Today was reserved for some wildlife exploration at Antelope Island State Park! Again, we saw a lot of waterfowl on the lake. Those of us who are not so crazy about birds (especially ones we spent plenty of time looking at yesterday) set out for the actual island itself in search of mammals! Right away, we saw a bunch of bison. They come so close to the road because they’re used to cars by now. We also saw some pronghorn, which was exciting for me since I had never seen them before (other than the mounted head of one in the wildlife building)! We were still disappointed that we hadn’t spotted any Big Horned Sheep back in Snowbird, so we decided to tackle the trail up into the mountains here in hopes of finding some. We didn’t get very far along the trail when we saw a massive nest in a big rock. Chris decided he was going to climb the rock to get a better look at the nest, but the type of rock wasn’t very stable and a giant piece crumbled off when he pulled so he fell. He fell awkwardly in order to keep the falling chunk of rock from crushing him, and he sprained his ankle in the process. So we headed to the visitor center, hoping they would have some ice or something to help. They had nothing useful, not even a first aid kit (how awful is that?), so we hung out and looked at the souvenirs and let Chris rest his ankle. By the visitor center we saw a Burrowing Owl, Chukkers, and Black-Billed Magpies (which are so pretty it makes me like birds). We were all supposed to meet up for lunch at the barbeques, so we decided to head there early to find a good spot. We barbequed the hot dogs and burgers that we hadn’t used up in Snowbird and enjoyed the view of the lake. We switched up the groups, and my group headed back to the trail we started earlier. Eventually, everyone ended up on this trail (even Chris, limping stubbornly and saying he’s fine). We didn’t see anything besides some Ravens and lizards. After hanging out here too long and nearly getting locked in the park, we headed out to find food! We ate at a local brewery, which serves Polygamy Porter! So that people can say they tried Polygamy in Utah! We didn't stay up much longer after dinner because we needed to get an early start the next morning to do that long drive in one day again!
Monday, December 6, 2010
October 7th, 2010
Today was the technical end of the conference. There were some field trips set up for people who stayed that long. Most of the field trips, however, require a fee so we only went on the Birding With Frank trip because it was free! We met up at 7am, and it seems all the birds were smarter than us and decided to sleep in because we didn’t see very many. Plenty of Stellar’s Jays, but we see those every day! The kids from New York were very excited to see the jays, though. It was cute. Some of us had also hoped to see Moose by the pond where we had heard they had been spotted in the early morning, but we had no such luck. All we saw was moose scat. But we did finally see some Mountain Goats when we were heading back to the resort! They still just looked like moving white blobs even with binoculars, but Phil had a spotting scope and we all got a good look at them later with that.
After loading up all the vans, we headed up the mountain road a bit so that anyone who didn’t see pika that first day would have a chance now. We didn’t find any, but we saw a lot of birds like a Mountain Bluebird and Mountain Chickadees. Next we headed down to the Salt Lake to look for more wildlife! I don’t remember what this area we explored was called, but we saw a lot of ducks. Actually, we saw a lot of other birds, too. We also found some coyote tracks, a Ruddy Duck and some shorebird corpse, as well as some fox bones with some fur still intact. People caught all kinds of garter snakes, and even a tiny carp (props to Jenna for catching that with her bare hands)! Phil decided to eat the itty bitty carp because it’s an invasive species. We could hear frogs, but no one managed to catch any. We continued to explore this area until it started getting dark, and then we headed to the hotel to check in.
October 6th, 2010
October 5th, 2010
This fine morning I symposium-hopped between Advancing Climate Science for Wildlife Management: From Impacts and Uncertainty Decisions, Wildlife Damage Management, and Conservation and Management of Mammals. The only afternoon talk that really interested me was Chris Rockwell’s (an HSU grad student) talk about the foraging selectivity of Stellar’s Jays, but I had worked for her during the summer and heard that talk already. So instead of sitting in on symposia, I went to the trade show. There were a few booths with information for students about summer job programs. Most of the booths were selling wildlife related goods. Fake skeletons, binoculars and scopes, books, and so on. I stopped at the wildlife jewelry booth and after talking to the jeweler, learned that he went to HSU for grad school! HSU alumni are just everywhere at these conferences! We students call it the Humboldt Mafia. There was also a booth with info on the next national conference, which is going to be in Hawaii. Needless to say, next fall is going to be very competitive for conclavers trying to go on this trip (who wouldn’t want to go to Hawaii? And being on the Quiz Bowl team is the only guaranteed way to go to the conference fully paid for).
This evening was the actual Quiz Bowl. Naturally, our team steamrolled every team they went up against. One team actually had zero points in their round against us! The final round was HSU vs. Texas A&M. Apparently we had just barely lost against them last year due to a bad call by the judges, so we were all really fired up for this round. It was hardly a competition, though. Our team won a photo of Snowbird and each team member got a pocket knife. Go HSU!
October 4th, 2010
Monday morning I slept in a bit and didn’t make it downstairs until about 9:30am. I spent the whole morning listening to the talks in the symposium Bat Management: Current Issues and Cooperative Conservation. A big topic, of course, was White-Nose Syndrome. It is mostly affecting bat populations on the east coast but has been found half way across the country already! Today I also looked at some of the posters. Most of these are by graduate students, but some undergrads from HSU presented a poster, as well. Some posters were just out for people to read, but some students actually stood by their posters to present them and answer questions. I also looked at the photos that had been entered in the photo contest and I voted for my favorites. The afternoon symposia for today didn’t tickle my fancy so I went down to lake level (Salt Lake City was pretty much at the bottom of the mountain) with a couple other girls to go grocery shopping. The restaurants in the resort were overpriced and our suites had full kitchens so we thought it would be more delicious and cost efficient to cook our own meals. In the evening, there was the professional-student mixer where everyone gets to mingle and students get to talk to the professionals! Most of us were too intimidated to approach professionals, though. I only talked to some grad students and my own professors. Actually, I did talk to one professional who works for the USGS, but he was an HSU alumni and my advisor introduced us. I think we all stayed at the mixer for about an hour, then headed back up to the suites. Our team for the Quiz Bowl (wildlife nerd trivia and each school has a team) settled down to study for the competition.
October 3rd, 2010
I honestly had no clue how these conferences go since I had only joined Wildlife Conclave this semester, so I counted on those who had been to other conferences to lead the way! We had all registered online, and so we went to check in at the registration to get our bags filled with schedules and other goodies. We got canteens and bands! Yes, we were banded like birds! I thought that was a really cute idea and the bands were big enough to wear as rings. We got down there pretty early, but we took time to find the cheapest breakfast in the resort and pick out which talks we wanted to attend. Each symposium consisted of 20-minute talks of related research by professionals and graduate students. I went back and forth between two symposia; Managing Human-Carnivore Conflicts in a Modern World and Implementation of Traditional Ecological Knowledge in Natural Resource Management. There were afternoon symposia, as well, but most of us wanted to take advantage of the nice sunny weather because the rest of the week was supposed to be cloudy and rainy. Another goodie in our registration bags were free tram passes. This resort where the conference was held is a ski resort, so there was a big tram and a ski lift. We took the tram to the top of the mountain, and we were all gasping for air! The resort is at 8,000 feet already and I’m guessing the top of the mountain is at least another 1,000 feet higher. We didn’t do very serious hiking but we didn’t need to. We saw some pika right in the area where the tram lets off. These big-eared rodents are adorable so everyone was trying to snap a picture of them. Other than that, we didn't see too much wildlife. Some birds, but not as many as some had hoped (the birders…I’m not too into birds). We had hoped to catch a glimpse of some mountain goats or big horned sheep because we knew they were in those mountains somewhere, but we didn’t see any this day. We had plenty of fun enjoying the view and the sunshine. We hiked down to the ski lift to get back down to the resort, but then saw the tunnel and just had to run through it (connected like a conga line, of course!). When we finally got in line for the ski lift, it started to sprinkle so I guess we picked a good time to head back!
October 2nd, 2010 -- California to Utah!
Boy was today a long one. All us wildlife conclavers met at school at 5am so that we could do the whole drive to Snowbird, Utah in one day. The caravan of four rented Town & Country vans plus one Subaru Outback left at the same time but my van ended up dead last to start. Amy and myself were the only drivers for our van, and I drove first so Amy could get a bit more sleep (her birthday was the day before so she deserved the first nap time). The first part of the drive was on the 299, unfortunately. My eyes were really struggling in the dark (yes, the sun was not up yet for most of this drive) and the fog on those windy roads! I must’ve only driven about 2 hours or so when Amy woke up and offered to drive. Amy did most of the driving because she’s a speed demon. Because Amy likes to speed recklessly (I kid, I kid. Amy’s quite the skilled driver), we ended up way ahead of everyone else and made it to Reno first! Everyone agreed on stopping at Cabela’s near Reno on the way so we could look at the awesome taxonomy exhibits they have there (and shop for some outdoor gear, of course). And since we stopped near Reno where my sister lives, I actually got to spend some time with her! She met us at Cabela’s and then we went to eat at In-N-Out after (how could we pass up In-N-Out?). The rest of the drive after that seemed even longer, but at least it was straight, easy roads. We could see ahead for miles which is probably why we felt comfortable driving so fast! Cops can’t ambush speeders when there are no trees and curves to hide behind! I guess no one else was as comfortable speeding as us because even though we stopped so long in Reno, we made it to Snowbird in 2nd place! 1st place if you only count the vans! Not only did we feel the satisfaction of beating the other vans, but we got first pick of beds! We definitely picked the most comfortable beds in the suite, but it was also the suite where everyone decided to hang out because no professors were in ours. Falling asleep proved difficult, but at least we had fun!