It began as planned – everyone showed up at the designated location on time, raring to go. Andrew had generously volunteered his snowmobile to pull the 3 of us up about 12 miles to the first station. The snow was a little crusty to begin with – and having 3 people hanging onto 2 waterski tow ropes behind one machine was a little iffy now & then, but was working well. Only one crash about 100 yards after starting & then everyone pretty much got the hang of it. Poor Andrew did have temporary thumb paralysis & numbness due to his talent of keeping the speed darn constant – no way to relieve the localized pressure. He is one talented driver on a trip which must have been rather dull going between 10 & 15 mph. The biggest challenge was worrying if the front person fell, the back 2 didn’t run over them.

As we progressed upward towards the station, all was going as planned.  Andrew began turning the sled around to point downhill & it plopped into a rather deep drift of powder. The 4 of us easily dug & lifted the snowmobile out. I think we only dropped the sled once on Andrew in the process. We packed up our first beaver, needed supplies & headed off the trail to the station. Andrew happily snow shoed along. We were thrilled to see over 2000 pictures on the memory card! Our bait was a bone wired to a tree. Yeah!! Something definitely located it. After checking the pictures & seeing several animals but probably not a wolverine, we moved on to hang new bait & replace the batteries and gun brushes. Sandii had a slight issue with the camera batteries – she dropped one & was frustrated when no one couldn’t find it. Litter & leaving a ‘trace’ is not okay! Eventually we gave up & set off to the second station.

Upon returning to the snowmobile, we were about a half mile or so up a bit of a hill so we decided to ski down instead of being pulled. Sandii & Celeste started off. For some reason I was waiting for Andrew to go. He pulled the starter & almost fell over backwards as the cord came right out in his hand. Uh oh. Called Sandii & Celeste back. Now here was Andrew 12 miles from civilization……alone with 3 cougars. Yikes.

We all worked well together & managed to get the recoil open after removing part of the exhaust system. Celeste thought of taking pictures of engine BEFORE dismantlement in case we had extra pieces when we were done. Excellent. Sandii’s previous work experience proved vital in carefully taking apart the spring & not have it “springing” all over. Celeste had smartly brought several useful tools including a vice grip, a hemostat (assumedly in case someone needed stitches…..?!!) and tape.

We were just to where we had to wind up the cord & weren’t 100% sure (okay, more like 2% sure) of just how to do it….when – HARK – is that a snowmobile we hear? We discussed the direction of the sound. Yes, it was above us & our trail was the only way down – they had to go past us!!

Enter Jim & John. Two of the nicest guys out there (and probably the only 2 out there….) .They worked on Andrew’s snowmobile for a couple hours. They knew how to wind the cord so the spring worked properly. We only had one extra piece & no one was sure why it was in where the cord wound up in the first place. We were thrilled. It worked & the sled started. Then it died. Started. Died. Repeat. Only, the last thing it did was die. They replaced spark plugs, burned off possibly excess gas. Nothing worked.

Eventually Celeste’s common sense came through & she suggested that some of us start skiing towards the second bait station. It was on the way back anyway & I definitely did not want to haul another beaver all the way up the next day to do that station! XC ski boots are not made for standing around outside for 2+ hours so the 3 of us headed off after loading up the bait. I think the beaver gained weight on the trip up. He seemed awfully heavy but he had to come with us. Jim & John said they would tow Andrew & his snowmobile if they couldn’t get it started.

Down the hill we headed. When we arrived at the main trail – an amazing development had occurred – the rather crusty trail had been groomed!! It was now lovely virgin corduroy. Since we had almost 12 miles to ski this was a real plus. We whooped & hollered like little kids on a scavenger hunt. We had found the big prize! About half way to my second station we heard snowmobiles. Our first reaction was one of excitement – they got Andrew’s sled running! Even seeing them approaching it looked good. Unfortunately the long rope between Andrew & John’s sled told the true story. They generously offered to pull us as well, but Jim & John were already going in completely the opposite direction they needed to & we would have slowed them down immensely. John & Jim still had a long trek back to their starting point. We watched them drive off & settled into a peaceful ski.

I was happy to arrive at the second station as Ms./Mr. Beaver appeared to be gaining weight with every mile. (how did that happen?)  The 3 of us made quick work of the station.

Less photos on this card – only about 300. The bait was not completely a skeleton as the first station was, but definitely something more than squirrels & ermine were enjoying it.  Up went a hearty new Beaver Buffet. Sandii was not allowed near the batteries on this station. Our step stool of a broken tree was covered in snow. The gusto sponge was almost buried. New batteries, gusto & beaver. All was good in the wolverine bait station world. It was already 4 pm & we still had about 8 miles of skiing ahead of us.

While we were working, heard John & Jim return up the trail. Off they went as they had a good 30+ miles to go & it was about 4:30. We hoped they were able to help Andrew get his snowmobile up on his trailer and remembered to leave my tow ropes.

After a couple miles it was headlight time. It was below freezing & we couldn’t see the icy chunks, although the trail was in excellent shape. There was a beautiful sliver of a moon. The light reflected off ice on a creek. It was a lovely ski out.

We arrived unscathed at the vehicles. Dark, yes, but mission accomplished. Andrew’s truck, trailer & snowmobile were gone. My tow ropes were under my car. We all marveled at the kindness of our snowmobile saviors. It was about 7:15 pm. Sandii would miss manning the table at the film festival, but her husband gallantly took care of the table alone. We did get to see half of the Banff films….meanwhile we’re hoping Wally & Wilma Wolverine discover our beaver buffet.

Other than sore ribs/face on one of our skiers (iintentiionally not mentiioning names here) the only casualty was Andrew’s snowmobile. Hopefully it’s feeling better now….

It may have not gone exactly as planned, but it was a great day! My thanks to Andrew, Sandii & Celeste……and to Jim & John!

Update: Critters captured on film were Fisher (several, one rather fat!), Marten, Ermine, Northern Flying Squirrel, Moose & Deer. Sandii located the dropped battery in her camera case. Now our only ‘trace’ will be happy critters in winter!

Hello volunteers!  Below is the latest news from the wolverine world.  Please read through and let me know if you have any questions.  Thanks for all your hard work this past week and your continued commitment to the project as we head quickly into February.

Firkin Friday the wolverine way:

Keeping in the tradition of a monthly get-together for our Wolverine Project volunteers, we invite all our project participants to join us on February 3rd for Firkin Friday at Laughing Dog Brewery in Ponderay, ID.  This will be a great opportunity to meet other volunteers and to share stories from your camera station adventures this winter.  We’ll kick off the event at 5:00pm with a short project update and a summary of what we’ve accomplished so far.  Come on out and enjoy Firkin Friday the wolverine way, and remember to wear your hats!

Project Summary:

Wolverine volunteers have been busy this week!  From wiring beavers to perusing photos, you have shown up in full force to make sure this project continues to clip along at a steady pace.

On Saturday, four volunteers and the FSPW office crew prepared a shipment of 33 beaver from IDFG to supply our camera stations with a total of 66 pre-wired baits! Many thanks to Cate Huisman, Dan Krabacher, Phil Degens, and John Harbuck for their valiant efforts on this dirty work.  You can read all about the beaver prep process in Cate’s story “The Glamorous Side of Volunteering”, posted in the FSPW Blog.

We’ve also begun to sort through the thousands of photos that have recently come back from the wildlife cameras at our monitoring stations.  For the next few months a group of “photo warriors” will be perusing these photos and identifying the creatures captured in the digital images.  By the end of the season we’ll know a lot more about the critters that roam the wilderness of the Idaho Panhandle!

You’ve been working hard in the backcountry as well!  As of today we have 21 stations up and running, with four more set to go out this weekend.  We’re getting to the point in the season where many of the early stations will be taken down and a whole slew of new stations will be deployed in their place.  If you’ve already put your camera station up, remember that you’ll let it record for four weeks total before taking it down.  For those of you on the alternate schedule, remember that you’ll want to keep 3 weeks between visits.  If anyone has questions about their schedule, please contact me.

Tracking class scheduled for February 20th:

If you haven’t had the opportunity to attend one of Brian Baxter’s wildlife tracking courses, I would suggest clearing your schedule for the 20^th of February!  Brian will be leading another all-day tracking class in Heron, MT for anyone interested in learning more about winter ecology and the interpretation of wildlife sign.  Brian’s courses have been a huge hit this winter, so contact him early at b_baxter53@yahoo.com to reserve your spot.

Photos from your adventures:

Just a reminder that we’d love to share your photos from wolverine adventures with the rest of the volunteer crew.  If you have a selection of shots that you’d like to have posted, or a brief anecdote for our Stories from the Field collection, please email them to me at mustelids@scotchmanpeaks.org.  You may also submit photos to our annual photo competition by following this link.
Cheers!

A Guest Blog by Cate Huisman, Writer & Editor

While FSPW’s many volunteers continued to pursue the more glamorous aspects of wolverine research—namely hiking/skiing/snowshoeing into remote areas to set up research stations—the truly dedicated assembled outside a cold storage locker in Sandpoint last weekend to prepare newly arrived beaver carcasses to serve as bait.

This process came to be known as “wiring beavers,” which sounds like setting them up for cable TV and high-speed Internet but is emphatically not. Instead, it means attaching wires to the carcasses so they can be securely attached to trees at the research sites. Wolverines can be expected to quickly remove a carcass that has a wire going only around it, and thus not be at the research station long enough to be photographed and leave some DNA behind. So “wiring beavers,” for the valiant team that took it on, meant setting up each carcass so that there was wire going through it.

The beavers, each freed of its insulating fur by a legal trapper, were frozen solid to facilitate this process, which is to say make it remotely bearable for the volunteer beaver wirers. But the beavers were big—up to 50 pounds—making them bigger than was ideal for hauling on skis or snowshoes into remove study sites.

The solution to this problem, of course, was to cut each carcass in half and wire a set of half-beavers. Jim Murphy had created a special jig for this purpose, and each beaver lay neatly in place in the jig as it went under Jim’s Sawzall to cleave nose-end from tail-end. Then Jim drilled two holes through each half with a power drill with an extended bit, and other volunteers hopped to work inserting wires through the holes.

This would have worked perfectly if all the beavers had been frozen solid all the way through, and some of them were. But inside the frozen outer shells of some of the larger animals, parts that looked vaguely familiar from 10th-grade biology textbooks began to slop around—and even out of—some of the carcasses.

The enterprising Jim solved this problem by drilling four holes in each beaver and inserting the wires first, and then cutting the beavers in half as a final step in the process. From there, each end could be tipped up so that anything loose on the inside was held there by gravity. Then each half was double-bagged and put back in the locker so that all parts could be frozen in place.

This process gave the beaver wirers an intimate knowledge of beaver anatomy that few are privy to in this day and age. It became evident that beavers are vegetarians and that the thickness of their fat helps keep them warm as well as their fur. Wrapping the wire for storage and transportation was fairly easy around the tail ends, but trying to secure it in the beavers’ teeth at their head ends didn’t work so well—the teeth were remarkably small for the legendary work they do.

Although they were of course thrilled with this unexpected opportunity for biological enlightenment, the beaver wirers have since discovered that for clothing exposed to less-than-fully-frozen beaver, there are some effects that can’t be removed even with repeated trips through a washing machine. They would exhort the folks with the bait-placement, camera-setup, and station-monitoring jobs to keep their bait really cold as they transport and place it.

If you missed last weekend’s tracking class you missed a fun and fact filled experience!  You may recall that we had very little snow until the last few days, so the field portion of the class presented less than ideal conditions to find critters.  But Brian drew upon his vast experience in botany and knowledge as a naturalist, weaving into the field trip a lot of details about how to look at what is around you and figure out what was going on.

Here is a brief summary  of what we found.

Tracks: Cow and calf elk;  Whitetail deer, (buck,doe,yearling);  Pine squirrel; snowshoe hare; coyote.

Scat: Elk; Whitetail deer; moose; coyote;  snowshoe hare.

Sign: Elk rubs; buck rubs with deer hair; squirrel middens; snowshoe hare browse; snowshoe hare urine with blood; elk browsing on alder; deer browsing on bittercherry; Pileated woodpecker feeding cavities; Black bear bite marks and bear hair on sign post; elk bed with scat and urine; bear bark stripped tree; spike Bull elk antler shed.

Audio: Chickadees; Ravens; (winter wren).

Aroma Therapy: Grand fir; Bittercherry twig (peach pit/ almond smell/taste);  Wapiti scents;  Western white pine.

Additional:  Lodgepole pine beetle larvae gallery patterns in bark; Whitepine blister rust; Red -Belt fungus; Oregon grape evergreen shrub; Princes pine evergreen shrub.

We will be doing more classes with Brian.  The “Winter Ecology” Class later this month is already filled, but we are looking at adding more to the schedule this winter and will certainly have Brian back for some summer fun and for more winter tracking next season.

In the meantime, whether you have attended one of Brian’s classes and want a refresher, or are new to tracking, below is a link to a really cool website: “Wild Things Unlimited Tracking Identification Guide.”

http://wildthingsultd.org/tracking-identification-guide/

This site shows a short synopsis of track id and differences for Wolverine, Fisher, Marten and Lynx and gives a short description of each.  It also shows track comparisons for some other critters too.

Enjoy!

Hello Wolverine Volunteers!

Volunteers make a stream crossing while visiting their station.

It’s Wolverine Wednesday yet again, and oh what a week it has been!  The beavers have arrived, new snow has fallen, and our first photos of critters have come back from the field.

This upcoming week is going to be a big one for the Wolverine Project.  Please read through the updates that follow, and email me at mustelids@scotchmanpeaks.org if you have any questions or concerns.

What we’ve done so far:

Everyone should be thrilled with the success of your efforts thus far.  There are currently 17 camera stations deployed throughout the Selkirks and the West Cabinets.  Two of these stations were our early “guinea pig” sites, and the first round of digital photos were collected from their cameras this week.  The photos confirm that the stations were visited by several Pine martens and Fisher, who did their best to rid the sites of bait.  We’ll have shots of these critters up on the website in the next few days.

Wolverine tab on the FSPW website:

If you have not visited the new Wolverine tab on the FSPW website, please do.  Under this tab you will find a Volunteer Resources page where all volunteer information is stored for your convenience and is available for download.  Every form that comes in your packet, as well as the project description, IDFG reports, wildlife tracking resources, and links to important websites can be found on this page.

The wolverine tab also includes a page for your stories, so if you have a short anecdote of your experience setting up your station, send it my way and I will post it to our Stories from the Field collection.  Pictures of your station adventures can also be emailed to me for our Wolverine album on the Friends of Scotchman Peaks Wilderness Facebook page.

Upcoming Events:

Keep your eyes peeled for upcoming events, as well as additional wildlife tracking and ecology courses from Field Ecologist and wildlife tracker Brian Baxter.  We hope to schedule another fun meet-and-greet event for the first week of February so you have the opportunity to share stories with your fellow wolverine volunteers.

Thanks again to all of you for your hard work on this project.  If you have any questions or concerns, please email me at mustelids@scotchmanpeak.org.

Cheers,

Kelsey

http://www.fs.usda.gov/main/kipz/home

The Forest Plans do not make decisions on specific projects but provide general guidance about how the forests are managed for the next 15 years.  One of the most important things that the plans do is to make decisions about which areas the forest service will manage as “Recommended Wilderness.” These agency recommendations strongly influence political support and are often shaped, in part, by the forest service’s interpretation of the level of public support for specific areas.

This is perhaps the best opportunity YOU have had in a long time to have your voice of support impact an important decision along the pathway to protecting the Scotchman Peaks as Wilderness.

The comment period has started and is open until April 5th.

The forest service is most interested in: “specific comments on how to improve the preferred alternative, what you prefer in other alternatives, or important things that you think were missed in alternatives are very helpful.”

The Forest Service further states that: “We can better respond to your comments if you are as specific as possible and if you cite the location(s) that you are commenting on.”

We, the Friends of Scotchman Peaks Wilderness, are most interested in making sure that the forest service understands how important it is for many people that the final plan include the strongest possible recommendation for Wilderness for the Scotchman Peaks. 

YOUR voice is important!

Write them and comment on the reasons why you support including the Scotchman Peaks as recommended wilderness in the forest plan. Include your personal connection to and interest in the Scotchmans. From hiking to hunting, birdwatching to berry picking, environmental protection to economics or finding solitude and leaving a legacy for future generations, Wilderness management for the Scotchmans has many benefits.

The Forest Service is holding the following open houses, where you can pick up a copy and learn more about the plan as well as the process of commenting.  This is not a substitute for written comments, but is also a good chance to tell forest service representatives that you care about the Scotchmans.

• January 23 Sanpoint, 5-7pm, Sandpoint District Ranger
• January 24th, Libby, 4-7pm, Ponderosa Room
• January 31st, Troy,  4-7pm, Senior Center,
• February 2nd, Trout Creek, 4-7pm, Lakeside Motel Conference Room

Your written comments need to made specific to each draft plan and sent to the individual forest:

Kootenai National Forest

Email     KNFplanrevision@fs.fed.us

Kootenai National Forest
31374 Highway 2 West
Libby, MT 59923

Idaho Panhandle National Forest

Email    IPNFplanrevision@fs.fed.us

Idaho Panhandle National Forest
3815 Schreiber Way
Coeur d’Alene, ID 83815

The wolverine pictured here marks the first sighting of the season for IDFG in their study of rare forest carnivores.  Since 2010, IDFG has been conducting extensive biodiversity monitoring surveys in the panhandle as part of the Multi-species Baseline Initiative.  This initiative provides biologists with baseline population data for the management of many species.  Rare forest carnivores, like the wolverine, are an important part of this initiative, as their elusive nature leaves much unknown about their presence in the region.

To study these elusive creatures, wildlife cameras, like the one that captured the photo above, are deployed by IDFG biologists and FSPW volunteers to strategic locations throughout the wilderness of the Idaho Panhandle and western Montana.  FSPW is now in our second year of cooperation with this study of wolverines and other rare forest carnivores, and our efforts are in full swing.  We hope that as our volunteers continue to venture out to their backcountry camera stations this winter, they will have the opportunity to see wildlife of all sorts, and maybe, just maybe, their stations will have a special visitor too!

To learn more about the Multi-species Baseline Initiative and our involvement with the rare forest carnivore project, please visit our Wolverine page, where you will find links to our project partners as well as many resources on the history of these surveys and the remarkable creature called Gulo gulo.

Endow Bio has selected the Friends of Scotchman Peaks Wilderness as one of the five organizations that it will support in 2012!

A relatively new organization, Endow-Bio is the first National Endowment for Biodiversity.  They describe their number one goal this way:

“Each year, we raise money for a different, chosen few organizations, various non-profits and government agencies that are working to solve our crisis of biodiversity.  We raise money and give it away on an annual cycle and our membership determines the percentage of our Program funds at year’s end that goes to any of these chosen agencies.  Each year, we begin anew.”

In addition to the financial support, Endow Bio will help us to gain additional support by showcasing the Scotchman Peaks to a wider audience.

The Scotchman Peaks cover parts of both the Idaho Panhandle and Kootenai National Forests.  Three ecosystems converge here: northern Rocky Mountain and Canadian Boreal Forests overlap, while Pacific Maritime influences bring abundant moisture, creating diverse and unique habitats, home to many threatened, endangered, and sensitive species of flora and fauna.

In the best of times we can always use more friends and more financial help.  With a sluggish economy, we can us all the friends and financial help we can get!  We appreciate the lofty ambitions that Endow-Bio represents and we appreciate the honor of being selected as one of their chosen organizations in 2012.  Consider helping them help us and help biodiversity across the nation.

For more information about Endow Bio and how you can help, go to:

Endow-Bio, Inc at www.endow-bio.org/

Chasing the Phantom:
Thank you to everyone who attended last night’s film “Wolverine: Chasing the Phantom” at Ivano’s.  With over 50 people in attendance, the room was abuzz with excitement and conversation.  Exactly a month after our December 3rd training day, it was great to see so many of our volunteers in the same room once again.  I enjoyed seeing so many new faces; especially those  of you who I’d previously only known through email.

What a wonderful film it was!  I think we all learned a lot about what it takes to build a wolverine: fearlessness, tenacity, exuberance, and the power to go!  Seeing the incredible footage of these mysterious creatures puts a very real and powerful face to this project and your efforts in the field.  I hope everyone went away feeling inspired to bring out a bit of their own inner wolverine this winter. 

Upcoming Opportunities:
On Jan. 28th Brian Baxter is teaching a ” Winter Ecology on Snowshoes ” class which starts at 9 am Idaho time (10 am MT time) at the Heron Community Center in Heron, MT.  Please contact Brian at b_baxter53@yahoo.com for more information about this class and other course offerings.  This is a great opportunity to get out in the field for some hands-on instruction from this experienced wildlife tracker and ecologist.

As always, I’m happy to address any questions or concerns you may have.  My office hours are Saturday – Wednesday 10am to 4pm.
Cheers!