Local Issues

Forests

Wild Places

Wildlife

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  Despite the public’s interest in wild animals, the reality is that wildlife continues to suffer from a wide range of damaging practices and projects that affect habitat or individual animals.  Even the government agencies that are legally bound to protect “at-risk” wildlife species are often guilty of programs that push certain species towards extinction. Often the U.S. Forest Service and the California Department of Fish and Game lack the staff and the funding to effectively locate rare wildlife species or to adequately protect critical wildlife habitat.

  For the past several years, CSERC’s staff has set up photo detection stations in remote, unprotected roadless areas and other places within the Stanislaus National Forest to locate rare wildlife species.  At each site, we wire a store-bought frozen chicken, bacon, or cat food high up on a tree.  Then we set up an infrared transmitter and receiver that triggers a nearby camera to take a picture when the beam is broken.  With luck, the final result is a photographic record of each wildlife visitor that follows its nose to the bait or the extremely strong-smelling attractant that we apply to the tree.

  The purpose of the project is to identify which rare species of wildlife still survive within the unprotected roadless areas of the Stanislaus Forest or in other areas of special importance.  These wild areas contain pockets of old growth trees and undisturbed habitat. They are remote from the roads and human activities that disturb many wildlife species.  Our primary hoped-for targets are Sierra Nevada red fox, fishers, martens, and the elusive wolverine -- all rare species that are seldom found within most logged or developed lands of the Sierra Nevada.  So far, we've been fairly successful at finding marten locations, but neither the U.S. Forest Service nor our Center has been able to locate a single fisher, wolverine, or Sierra Nevada red fox in recent years.

Bears and More Bears

  Not surprisingly, the powerful noses of bears have repeatedly brought them to our stations.  The problem with bear visits is that the bears appear to be annoyed by the flash of the camera.  Time after time, bears have swatted our cameras, chewed on our camera cables, or even chomped on our receivers or transmitters.  Despite the fact that we often hike, climb, snowshoe, or cross country ski deep into remote wildlands with smelly chickens on our backs, no bear or mountain lion has yet confronted us....so far.  Once in a while we do meet a bear, but always, it quickly runs away.

Other Species, Too

  In addition to bears and martens, we've had gray foxes, spotted skunks, flying squirrels, gray squirrels, opossums, ravens, ringtail cats, jays, a mountain lion and other species visit our stations.  We've even had coyotes run and leap high up the tree trunk to grab mouthfuls of bait.  The evidence we gather about sensitive or threatened wildlife is provided free to the U.S. Forest Service and to other wildlife researchers.  Our hope is to use our photo-dectection surveys to help preserve critical habitat areas by protecting them from roads, logging, and development