[Comments in brackets are by Jeannine and Duane]
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From the Northern Crew:
Greetings from the Susquehannock!
Wow! What a difference a week makes. The weather has warmed up and the ice and snow are rapidly melting. We are finally able to access new trapping areas, and the deer are returning to our established traps.
We’ve caught 5 deer in the past week and deployed two more collars. We are gradually moving our focus toward the northern part of the study area where we’ve only caught one deer so far. Our challenge now is to catch and collar some adult females in the northern part of the study area and catch some adult males wherever we can. Bucks tend to be a challenge to catch up here, but this year we’ve seen plenty on camera so we are hopeful.
Unfortunately, raccoons are also starting to show up in numbers, and warming weather will bring bears!
Until next time,
-Tom
Northern Crew Leader
PA Game Commission
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From the Southern Crew:
Hello all!
It has unfortunately been another slow week for us. We recaptured one of our precocious little button bucks and have seen deer at our Clover traps and rocket nets, but none of our target species are willing to throw us a bone in terms of capture events. With daytime highs in the 60s for this week and next, the snow is completely gone in most of the state forests save for uniquely icy roads in shaded and lower sections.
We’ve still seen some fascinating things on our cameras though! At a rocket net site the camera even grabbed a photo of what appears to be a barred(?) owl catching a mouse! I hope it snagged the one that chewed through our net.
Last week we had a unique opportunity to work with a warden and deputy in the area! A collar that we had put on a doe in 2022 was scheduled to drop off this year but happened to drop on private property. It was really neat having an opportunity to see this come full circle, from handling the doe in 2022 to retrieving the collar 3 years later! We had a great time interacting with Rick and Ross and got to ask them some questions about their day-to-day. We have another collar to find this week but on state forest land so everyone will get another chance to work with telemetry. Practice makes perfect!
This week we’ll keep chugging along with trapping. The warmer weather is really making it a challenge, but as always, we’ll do our best. There are still a few weeks left to the season and the views are always great in the state forest.
-Michaela
Southern Crew Leader
PA Game Commission
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