Bears are rude: Fall field update
In early October I took two field ecology students, Aleesha Tartell and Megan Zdybowicz, down to my field sites in order to gather data from my iButton and HOBO microstation dataloggers. The trip only lasted 5 days but we still managed to get a lot accomplished. In addition to gathering data from all of my data loggers and then redeploying each of them, we also completed both Aleesha’s and Megan’s independent field ecology project. The trip involved a substantial amount of driving which ended up totaling around 32 hours in the car. It was also a little colder than I expected so we were not as successful locating salamanders as I would have liked. However, we did manage to make some interesting finds. The biggest discovery of the trip was that bears (or some other medium/large mammal) really likes plastic. The research coordinator for the Smokys had warned me about this which is why I buried the majority of my data loggers. Unfortunately, two of my HOBO microstations were attacked despite my protective efforts. Only one of them was totally missing. I at least like to think that some bear got a bit of enjoyment out of my expensive equipment before losing it in the woods somewhere. That makes the several hundred dollars lost less painful. Overall, it was a good trip and I retrieved a large amount of data and I hope that Aleesha and Megan enjoyed the experience. Again, because I am so late on this update, I am just including some of the interesting photos from the trip without extensive comment. Enjoy!
