Under the big blue sky

I'm in Taiwan now!

2009-09-11T17:03:00.001-07:00

Thanks everyone for following this blog. I'm sorry I didn't do such a good job. I will do better next time! When is next time? Next time is now! I'm in Taiwan and Here is my blog for that!

The ending

2009-07-30T13:34:00.000-07:00

Well, tommorow is our last day. Not even really the last day; today was the last day in the field and I think we're staying in the office tommorow. I know there's been a lack of updates lately, and I'm sorry.

I will be going to Taiwan to work on a bat project in September - perhaps I will do a better job there. I'm not making any promises though.

Last weekend, we hiked up to Republic Pass. We ascended 2000 feet twice to get there. It was an awesome, exhausting hike.

The rocks in Yellowstone

2009-07-02T20:52:00.000-07:00

Yellowstone, being a geologically active area, has a lot of cool rocks scattered around. I found this one today - it's like those fatty pork rocks from China. You know, the rocks that look like layers of skin and meat. This is that, in raw form.

Hiking

2009-07-01T21:05:00.000-07:00

I am trying to hike more, since I am living in this beautiful country. This is from the Garnett Hill Loop hike. The landscape varied from sagebrush to forest, meadow, and here, marshy grassland. My favorite was a forest whose floor was blanketed with grass. I thought these types of landscapes only existed in fairytales and the imagination.

Welcome to July

2009-06-30T23:28:00.000-07:00

As June passes, here is a picture of what I did in this month that I normally would not do - snowboard. Yes, in Montana, you can snowboard in any month, although on this particular day, I did not like the conditions. The snow was all slabby and I kept catching on chunky snow and falling over. After this picture I mostly fell down the mountain. I shouldn't blame the conditions though; I stink at snowboarding. The picture's nice though. Snowboarding in June: Montana.

Ecoli update

2009-06-29T20:31:00.000-07:00

We found out we have ecoli in our water on the 22nd. The town tested positive for ecoli on 15. There is a discrepancy between when they found out and when we found out. Hm.

Sorry I haven't been updating lately. We've been really busy lately. I will try to do this: every day I will upload a picture and say a little bit about it.

This is petrified wood. It looks like regular wood, but it's heavy and cold, like ceramic. I was walking up a hill the other day and came upon what looked like a freshly split log. But it was petrified wood. Pretty cool, eh?

Intensive Observation Begins NOW

2009-06-22T22:17:00.000-07:00

Intensive observation. It doesn't mean staring extra-hard; it means we have to do observations on certain packs every day, for as long as we can, preferably 3 hours of active obs. a day. Active observation means we have to be actually watching the coyotes, not looking for, but not seeing them. So that's a lot of looking and a lot of luck. Today was windy as windy can be, making it the coldest-feeling day I've had here on the job. It's pretty harsh for 6 in the morning. Speaking of which, we have to leave at 5 tommorow morning (like any other obs. day), so I have to get up around 4:30 or so. So time to sleep!

By the way, our water has e. coli in it, so we can't drink, wash or bathe in it. We just found out today. Who knows how long this has been going on. Apparently, the spring runoff is to blame. Damn those swollen rivers.

Coyote Puppies!

2009-06-14T00:06:00.000-07:00

My goodness they are cute. They are getting braver and venturing further and further from their dens. Watch out for the wolves!

Lion Lake

2009-06-10T21:49:00.000-07:00

We hiked up beyond the view of the road in search of a fabled lake as told by a photographer, where "the animals just come to you." We walked through grasslands and sagebrush, and amongst trembling aspen that stood in quiet isolated stands like self-contained nations in seas of grass. We reached a peak where small yellow and purple flowers proliferated in the spaces between beds of weathering rock that cracked and came off in shards, littering the ground with loose debris like bone fragments. And when we could not find the lake and turned around to head back to the car, we came upon another lake, which when we came around, emitted a gutteral and continuous growling from its vicinity. We were creeped out by the eerie noise, which was unlike anything we had heard before and would not stop. It was deep and seemed un-animal, like the noise of a straw that has reached the bottom of the cup, but much, much deeper. In amongst the trees behind the lake, we saw a black bear, but it didn't seem to be the source of the rumbling growls. There seemed to be two sources producing the noise. We decided it was mountain lions, angry at the intrusion by the bear, perhaps because of a nearby den. We named the lake Lion Lake.

Life and Death at Fisherman's Point

2009-05-30T20:25:00.000-07:00

Through the Lamar Valley of Yellowstone National Park, a road runs east-west more or less along a series of rivers. It is along this road that we do most of our radio tracking and coyote observation. At one pullout along this road is Fisherman's Point, where one can observe the coyote territories: Jasper Bench Pack territory to the south of the road and river, and the former territory Paradise Pack to the north.

The story of Paradise Pack is a sad one. This winter, the wolves killed the alpha female of the pack, leaving only the alpha male, M361 and his yearling pup, Baby Alvin Warren. We have a radio collar on M361, and ever since his mate died, he and his son have become drifters, sometimes completely disappearing from our study area. Normally at this time of year, coyotes packs are tending to their young, striking out into their territory in the morning to collect food and bringing it back for their pups to eat. We aren't sure what M361 and his single offspring are doing, without a breeding alpha female.

However, we saw M361 the other day sitting quietly next to a live bison calf. The calf had been washed to Fisherman's Point in a river crossing and separated from its mother, and M361 was watching it patiently. We watched, along with a crowd of other people. Occassionally he would get up and stretch and once he nipped at the calf's butt for a bit. As night fell and the crowd thinned out, M361 finally got up and took a hold of the calf's leg, moving up to its neck, brought it down and began feasting on the fresh carcass.

The next day when we came to see what remained of the carcass, we saw instead a coyote across the river. She had something in her mouth and we followed her up the hill beyond the river to a group of rocks where three (or four) pups came out from behind the biggest rock to feed and nurse. We had found Jasper Bench Pack's den!

Back in Montana

2009-05-25T21:31:00.000-07:00

I've returned to Montana and life has hit me full on. After I got back I tagged along for a ski trip in the mountains. Western skiing, apparently is different from East Coast resort skiing. You find the place in the rugged and abundant mountains in Montana and you just go. Then you climb back up, catch your breath, and go again. Man it is freeing. And dangerous. Besides the fact that the easiest slope was harder than most blacks on the east coast, there is the real threat of avalanches. Most people who go to the harder areas wear beacons and often carry shovels.

(1) I borrowed various people's equipment, which all fit me, somewhat. (2) Fresh avalanches.

2009-05-16T07:14:00.000-07:00

I'm spending a week in Taiwan to attend my grandmother's funeral. Maybe I'll write some stuff later, either about Yellowstone or Taiwan, but not now. I don't know if it feels appropriate to put it in the same post. Rest in peace, Grandma.

Things we do

2009-05-09T16:14:00.000-07:00

I am getting more familiar with my weekly schedule. On Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, we track coyotes using antannae, travelling east or west across our study area and stopping at designated spots to check for signals. We plot the direction of the signals on the map and record the triangles that intersecting bearings make on the landscape, which are presumably where the coyotes are. On Tuesdays, we find a good spot and sit there, recording whatever coyote activity we may see or hear. The activity I've witnessed has been sparse, limited to only a few minutes at a time in a two or three hour observation. Sometimes we hear them yipping and howling, which we record as well.

On Thursdays, we check for the three dispersed coyotes in the Blacktail/Gardiner Basin, which is outside of our normal study area. This Thursday, we had the luck of spotting two of the coyotes we were tracking. However, both of them were in bad shape. This one, M234, used to be one of the biggest coyotes being studied. But that day we saw him, he was gaunt and stiff legged, walking down the side of the road.

Tourists slowed down to watch, and one car (background) began driving directly behind him, about 10 feet away, and a passenger got out and began walking and taking pictures. I yelled at them to stop. I have to admit though, I probably would do some of the same obnoxious things that we see tourists do here.

Thursdays are also supposed to be for observation as well, and after we got tired of that, we decided to walk out and find a den that had been raided by some wolves a week ago. What had happened, according to some observers, was that the Druid Pack wolves had begun digging out the Specimen Pack den, as wolves often do to kill coyote pups, when a herd of bison

moved into the area and chased out the wolves. It was an interesting interaction since the bison essentially rescued Specimen Pack's litter, and nobody knew why.

We knew that the pack would have quickly moved their litter to a spare den, and that the den would have been empty by now. We walked up to it, and one intrepid intern stuck her head, nay her entire body, inside. Then everyone else stuck their head inside, so I did it too. Coyote dens are long and winding, up to 20 feet deep. Their serptentine shape is designed to stop invaders like the Druid wolves. The den was dry and musty smelling, and with my head in the entrance, I saw the tunnel wall directly in front of me, since the passage made an immediate turn or fork. But the den was empty and quiet. We poked around the site for a little longer and then headed back to the car.

As we walked back, thunder rolled in the distance, and in the characteristic Yellowstone fashion, the weather changed quickly and dramatically. It was raining little balls of fluffy ice resembling Dippin Dots, which the locals call gropple.

My First Coyote

2009-05-02T15:59:00.000-07:00

Today I spotted my first coyote. It makes me feel much better now, because before I felt like I was pretty useless being unable to find coyotes during observations.

This morning in another observation, our site was approached by a bear. Everyone was pretty excited, and we eventually had to leave the area because it was too close (100 yards). It was amazing to see the bear so close and kind of disarming to watch it graze on grass. The bear gave us a hint of its ferocity when it stood up to look at us and whe

n we saw its 5-inch long claws. It just kept coming so we had to get out of there really fast. We had our bearspray ready the whole time. This has been my closest encounter with a bear, only 5 days into the job. So far every day at Yellowstone, I've been able to see a grizzly bear, and the season is just starting. I really hope I don't have any dangerous encounters.

Oh and this was pretty interesting. This elk died this winter.

Learning

2009-04-30T20:00:00.000-07:00

I still have a lot to learn!

I've started to do telemetry (radio-tracking), which is more or less the same as what I did in Taiwan. We go to areas where we know a collared coyote is known to roam and we scan the area with a directional antennae called a Yagi. We decide the direction from which the signal is strongest and record the bearing. Then we repeat this from several locations until we can make a triangle (triangulation) or at least an intersection (biangulation) between our bearings.

The hard part I find is observing the coyotes. I seem to be bad at spotting them from the distance and using a scope to find them. I have enough trouble doing this, but then I have to be writing down everything it does: RLU = raised leg urination; UP = unsuccessful predation; etc. We haven't even done multiple coyotes yet!

I am a little behind the other two interns, so I have a lot of catching up to do. They seem to have a whole lot more experience than me, in everything. From their stories, they seem to have already led amazing lives: the guy was a salmon fisherman in Alaska and seems to have roamed all over Montana, and the girl has trapped and tracked coyotes already, as well as done field work in Australia.

There's lots of wildlife all around here: I've already seen two bears, many coyotes, lots of elk and pronghorn, and millions of bison. I was worried about the grizzly bears here; apparently the bison are a bigger hazard. Tourist driving is the biggest.

Finally, here are a couple pictures:

Using scopes to look at a bear.

The bear! It's a big grizzly, far away.

I got here!

2009-04-28T20:04:00.000-07:00

I'm here in Cooke City, Montana. It's a 1.5 street town 4 miles out of Yellowstone. We worked today, observing coyotes in intermittently dumping snow. I have altitude sickness. It's no fun to have altitude sickness. I'll have some more to say later, perhaps. For now, facebook: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2345610&id=2704720&l=061a64a973

Day 2

2009-04-24T19:38:00.000-07:00

Today, I:

Drove down long, straight country roads.

Crossed the Mississippi.

Saw big tires

Right now, I'm in Iowa. Iowa has a lot of farms and shallow rolling hills. I go miles without seeing an exit, and the exits I do see are truck stops. But I can see so far... distant thunderstorm, lightning strike.

Tommorow: Rapid City, South Dakota

On the road!

2009-04-23T16:39:00.000-07:00

I left today. Final destination: Montana. But before I left, I had to get lost in Chapel Hill first. Yup, I did some exploring before I went on an 8-hour trip.

But once I got going, the going was nice. I like to listen to the radio stations change (and my CD player is broken). It gives me a sense of the distance I travel. About 5 stations today, through four states: NC (2), VA(none, it was the corner), WV(1), and OH(2).

Now I'm in Oxford, OH, where Tai Rui has been gracious enough to take some time out of her busy schedule to help me out and give me a place to stay. I just had the tiniest bagel sandwhich ever, and I'm pretty sure the girl who made it dug something out of her eye while she made it. Which is gross, but I ate it anyways. Who knows, maybe all your food handlers have been doing that. I was hungry.

I have an 8 megapixel camera phone which makes taking pictures really easy, so hopefully I will have some more.

This is Pilot Mountain, NC.

Tommorow's destination: Des Moines, Iowa