The deer’s muted brown colouring makes it difficult to see in the dappled morning light. This is how deer hide from predators, and also how they make this kind of operation tricky.

Mule deer with GPS collar. Photo Credit: Parks Canada.

The tranquilizing drugs take effect slowly. Joined by project volunteer Jerry Duhamel and park official A.L. Horton, the team are like covert operatives silently closing the perimeter around the doe as she becomes drowsy. To scare the deer now could cause adrenaline to course through her body, temporarily overriding the drug, and allowing her to bolt from sight, so they move as silently as the icy, sloping forest floor allows.

After stabilizing the deer, the team fits her with a collar that will allow them to follow the doe’s movements through the park. It’s part of a joint project between Parks Canada and University of Calgary designed to get a better understanding of deer distribution, and trends in deer population size in Jasper National Park.

Both mule and white-tailed deer are being studied, although the majority of those currently collared are mule deer. Preliminary data has just started to roll in, but reveals some surprising results. Deer previously thought to be from different populations may actually be the same deer that have migrated long distances.

“One [deer] was caught at Jasper Park Lodge, and it migrated up to the northern part of Maligne Lake,” says Arnison. “Another individual went from sixth bridge to the very south part of Maligne Lake. No one had any idea that was going on.”

Arnison says it’s not yet clear whether the deer are moving in groups, or as individuals, and this has raised questions about how to define deer populations in the park. “Right now we just have data for individuals, but hopefully, as we put out more collars, we can get a [better understanding of this] over several years.”

Complicating matters is the fact that historically, the mountains and foothills were not habitat for white-tailed deer. The species has been expanding westward and northward from its traditional range in the prairie, parkland and southern boreal zones. “It’s believed they are moving north because of climate change. We’re trying to understand how that might be influencing other species,” says Arnison.

One species that might be affected by expanding deer populations (both white-tailed and mule) is caribou. “If deer populations are exploding as fast as we think they are, then wolves might be coming [more frequently] into the area.” Arnison says this in turn may increase the frequency with which wolves encounter caribou.

Increasing deer populations may also allow wolves to maintain their numbers despite a declining elk population. Trends in wolf diet will be the subject of a research project soon to be carried out by a colleague of Arnison’s at the University of Calgary.

Collen Arnison by clover trap. Photo Credit: Parks Canada.

Volunteers have been integral to the success of the study. The majority of the project deer have been caught using clover traps. These are large metal-gated traps that are baited with hay. Volunteers help with monitoring the traps, and handling the animals during the collaring procedure. “It’s been really rewarding to work with people external to the project,” says Arnison, who hopes Jasper residents will be interested in volunteering again next year.

For now, capture work is finished to allow female deer to carry out later-term pregnancy and fawn-raising without hassle from humans. Parks Canada officials will continue to download deer locations over the summer and fall months. Given the long forays collared-deer made into the Maligne Valley last year, Arnison says it will be interesting to see whether they go back to those areas, and over time understand why they choose them. ]]> http://www.nikiwilson.com/2013/04/12/deer-on-the-move/feed/ 0 http://www.nikiwilson.com/2013/04/10/something-bugging-you-this-winter/ http://www.nikiwilson.com/2013/04/10/something-bugging-you-this-winter/#comments Wed, 10 Apr 2013 15:50:03 +0000 admin http://www.nikiwilson.com/?p=907 NIKI WILSON – On Science, Jasper Fitzhugh March 14, 2013

Recently, a fellow insect enthusiast (that’s you Sue Young-Leslie) sent me a message asking about “those winter spiders” she’s been seeing around. You know the ones, most frequently seen dragging their sluggish, segmented rears across the snow pack on warm winter days.

I’m not afraid to admit that bug identification makes my toes tingle, so naturally I dropped everything to find out what it was. After photo confirmation, we decided Sue was talking about the wingless winter cousin of the summer cranefly, ingeniously called the snow cranefly. It’s easy to mistake these guys for spiders, given the way they creep along.

Snow Cranefly, Jasper National Park. Photo Credit: Paulette Dube.

Around here they’re usually dark-coloured (to attract heat), with six long, spindly legs, and an ovoid, segmented body about 3–10 mm long. Sometimes they’ve got a nasty, upturned spike on their rear, but don’t worry, this is for laying eggs and not stinging humans.

Although they have not been studied intensively, the thinking is that snow craneflies live in the burrows of ground squirrels and other small mammals. This keeps them warm, and also offers them a food source; they feed off the fleas, mites and other small goodies that live on the rodents. Everyone has to eat, right?

Adults disperse from the burrows in the autumn/early winter to mate. After a few weeks of mating, the males kick the bucket, and the females go back under the snow to lay eggs in the soil, using that pointy ovipositor on their back end. Then, until April or so, you’ll see them creeping around, having reached the surface of the snowpack by climbing up logs, trees and shrubs.

Snow craneflies aren’t the only bugs that make a go of it in the winter. Sometimes they are confused with the snow scorpion fly, although it is generally much smaller, and has much shorter legs. Scorpion flies have a long head and a pronounced, down-turned beak. Don’t forget your magnifying glass if you want to get a really good look. The good news is they’re not moving too fast, so you’ve got time to closely inspect them.

Other small critters that make it work in the cold include snow worms, spring tails, small winter stoneflies, and a primitive order of “ice insects” that are related to earwigs. According to Ben Gadd in the Handbook of the Canadian Rockies, these ice insects can’t tolerate temperatures greater than eight degrees Celsius — place one in your hand and it will die.

For most winter insects, avoiding freezing and staying warm enough to move are major challenges. Insects are ectotherms, meaning they rely on external forces to produce their heat. That is why most are equipped with adaptions that prevent their bodies from freezing. This is super cool stuff.

And by super cool, I actually mean super-cooling stuff.  Many freeze-avoiding winter insects supercool their bodily fluids to avoid the formation of ice crystals ­­— crystals that would rupture cells and eventually kill their host. How do they do this?

In order for a liquid like water to freeze, it needs a particle, like dust, to act as a nucleus around which the ice crystal is formed. This is called, not surprisingly, the ice-nucleating-agent, or INA. Some insects are able to remove INA’s from their bodies as they prepare for winter, thereby allowing the fluid in their body to remain in a liquid form, albeit really, really cold.

Super-cooling is further enhanced when bugs produce anti-freeze compounds called cryoprotectants. These reduce the lethal freezing temperatures in their bodies. Ethylene glycol, the same compound found in antifreeze for cars, is the most common cryoprotectant.

Cryoprotectants are usually distributed uniformly throughout the bug’s body. The lower the temperature, the more viscous the body fluids become. This helps ward off the freezing, but makes movement tricky. So when you see snow craneflies drunkenly stumbling across the snow, give them a break for goodness sake. You try walking with super-cooled liquid in your limbs and see how far you get.

Now you know a bit about snow craneflies, complete with bonus material about insect winter survival techniques. A big thank-you to Sue, and the other folks who stop me on the street and shoot me messages to share stories and ask, “What is this?” Talking to you about critters, plants and fossils makes writing this column worthwhile. In fact, it’s my favourite part. ]]> http://www.nikiwilson.com/2013/04/10/something-bugging-you-this-winter/feed/ 0 http://www.nikiwilson.com/2013/02/26/animals-exposed-what-remote-cameras-might-tell-us/ http://www.nikiwilson.com/2013/02/26/animals-exposed-what-remote-cameras-might-tell-us/#comments Tue, 26 Feb 2013 18:51:32 +0000 admin http://www.nikiwilson.com/?p=896 NIKI WILSON – On Science, Jasper Fitzhugh February 14, 2013

According  to her GPS, field assistant Laura Machial was standing in the exact location where, months earlier, her team had attached a remote wildlife camera to a burnt tree snag. But as she shuffled her skis back and forth along the snowy trail, she saw no sign of it. Still in cell range, she called her boss, University of Montana PhD student Robin Steenweg. After a brief video-conference that included a scan of the area, he confirmed she was in the right place. They decided she should start digging.

Eventually she located the camera, but not exactly as the team had left it. “She found that the big tree, which was 20 centimetres across, had fallen over. She wasn’t really expecting that! We learned not to put [cameras] on a burned snag”, laughed Steenweg. He also describes camera theft and vandalism by grizzly bears among the challenges of doing this kind of research.

Steenweg is analyzing the photographs from roughly 250 cameras spread across the landscape in Waterton Lakes, Banff and Jasper national parks. His goal is to develop a non-invasive approach to study carnivores and their prey in a way that can be applied throughout the Canadian Rockies, and across the globe.

Steenweg’s study is part of an effort between national parks and other land managers to co-ordinate remote camera programs. Originally, his team used remote camera photos to establish the presence  of grizzly bears. But with thousands of photos of multiple species recorded every year, Steenweg wondered what else the cameras could tell us. Could they give us a better understanding of how different species interact with each other and their environment across large areas? The study was expanded in an attempt to answer these questions.

Already, his work points to interesting trends in species interaction. For example, he says the data may challenge what many people have assumed about black bear and grizzly bear interaction. “You would think that if there are a lot of grizzly bears in the area, there might be fewer black bears present. But the preliminary analysis I did suggests that’s not quite true. [Black bears] are just not using the trail as much.”

Steenweg also says he’s learning about “interference competition,” between wild canids. “If wolves tend to be in a certain area, often coyotes tend not to be. But if coyotes are in a certain area, foxes tend not to be.”

As thousands of remote camera pictures confirm, medium to large mammals cover a lot of ground and require adequate tracts of land to feed and breed successfully. National parks and other protected areas play an important role in allowing animals this kind of space. However, parks are increasingly isolated as human development continues to gnaw at their edges, and are certainly not immune to forces like climate change. Ecologists like Steenweg wonder how animals will respond to these pressures in the future.

Numerous studies already support the fact that the ranges of many species are slowly creeping northward as the climate warms. In Steenweg’s study, cameras collect photos across a gradient of four degrees latitude from Waterton Lakes to Jasper, potentially enough to detect climate change effects.

“Species like swift fox are extending their range, coming north. Red fox and white tail deer are also benefiting from climate warming”, says Steenweg. “We have a species like wolverine that’s very dependent on summer snow pack.” Warming temperatures may diminish these snow packs over time.

Climate change might also affect interactions between species. Warmer temperatures could promote earlier green up in some areas, encouraging bears or other large mammals to arrive in green areas earlier in the year, and possibly interact with other animals in a way they haven’t before.

The study’s novel approach to the use of camera data is being watched closely by other organizations. Steenweg says groups like the Alberta Biodiversity Monitoring Institute, Panthera, and Yellowstone to Yukon want to know what the potential is for using cameras for monitoring multiple-species over big areas.

Steenweg points to Tshering Tempa, a PhD-mate that shares his lab at the University of Montana. Tempa is interested in applying what Steenweg learns to his work on Bengal tigers in Bhutan. As is the case in the Rockies, Tempa’s remote cameras are also photographing a host of other species. How could these techniques be used to better manage other animals like clouded leopard, and barking deer?

Not only would the right remote camera study design give all those interested better data, but it might limit the need for invasive capture techniques like collaring.

Steenweg will tweak his study design and continue his analysis for another two years.  He wants to “really test it and see if it holds up to the statistical rigour that we want for monitoring all the species we have in the national parks.” He hopes that by the time he defends his PhD, he will have created a tool that makes a difference for wildlife managers. “It’s much more rewarding when research has multiple avenues for applications.”

In the meantime, he enjoys sharing his work, particularly the photos, with others. “Remote cameras allow for a lot of public engagement. People are really interested in the stories.” This is an important part of the work for Steenweg who believes that “as a scientist there’s a certain responsibility to make sure that what you’re doing has relevance, and hopefully is interesting to more that just a bunch of eggheads in Ivory Towers.”

There’s something eerily engaging about sorting through file after file of animals caught on a remote camera. It is more than a snapshot of their daily life – it is a photo of a cougar on your favourite running trail, or a wolverine travelling through the pass you hiked last summer. The photos confirm with wondrous, and at times unnerving clarity, that we share the parks with wild things – a fact easily forgotten when a bear slips from view before we encounter it, or a lynx lies quietly hidden as we walk by.

The Fitzhugh, January 10, 2013

By Niki Wilson

2013 is the International Year of Water Co-operation, as voted by the United Nations General Assembly. This designation aims to draw attention to countries that have committed to protecting freshwater resources, and to encourage them to start taking concrete actions to protect and share this increasingly valuable resource.

Access to freshwater, and its key role in healthy ecosystems, may be the biggest global issue in the decades to come. This idea is hard to absorb when you live in a place like Jasper National Park. Here, the Athabasca River rushes by, rising and subsiding with the seasons. One only needs to walk a short distance on the Pyramid Bench before encountering a small lake or slough teaming with birds, frogs and fish.

Problems in places less pristine than here are well documented, and I’ll leave it to your Googling fingers to sift through the bad news on your own. Instead, given the relatively clean watershed we live in, I thought it more appropriate to kick off the International Year of Water Co-operation by celebrating with a couple of things that are right in the aquatic world: Stories of life that thrives in local water bodies.

The first story is about the plentiful and varied dragonflies that turned out in the summer and fall of 2012, likely because of the generous amounts of rain bestowed on Western Canada the previous spring. The second is about the great migration of whitefish that takes place between the Athabasca River and surrounding lakes every fall.

2012: The Flight of the Dragon Flies

Last spring, the June monsoons resulted in a heck of a lot of standing water. Which led to hoards of mosquitoes. You would had to have been walking around in a Hazmat suit not to notice, and believe me I thought about it. I went from a Mom-against-DEET to practically making my son drink it. But the good thing about mosquitoes is that they are tasty eats for a host of other insects, fish and birds.

One predator that likes to chow on mosquitoes is the dragonfly. The larval, aquatic phase of dragonflies feed on mosquito larvae. Those of you who’ve seen these larval dragonflies know they can be kind of scary looking. They are slightly shorter than your pinky finger, with big buggy eyes, plump, segmented bodies and pointy things on their abdomens (or “butts,” as some kids I know would say).

But soon enough, between one to three years old, they transform into the colourful, aerial acrobats we see each summer. This past summer, however, the sheer numbers and diversity of dragonflies surpassed anything I’d seen in a decade. The result of several rainy springs and an increase in food (like mosquitos) has been documented province-wide as giving dragonfly populations a boost.

We had more of the usual suspects – the blue darners and hosts of bluets too. But others really stood out as not having been around for a while, at least in the numbers that appeared. For example, the big green and brown guys you were seeing at places like Lake Edith were the green variety of variable darners. There were also little red guys breeding on the Pyramid Bench near Two Sloughs – these are candied orange dragonflies. It was magical watching a cloud of them flitter back and forth in the late afternoon sun as they hunted those damn mosquitoes. It’s a nice image to conjure in the dark and cold of winter.

Variable Darner, Lake Edith, Jasper National Park. Photo Credit: Niki Wilson.

The Great Mountain Whitefish Migration

Every fall, thousands of mountain whitefish migrate into Lac Beauvert from the Athabasca River, and never leave. This aquatic parade begins with the smallest of the species, gradually giving way to larger and larger fish until the great migration ends sometime in late October. You won’t see them during the day – they arrive under the cover of darkness in an attempt to avoid the keen eyes of osprey and eagle

They come from the Athabasca River, the spawning grounds of most mountain whitefish populations in the Athabasca watershed. According to Parks Canada Aquatic Biologist Ward Hughson, some fish come from as far as 900 kilometres down river to spawn in the mountain water they were born in.

Perhaps triggered by the warmer water emanating from the stream they follow, or perhaps following a desire to search out deeper water in the hopes they are less visible to predators, these fish wiggle their way up the shallow stream that is the outlet of Lac Beauvert.

With all these whitefish pouring in every fall, one would expect the waters of Lac Beauvert to be boiling with them.  In addition to the numbers that arrive, it’s likely some of them continue to spawn there throughout the years. However, it seems they are in high demand for predators including raptors, mink, and metre-long northern pike.  In other words, there’s a lot of animals getting fat on fish around there.

Dragonflies and mountain whitefish – these are summer stories to look forward to as we move into the latter part of our winter. Right now, dragonfly larvae lay burrowed in muddy soil of bogs and ponds. Mountain whitefish hover in the warmest strata of water near the bottom of lakes, beneath the ice. So adapted are they to these fresh water systems that they can survive the winter without much food, waiting for the warmth and light of spring to signal a new season, and a new cycle of life. Now that’s something to celebrate.

Project Graphic Designer: Marni Wilson, Non-personal Media Specialist, Parks Canada.