Scat Track Fever!

So... I think it's official; we've decided on a team name. Scat Track Fever! It makes total sense, plus it's a little silly, just like the team members. "Group corridor" made sense too, but didn't have as much character.

Dan Gardoqui joined us today as we re-explored the trails we'll be focused on for the duration of the project. We knew there was a chance that the awesome tracks we spotted yesterday all over the corridors might have been marred overnight, but we got lucky and procured some amazing casts of animal prints. It was the first time any of us had utilized plaster of paris for this kind of project, but it worked out so well! Dan even challenged us to look closer than we'd been looking before, and sure enough, in no time, the team members of Scat Track Fever were pointing out field mouse, chipmunk, sparrow and other prints of all kinds! There were tons of coyote, deer and moose signs too. Even more interesting to me were the really unique prints that Dan recognized to be that of the porcupine - these things are weird! The only way to describe it is that a porcupine paw print looks like a flat, uniform mark with a texture as though a basketball had been imprinted there. Then way above that pad print are 4 small but distinct claw marks that look like pin holes. So cool! Unfortunately, because these prints are so shallow, there's little chance of making casts from them. But some of my team members got pictures which we will likely be posting in our group blog (which begins tomorrow!)

I tremendously enjoy perusing the outdoors with somebody like Dan whose knowledge seems to be so endless about everything in sight. Most impressively, he points out exactly what is in our sight that we are overlooking; the scattered, hard-to-read frog prints, the abundant jumping mice, and so on. I'm excited to take the limited yet poignant knowledge he's already instilled in me and share it with others. Hopefully there will be an opportunity for an internship or credit-based work for me within Dan's center. I've already mentioned to him my interest in pursuing work similar to what he performs; and our like-minded interests seemed even more understandable once we realized that we both attended Cook College; we even shared some very influential professors, including my favorite, Human Ecology professor George Clark! What a small world.

Although Team Scat Track Fever has already had to make some adjustments to our core project research questions, we're still very much on the right track, having already decided on the trails we will most heavily be inventorying. We've even begun gathering an arsenal of physical props for use in our presentation, including 5+ print castings, feathers and quills. If we're lucky, when we arrive back at the site tomorrow, the overnight small animal track trap we've set up with yield some exciting results.

The pictures posted here are of a few of the great prints we've seen.... moose, deer, wild turkey, etc. And don't forget to check out that gorgeous pic of Team Scat Track Fever! Because my blog entries will soon mainly be focused away from my personal space and more into the group territory, I will leave you for now with a quote which I believe so well to be true, and anticipate the integrity of my life to be committed to -

The human spirit needs places where nature has not been rearranged by the hand of man. ~Author Unknown