirrel Camp, I came across some plans by Ernest Thompson Seton (author and naturalist) and I was reminded of one of his quotes.

"The rodents are very low in the scale of intelligence, but the red squirrel ranks high in its class. It is gifted with a burning curiosity, which, tempered by prudence and aided by agility, is an excellent start on the road to knowledge"
Ernest T. Seton, 1909