Currently our staff is trying to keep six photo stations up and running during this snowy winter season. We also are assisting staff at Calaveras Big Trees State Park in setting up and maintaining photo-detection stations in the Park to determine if rare species are making use of the Park's impressive patches of old growth conifer forest habitat. |
It is frustrating (and expensive) whenever we lose one of our photo-detection stations. Thankfully, such thefts have been rare over the last decade of our wildlife surveys in the Stanislaus National Forest. Sadly, an entire set of equipment (transmitter, receiver, camera, and cable) was stolen from its location in the national forest during hunting season this fall.
We had already retrieved one roll of film from the station (covering the first eight days it was up). The film revealed not only the opossum, the deer, the hunter, the bear, and the coyote, but also a flying squirrel that was photographed in between the opossum and the deer. The squirrel was so small in its picture that we left it out of this photo sequence.
Even after one hunter stumbled upon the set-up, he apparently left it undisturbed, since the bear and the coyote both triggered the camera afterwards. Then, the hunter returned or someone else stumbled across the equipment and carefully removed each item. After repeated searches by CSERC staff failed to find any clues, we eventually had to replace the equipment.
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