Sturgeon Patrol Update 1

This week in sturgeon patrol I was expecting to receive an email from the coordinator of the program concerning details about our volunteering. The schedule was to be posted by April 1 but was not posted. I received an email that information would be sent out by Friday afternoon concerning the missing information and it still did not come. I did find out some information about what we are going to be doing from some who are involved while I was making phone calls. It sounds as though Chad Leanna and I will need to arrive a little before 7:00 pm where we will be briefed about what we need to do. This will include making sure people don’t tamper with the fish while they spawn. The locations we will be watching include shallow stretches of the river as well as some commonly used rock piles that are popular for the sturgeon. The shift will be from 7 to 7 and the program will provide us with 3 separate meals including dinner when we arrive, a midnight snack, and a breakfast before we leave in the morning. We signed up for 3 different night shifts on April 23, 24, and 30. Hopefully by next week the dnr will have a schedule out that will let us know when we will be watching the sturgeon. The reason for the delay on scheduleing could be because of the weather because the movement of the sturgeon as well as when they spawn is directly dependant on the weather and the water temperature. If the conditions are not right then the fish will not move up into the river.

Cleaning Schmeekle

This week, Lauren and I took a walk out to Schmeekle to see what we are dealing with. When we got there, we discovered that the area is still quite flooded from the snow. However, we did observe a few animals like a rabbit, a duck in a puddle, and a couple of birds, which could suggest that they are migrating back in for spring. It's very interesting being out there at the turn of the season to observe how the environment and life in it is changing. When we walked around a little more, we noticed that there was indeed a lot of litter. We picked up what we could see, but I'm sure that once the snow is completely gone we will find more. It was fun just to walk through some of the trails and survey the plants and animals while helping make the environment a little cleaner and more pleasant for them.

When Pigments Attack!

This project has proven to be great and grand, inside and out. So far I have collected over 200 pictures, but maybe about 50 of them are good, and not all of them are of the project material. Its the sloppy mid season, (spring) so all the horses are all muddy and gross looking so I have to go out with a brush and try to clean them up, that sometimes fails within itself as well. So thats a challenge that I have run into. We are having quite a bit of fun though, I go volunteer with my friend Lauren, so because I have to have her keep the critters attention while I take pictures we tend to spend 2/3 of our time running around in the pastures saying hello to everyone and then taking pictures. Then only about an hour and a half feeding and scooping poop. Which is pretty joyous.

Over the time that I have started this project, (even though I have been volunteering for a few months prior) the facility has found new homes for about 8 horses, and since then they have gotten about 6 new horses, including one that is getting over lymes disease, which can happen to horses too.. Alot of the horses that come in have been abused or poorly trained, though a few that come in have no background stories, and were just given up because the owner didn't want to go through the lifetime commitment of owning a horse. Which means in the sense of this project that its more opportunities to get colors! Since most of the horse population is this foundation color called Bay, about 70% of the horses at the farm are this color. So since I needed some of the rarer colors, Liz so kindly offered to take me up to where she worked so we could roam with those critters and get some of the colors that my rescue didn't have, such as roan, and silver dapple, I was quite happy.

As for the webpage portion, I have it all designed, and few things are filled in. Since I stole the html off the page I coded for my online portfolio, some of the coding disagreed with how I wanted to write a lot. So after fighting with it for a few days, I decided to cheat and write the things I needed within the image, so it would be a text and image combo thing. So if you guys want to check it out its at http://fadedoak.com/uwsp (click projects to get to well, the project..) there are two thumbnails in the right corner, the first one doesn't work because I have had it with trying to figure it out before this is due. But I wanted to give you all a taste of what its planned on looking like.

I realized that this project is going to take possibly far over the required time to spend on it, but its something that will also be useful to a whole lot of people and such.

Oh yes, the pictures included, because everyone likes pictures The first one is of the new horse that came in, who is an excellent example of how no one is clean..

And then the second one is of my lovely assistant and another filthy horse.

Then out of pure entertainment, "Mustang Sally" who was really happy and jumping all about, and a how horses can be completely airborne...

Deer Project

As I mentioned in my first post I am working with The Wildlife Society and the deer project in specific. I may have to find other opportunities however, as deer trapping may soon be coming to an end as the weather gets warmer and does begin to drop their fawns. The goal of the deer project is to monitor and learn more about the deer herd that lives in Schmeekle and the nearby areas. This is done in large part through radio collaring. Radio collaring allows for tracking of the deer which can tell a lot about its habits and life style. Right now we are trying to get more radio collars on deer through trapping. There are two types of traps that the deer project uses to try to capture deer. The first is a basic box trap. The trap has doors on both ends and is baited in the middle with corn, when the deer enters so far into the trap it trips a wire that closes both doors. The box traps are left open nearly all week and we check them at 7am and 8pm. The other type of trap is a drop net. This type of trap takes a little more work. It is a large net held up on ten foot poles. Volunteers sit in a nearby blind and when the deer move to the bait in the center of the net it is dropped. The deer must then be tackled, blindfolded and radio collared. So far I have not been present for the collaring of any deer although we had deer near the net one night only to be scented by a doe that had moved down wind of us. Overall, it is a very exciting project and I am hopeful that I will get to tackle and collar a deer.

Cleaning Schmeekle

Due to the weather, we are not yet able to fully help out at Schmeekle until it gets warmer. But Sarah and I figured we could at least do a little help, even if it isn't official. We went to Schmeekle and took some observations and thought of some ideas that we could do to help. One big thing we notice and wasn't really expecting, was the amount of litter. I am sure we will find even more when the snow melts. The effect of pollution on the environment can be devastating so we want to do as much as possible.

Another thing we noted was the return and awakening of some animals. Along the trail we noticed many birds chirping and a lot of rabbit droppings. This is definitely a sign that spring is on its way. Catching the eye of some ducks swimming in a puddle of what use to be a nature trail, certainly tells us that we have got some work cut out for us.

Service Learning in Schmeekle

For this service project, I am teaming up with Lauren Wood. What we hope to do is some volunteer work in Schmeekle by helping out in any way they need us. Whether it be picking up litter, clearing trails, or just grooming the area in other ways, we want to help make Schmeekle cleaner and more enjoyable for the people who come to enjoy nature.

The main reason we are doing our service project in Schmeekle, like Lauren said, is because neither of us have access to a car so we had to do something within walking distance. Even so, we are both interested in the environment and how we can help conserve it, so this project will help us do that.

I'm looking forward to doing this project because not only will I be doing good for nature, I will also be learning about the environment. I have only been to Schmeekle once, so it will be fun to see what's all in there and check out some cool animal wildlife as well! Hopefully once we get going, we will maybe even see how our efforts have benefited the environment in different ways.

Schmeekle....

I am partnered Sarah Fahrenkrug and together we will be volunteering our services at the Schmeekle Reserve Center. We will help out in whatever way we can, whether that be cleaning up litter or keeping trails clean. I am not sure exactly what they will have us do because it seems they are reluctant to answer their phone. However when we hear back from them, we will be more informed about how we can help.

Sarah and I chose this activity for a number of reasons. The one main reason is because our limited mobility. We both don't have cars, so we can't travel far. Another reason for it is because I enjoy being outdoors and exploring the environment. I myself have never fully explored Schmeekle, so it will be fun to inspect the new area. The last reason why I found this activity to be interesting was because I want to keep the environment clean, as cliché as it sounds.

I hope to get a lot out of this experience. Firstly a even better respect for my environment, as well as to learn the detrimental affects of pollution and how a healthy environment can flourish.

Deer Project

For my service learning project I will be working with the Deer Project that is run here at Stevens Point through the Wildlife Society. The deer project works mainly with the deer that live on campus (in Schmeekle mostly) and the surrounding areas. I decided to work on this project because I had already been out trapping deer with the project a couple of times already and knew it would be a great opportunity for my service learning project. What I will be specificly doing is working with the deer project's leader to help him trap, collar and monitor the deer. I will also be helping out with the maintenance of the traps and any other jobs that need to be completed to help the project run smoothly. I am excited about this project and hope to get a good understanding of what goes into a project like this and how I can get involved in the future. I would really like to become a project leader myself and be in charge of my own project in the next couple of years. This service learning project will help me get my foot in the door to become a project leader.

Equine Pigments

My service-learning project is going to be studying equine pigments at the local horse rescue. St. Francis horse rescue is a non-profit organization that I have been volunteering for since late November. It intrigues me mainly because it has been something that interests me that there could be so many color variations that emerge from just a few base colors. The service portion is the volunteering part, along with free advertisement for the facility, and use of the pictures for promotional purposes. The learning portion is creating a comprehensive guide to what causes the different coat colors, which will be developed into a website. Along with extending my knowledge about the organization and critters in general. The process would be to tour the facility and identify 8-10 coat colors and then determine what causes these colors. For example, Agouti produces a Bay coat, when it is the dominant gene, then the black coloring extends to the different points of the horse (legs, mane, tail, ear rims). If the Agouti is recessive, then black is uniformly distributive around the horse, creating an all black horse. Then to photographs the highlight points (body and key points). Then create a comprehensive webpage that combines the information. Already I have run into a few snags in my project, since it is a facility that has adoptable animals I have to work fast to claim the critters for my project before they find their forever homes, another hardship is that since its also a retirement facility for the horses that are too sick to be adopted out, there is the possibility that they may pass away before I get a picture. Which is the case for one of my black pigment examples. Fortunately, I have already gotten the pictures of the horses that now have new homes.

Edit: I guess I should add what I plan on getting out of this on a personal point rather then all the other scientific stuff. I find that volunteering, even though it is just scooping poop, feeding, giving some good TLC to critters that have had a rough past, and soon a hopeful future. Coming from a home with alot of critters, and my volunteer job back there I needed someplace to work off some debot and get my critter fill. So doing this project will proceed to keep me at a stable point of mind along with teaching me new skills about horses and how society reacts to creatures such as these (in good and bad ways)

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A few references since, I’m sure few of you have no idea what I am going on about…
Horse pigments is a gateway into what the text version of the final webpage will include, among other things, it explains what genes cause what horse coat colors.

St. Francis Horse Rescue, located in Rosholt WI, is where I will be sampling horse coats and determine what color pigments are showing.