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Team Army 2019
We want to acknowledge Team Army 2019 members. We were a small unit, but for this project I felt it was better to start small and manageable than be too big and potentially invite greater risk of accident. Fortunately, we all knew the Park’s back country really well, so we operated about as efficiently as…
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Illustrated Summary of Project Field Work
Our research performs ground and aerial surveys across the study area to determine army cutworm moth occurrence and grizzly bear use. Technician support focuses on ground surveys, which entail scrambling into survey units to sample randomly-generated survey plots located therein. Typically, this requires technicians spend multiple days safely navigating mountainous terrain and bivouac camping on…
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Calling all wildlife-loving mountain men & women
6/3/2020 Update: Due to COVID-19 hardships, we’ve reopened our application window until June 17th for hiring one or more individuals. We will be conducting field research activities this summer under a strict COVID-19 mitigation plan, which technicians must be willing to follow while working in the field and residing in project housing on lieu time.…
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Digging for Bear Butter Two-Minute Video
Digging for Bear Butter illustrates the survey method my graduate research uses to count-collect army cutworm moths (aka bear butter) at select high-elevation talus slopes in the Glacier National Park area in two minutes. The video uses visual content from the first summer of my field research to provide an overview of my graduate research.…
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Audio Story: Project Technician’s 2019 Experience
It’s a wrap! I’ve put the final touches on my audio story in which my friend, Burt Bjorling, shares his experience and a memory from last summer when he worked as a field technician on my graduate research in Glacier National Park. Burt’s a remarkable (and a bit of a robotic) friend. We became ‘climbing…
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My Graduate Research in Multimedia Form
Grizzly bear’s have immense appetites. And in order for them to successfully reproduce through winter, female grizzlies must attain more than 20% body fat before entering their dens, according to past WSU-led research (https://academic.oup.com/jmammal/article/93/2/540/924692 ). From a nutritional perspective, few natural foods available to grizzly bears are capable of packing on their fat reserves, like…
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Project field efforts are underway
Beginning in early July, my technicians and I began field efforts to determine grizzly bear use of potential army cutworm moth habitat across the study area. While it has proven difficult to conduct aerial surveys thus far due to turbulent summer weather patterns, we have made some exciting discoveries on the ground, inside Glacier and…
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Introducing Erik & his graduate field research
I am a research assistant at Washington State University’s (WSU) School of the Environment, and a wild-and-wily member of Dr. Dan Thornton’s Mammal Spatial Ecology & Conservation Lab. (https://labs.wsu.edu/dthornton/) I’ve been privileged to work with an array of wildlife species across the Pacific Northwest over the past 15+ years, learning under the tutelage of some…
Bear Butter
Understanding grizzly bear appetites for army cutworm moths in the Crown of the Continent
Bear Butter 