I Love Grizzlies!

Life has been going really well. I am working on a PhD students project examining the effects of mining on grizzly bears. It is pretty interesting work and I spend most of my time hiking around to places that the grizzlies have been and looking for grizzly signs as well as what plants they are eating. The min itself is amazingly huge, but what is really interesting is that there is a large portion of land that is leased by the mine, but has not yet been developed that provides a sanctuary for bears, moose, and especially big horn sheep because hunting is not allowed on mine property.

We are living in a small cabin in Cadomin Alberta which is just a few short clicks to Whitehorse wildland park as well as Jasper national park. Because the weather has been unreliable (sunny, rainy, snowy, hail-y) we have not backpacked very much, but instead do fairly long day trips (4-20km). I enjoy the job because I see so much wildlife and signs of wildlife everywhere I go. So far I have accidentally walked into a bull elk and his harem, seen a bull moose and female, tons of big horn sheep, and on my first day a grizzly bear. On my "weekend" I went to Jasper with one of the other volunteers. I have been nursing my foot so we did not hike very much, but the area is just gorgeous.

Time for a change

I just got back to Edmonton after finishing work with martens and seismic line in the Northwest Territories. I am now moving to an area near Jasper National Park to work on a project studying the effects of mining on Grizzly bears. It should be very different. Instead of the flat dense bogs of NWT there will be lots of mountains and little vegetation. Add in a little snow and freezing rain and you've got Jasper.

The last week in Ft. Liard went well. We were working pretty long hours to get as many cameras up as possible, but were rewarded with a "field trip" drive home that took us the long way through the NWT. I have included some pictures from the area that we worked in this last week to show you a little bit about the conditions and forest that we were working with. The mosquitoes weren't that bad, but I think it is a funny picture.