Carnivore study 'like finding needles in a haystack'

Imagine tracking rare and elusive carnivore in winter.

That’s what a group of three wildlife biologists and four interns were doing the first three months of the year.

The tracking, which also involved road kill that was used in bait stations, is attempting to establish a baseline of information. The object is to find out where the carnivores — specifically lynx, wolverines and fisher — are located in the 1.5-million-acre Southwest Crown of the Continent and how many there are.

The project began in 2012, and just concluded its second season.

Adam Lieberg, a wildlife biologist from Northwest Connections who works out of Condon, recently completed his seasonal field work for the project.

Wet and tired from a day spent riding a snowmobile, Lieberg took time to describe the tracking study. “It’s probably the most comprehensive monitoring effort targeting multi-species in the Southwest Crown of the Continent,” he said. The monitoring provides baseline “pre-treatment” monitoring data and insight into the functioning of the ecosystem.

Lieberg’s work involved setting up bait stations with gun wire brushes that were positioned in trees underneath a hind quarter or shoulder of elk or deer. Tracking foot prints to find animal hair and scat is another part of the study.

The hair and scat DNA samples are sent to a lab to determine if the animal is from a targeted species — lynx, wolverine or fisher. If the sample is good enough, an individual animal’s DNA can also be logged.

“We’ll be sending hundreds of DNA samples to the lab in the next week or so,” Lieberg said.

A team that consists of wildlife biologists from the U.S. Forest Service and Northwest Connections, a public non-profit, covers the entire 1.5-million-acre Southwest Crown, which is laid out in 25-square-mile grids or tracts.

The tracking is usually done on snowmobile, but snowshoes or cross country skiis must be used to reach the Scapegoat Wilderness, which is located in the Bob Marshall Wilderness.

Carly Lewis, a wildlife biologist with the U.S. Forest Service, serves as a field crew and logistics coordinator for the tracking study. She cited example where one has to snowmobile 12 miles to get to a trailhead and then snowshoe another seven miles to get to the Webb Lake Cabin. A similar trek is involved to access the North Fork (of the Blackfoot) Cabin. Both cabins are reached from the Lincoln area. (The Southwest Crown Collaborative includes the Swan Lake, Seeley Lake and Lincoln Forest Service Ranger districts.)

Wildlife biologists carry 50 to 60 pounds worth of equipment, along with deer or elk meat that is used for bait, for their snowshoeing or cross country skiiing trips.

But the effort is worth it, she said. “It’s awesome. The opportunity to be out in the winter to look at tracks and see how animals move across the landscape enlivens my spirit.

“If you can get out and learn to follow tracks, it’s an amazing time to be outside,” she said. “If you stay walking, you stay warm. When you stop, you get cold.”

Lewis noted that the tracking is done in the winter so that bears are not enticed to the bait. That doesn’t mean other animals aren’t attracted to it, however. Remote sensing cameras have spotted moose, gray jays, golden eagles, squirrels, bobcats and long-tailed weasels eating the bait, she said.

The fact that the study includes all of the 1.5 million acres in the Southwest Crown “is a pretty novel thing,” Lewis said. “It’s like finding needles in a haystack.”

The Southwest Crown Collaborative is one of 10 similar studies going on across the United States as part of a national program for forest restoration. The study, which started in 2012, is scheduled to last 10 years, but future years depend on appropriations from Congress.

The baseline information will also be used to see how restoration and fuel reduction efforts and wildfires impact the carnivores.

Lewis noted that the restoration efforts could involve planting Ponderosa pine seedlings and thinning Douglas fir from Ponderosa pine forest along with some prescribed burns.

Lieberg said he didn’t personally see any of the carnivores during his three months of tracking this year, “but we’ve been very close,” he said, noting he came within 20 minutes of seeing a wolverine. The carnivore was picked up by a remote camera after he left a bait station. “We’ve got tons of footing of target and non-target species.”