[Comments in brackets by Jeannine and Duane]
From the Northern Crew:
Dear deer people,
Upon returning from my Wisconsin trip this week, I discovered that one of the fawns was missing in action. Lucky for me, this is a fawn captured from a VIT which means the fawn collar is linked to the GPS-collared doe. So I was able to see where the doe has travelled since we captured/collared her last winter. My thought: find the doe and the fawn won’t be far.
That’s when things got interesting!
Duane and Jeannine have written blog posts about some deer having separate winter and summer homes. Well, turns out this MIA fawn’s mama is one of those deer too! We’ve been locating this fawn in the same area since it was collared in May. However, that area is over 2 miles away from where we caught the doe last February. So I cruised on over to the winter capture location and sure enough, picked up the fawn’s signal, alive & well, with mama nearby (I listened for her collar signal too).
That little investigation got me thinking. I thought back to July 24th when a different VIT fawn went missing for a day before we tracked it down 2 miles away from its previous location. While that was intriguing, we didn’t know the half of it! I looked up the doe’s GPS locations, and check it out. In a matter of approximately 48 hours, this mama doe and her 1 surviving fawn (originally twins) trekked 10 miles roundtrip (as the crow flies)! Makes you wonder what in the heck they were up to [It was summer. They were going on vacation].
I should mention that after finally getting Roof Rack (the truck that’s been in the shop since May) out on bail (over $1300 in repairs) not 8 miles down the road the check-engine light came on again…with the same generic exhaust system code. So we’re back to square one for now. The shop is going to investigate the issue next week. Stay tuned.
Field Crew Leader
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From the Southern Crew:
Hello all,
I finished my list of the Clover traps that need to be re-netted. There are still about 10 traps at the barn in 4B that need to be checked, but we may not get those traps to Penn Nursery until winter trapping begins.
The crew truck is still at the garage being worked on. My truck is having issues with the power steering. The mechanic changed both the power steering and transmission fluids at the end of last week. I also noticed a feeling of the truck briefly “slipping” while driving it, but this is recent. I haven’t felt the truck “slip” since the fluid change, but the mechanic wants me to continue monitoring it. I’d like to drop my truck off to be looked over this week. I need the Squirtle (my truck–yes, a species of Pokémon, and no, I do not play Pokémon Go!) to stick around! It seems like I’ve been at the garage a lot lately.
In addition to locations this week, I conducted data entry. On Thursday, I saw two collared fawns and had two bucks cross the road while I was getting locations.
The bucks didn’t see me standing 25 meters from them when they crossed and walked up a heavily used deer trail. The fawns are getting big and some are losing their spots! Lastly, I had a few large friends helping me with telemetry!
Field Crew Leader
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