From the Northern Crew:
[The northern crew is in transition right now. Hannah departed for another wildlife adventure on the west coast. You’ll soon be reading updates from Maureen, the new Northern crew leader! New crew leader, new crew, new deer (i.e. fawns!) are on the docket for the Susquehannock. So be patient while everyone gets up to speed.]
From the Southern Crew:
Hello all,
Mandy, Brandon, Tony, Anthony and myself completed the final 12 pellet transects on Tuesday. Mandy and I crawled through the mother of all rhododendron thickets to complete a transect on Thickhead Mountain in Rothrock (I know why they call “Thickhead Mountain”!).
I tracked down my deer and, for the record, I found all of them in one day. Yes, it’s been a while since I could say that because I haven’t been able to locate low tag 12880 since February! Turns out I wasn’t crazy (I know, surprised me too). Her collar is giving off a very faint signal. Turns out she, low tag 12229, and three uncollared deer showed up on the edge of a pasture while I was listening for her. Works for me.
I’m still attempting to get our trucks fixed. We received a second estimate for the elk truck on Friday, so maybe that’ll get done this week. I’ve also been waiting to take my truck to the garage to get a second opinion about the transmission.
I rounded out the week contacting the incoming southern fawn crew members; organizing and sending out all of the track logs, waypoints and datasheets for the pellet surveys; giving equipment back to Jessie and Duane; and organizing the beds of the trucks. I didn’t finish that but hope to this week.
The agenda for the coming week consists of telemetry, chainsaw training with DCNR in Wellsboro, organizing the trucks, getting an equipment list together for fawn capture, and possibly dropping a collar from a 2014 buck if I get the okay. I also need to update the trapping site maps in ArcMap, but that will likely be put off until next week.
Field Crew Leader
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