CSERC Blogger

For years, CSERC biologists have maintained camera detection wildlife stations in the Stanislaus National Forest in search of elusive forest furbearers including martens, fishers and wolverines. While we have detected the adorable pine marten throughout the forest (see picture below), we have yet to get photographic evidence of fisher or wolverine. Wolverine, as many of you may have heard, has been spotlighted in the media recently. This elusive carnivore, thought to be extinct in the Sierra Nevada, was recently photographed on the Tahoe National Forest. Oregon State University graduate student, Katie Moriarty, first photographed this furry blur (see picture below) on February 28, and Forest Service researchers later photographed wolverine and collected hair and scat samples on March 13. These researchers analyzed DNA collected from the scat samples and compared this DNA with samples from museum specimens of the historical California population as well as with animals from Washington and the Rocky Mountain Range. Unfortunately, this DNA evidence indicates this wolverine did not descend from the California or Washington populations but is related to the Rocky Mountain population. The nearest wolverines in the Rockies exist 600 miles away northeast in the Idaho Sawtooth Range. So either this animal has broken records in the greatest distance traveled by a wolverine or it is a released or escaped pet or captive. Either way, we continue our search for fisher and wolverine in the Stanislaus in hopes of capturing the image of one of these creatures. Share with us any interesting wildlife sightings that you’ve had in the forest!

Brenda Whited, CSERC Staff Biologist

The Pine Marten is one rare mammal that our camera stations have been successful in capturing.

Here is the now famous photo that first caught the Tahoe wolverine on camera.

This weekend, the staff at CSERC and close to 20 volunteers gathered at the Red Hills on Saturday morning. The mission: to work with Mark Pertersen of the BLM on cleaning up several locations that have been used as a shooting range over the years. As many residents of this area know, this is an ecologically sensitive area due to the Serpentine soil that defines the Red Hills. The unique qualitites of this soil allows limited, often rare types of vegetation to successfully take root. The creeks that run through this area even have a fish known as the Red Hills Roach that is endemic to this spot alone! Needless to say, the continued use of this special location as a shooting range has been compromising the delicate diversity of the Red Hills. By picking up the accumulated waste and posting new signs, CSERC and the BLM wants the Red Hills not to be identified as a place that is acceptable for use as a shooting range. Washing machines, scrap metal, refrigerators, thousands of bullet shells, and more were gathered by our trusty workers, loaded into their pickup trucks, and taken to Waste Management for proper disposal. The weather was great and spirits were high, and by the time the volunteer crew was done the locations targeted looked much more like the natural environment that should be there. Check out these pictures to get an idea of what we accomplished!

What a mess!

Getting started.

A sampling of the trash that our volunteer’s collected.

Hard at work!

Gathering the thousand of bullet shells was tedious but unavoidable. Thank goodness for folks like Frank who are willing to do what has to be done!

A small portion of the bags of shells we gathered.

Our trucks were loaded down!

A job well done!

Happy volunteers. Thanks for your help!

-the staff at CSERC
Do you have any suggestions for potential environmental volunteer projects that CSERC could organize? Post them here!

Hello! The staff at CSERC has created this blog in order to be able to interact with the large community of people who care about the Sierra Nevada region and what CSERC does to protect it’s diverse ecosystem. We want this to be a place where we can be a little less formal and discuss issues, concerns, and things that inspire us about this area. Please stop in to our blog and say hello, provide us with feedback, or share your personal Sierra Nevada stories with us! We are excited to having a new avenue of communication with our community, and anticipate using this on a regular basis as things pop up that we think our readers may be interested in. Feel free to let us know if there is something you are wondering about which you think CSERC may be able to respond to. This should be fun! Look for more soon.

Your CSERC Blogger of the day- Julia, Environmental Associate

Wildflowers of the high-country are one of my favorite things that I enjoy about living in the Sierra Nevada! Last summer my favorite flower trip was in the Emmigrant Wilderness. Where is your sweet spot for wildflower viewing?