ESRM 459- Wildlife Conservation in Northwest Ecosystems (Yellowstone Spring Break)
This course was less a class and more an intensive spring break field trip! Led by Professor Marzluff as well as Professors Moskal and Rabotyagov, fifteen of us undergrads (as well as Jeff, a post doc) road tripped to Yellowstone National Park to study the greater Yellowstone ecosystem, the Park itself, and to conduct research on the wildlife there. We talked with a great diversity of people, from ranchers to Park scientists, about the many issues affecting the Park, its wildlife, and local communities. Not only did we get to visit Mammoth Hot Springs in the Park's Northern Range and see the plethora of wildlife that Yellowstone hosts (including a wolf pack and a feeding cougar!), we were also lucky enough to have many experiences outside of that of the average tourist. Our class went snowshoeing in the Lamar Valley, hiking with Park biologists to see a wolf kill site, visited an abandoned wolf den, and had numerous one-on-one conversations with many members of the Park staff. It was an unforgettable week, but the class didn't end there. As Spring Quarter began, our class continued to meet and began working on group research projects using the data we collected in Yellowstone. My group analyzed if human presence (determined by photo density using data taken from Flickr) affected elk vigilance within the Park. Our results were unfortunately non-significant, however working on this project was a great learning experience on how to collect, analyze, and present data.
A slideshow of my favorite photos from the trip as well as the brochure we put together to accompany the oral presentation of our results is included below!
This course was less a class and more an intensive spring break field trip! Led by Professor Marzluff as well as Professors Moskal and Rabotyagov, fifteen of us undergrads (as well as Jeff, a post doc) road tripped to Yellowstone National Park to study the greater Yellowstone ecosystem, the Park itself, and to conduct research on the wildlife there. We talked with a great diversity of people, from ranchers to Park scientists, about the many issues affecting the Park, its wildlife, and local communities. Not only did we get to visit Mammoth Hot Springs in the Park's Northern Range and see the plethora of wildlife that Yellowstone hosts (including a wolf pack and a feeding cougar!), we were also lucky enough to have many experiences outside of that of the average tourist. Our class went snowshoeing in the Lamar Valley, hiking with Park biologists to see a wolf kill site, visited an abandoned wolf den, and had numerous one-on-one conversations with many members of the Park staff. It was an unforgettable week, but the class didn't end there. As Spring Quarter began, our class continued to meet and began working on group research projects using the data we collected in Yellowstone. My group analyzed if human presence (determined by photo density using data taken from Flickr) affected elk vigilance within the Park. Our results were unfortunately non-significant, however working on this project was a great learning experience on how to collect, analyze, and present data.
A slideshow of my favorite photos from the trip as well as the brochure we put together to accompany the oral presentation of our results is included below!
|