River otters in the Finger Lakes

This is a long one, so get comfortable!

January 11, 2013

Today I had the pleasure of accompanying a past professor of mine from Finger Lakes Community College (John), and a current Biotechnology student (Will) on a tramp through the woods. We were at the Hi Tor Wildlife Management Area in Italy Valley, NY. The goal: to find a river otter (Lontra canadensis) latrine site.

Some brief natural history about the river otter: they are in the weasel family (Mustelidae) along with wolverines and badgers (which do not live in NY), fishers, martens, mink, short/long-tailed weasels, and least weasels. They’re all very long-bodied, veracious hunters and fighters, and they all contain a scent gland that leaves behind a very musky scent. Weasels are smelly, but I love them! Around 12ish years ago, river otters were locally extirpated in the Finger Lake region. They could still be found in pockets in the Adirondacks and perhaps the Catskills. The DEC, along with private monies, collected and live-trapped otters from these regions. They were then rehabilitated, vaccinated, fattened up, and then released at various areas all over the Finger Lakes. It’s ONE example of an animal trapped and releases in another area that was a success story. Over the past decade +, the river otters have been coming back in force. There is not a season for trapping allowed, because it has not been determined that they are THAT stable, but they’re back. There have been live and sign sightings, incidental trappings, and roadkills found all over the region. Oh, and what’s a latrine? It’s also referred to as a “toilet” site. The otters (and some other critters) will defecate and urinate in the same spot over and over. This is a territorial marking behavior.

There is a study going on currently out of the Environmental School of Forestry (SUNY ESF) in Syracuse that hopes to document where the otter are, a potential abundance of them, and then “who” is around. Camera traps are being used, as well as scat samples are being taken so that DNA work can be done to determine the “who” or genetic variation. Much of the camera-trapping has begun over the summer of 2012, and not much work (to my knowledge) has been done in the lab working on scat samples.

Will, the biotech student from FLCC, is assisting in the scat collection. Since these easily-accessible latrines were found, and he lives nearby, he and others will be monitoring the area for fresh scats. John knew the location, and so off we went.

Our destination location: River Otter Pond

 As we approached the pond, we made sure to keep quiet. The last time John had visited the pond, he observed an otter on the shore. We hoped that this would be the case again today. Well, we were NOT disappointed! After a short 2-3 minutes of standing still and scanning the ice, I spotted a little head pop out of an ice hole that the otters were breathing at. I unfortunately don’t have any pictures to share of that sighting, but we counted 3! Below is a picture of the ice hole, with tracks leading to/from it.

In the top picture, I'm standing on the side of the pond we first approached, and that is the view 

I watched the otters at. The arrow is the ice hole. The bottom picture is across the other side of the 

pond, looking back in the direction I originally was. The ice hole is much easier to see from here.

The sighting was VERY cool for me. Weasels in general are very intelligent and wary critters. They are curious, but quick. We were able to sneak up undetected and catch a glimpse of them acting naturally and doing “otter stuff”. It was amazing, and yet ANOTHER confirmation that I’m in the right field of study and work! After watching the otters until they went back under the ice, we set to work looking for the 2 otter latrine sites that were known to be at the pond’s edge.

The first location was easily spotted. There was otter scat in abundance.

Otter latrine site #1. Notice the entrance/exit hole at left.

Otter scat is easy to identify, in my opinion. Because their primary diet consists of fish, and invertebrates like crayfish, the scales and exoskeletons are found in the scat, because it’s too tough to digest. See below.

Note the scales and delicate fish bones in the scat.

Will collecting scat samples.

Will is looking to determine which method of preservation will best keep the integrity of the scat. Once it is expelled from the body, the scat is decomposing, thus the DNA is breaking up. Since the work to determine the genetics of the scat can't be done in the field, it must be preserved until lab time. Will is trying no preservative (L), a chemical I don't remember (M), and ethanol (R). Then all samples will be frozen until he's ready to work in the lab.

Once Will took what he needed from this location, we hiked over to the other side of the pond. Still no sign of the otters.

On this side of the pond, John knew for sure there was a latrine site. He actually visited this exact spot the last time he was here, and he deployed a Cuddeback Attack IR camera at the site. Bound to get otters, right?

The Cuddeback Attack's view of the latrine site.

Success! Two river otters in a 'slide'. This is a behavior otters often do, to get from point A to point B. 

Photo credit: John Van Niel

AND TRIPLE SUCCESS! 3 otters this time! Is this the 3 otters that we saw earlier? Regardless, what an awesome capture. Photo credit: John Van Niel

Total success! The grad student in charge of the overall project is going to be so excited when she sees the site and the pictures.

Lastly, after Will took his samples he did one last thing. The grad student I just mentioned, Elaina, will be visiting this spot in the future to check it out, and to collect samples. Another thing you can do to make sure that you have a good scat sample, is to get the freshest possible. Well, how do you know if the poop is fresh? Sight? Smell? Texture? Gross.

Well, you can glitterize it!

Sprinkling glitter on the scat will tell Elaina which is freshest. Tomorrow, when she visits,
she'll know that any 'unglittered' scat is less than 24 hours old.

Pretty!

This latrine site was huge. Probably 8 feet wide and absolutely covered...with poop.

What a wonderful day. I know to many, this seems like a bizarre thing to be interested in and to get excited about. But seeing the otters was a total chance, yet sign left behind is much easier and common to observe, and can tell us so much about the lives of these amazing animals.

I will soon have a blog entry or 2 about Otter’s cousin, Fisher. Another fascinating wild animal!

PS- for John's take of the day, check out his blog Backyard Beasts: All that glitters is not gold, sometimes it's otter poop.

River Otter Dissection

Last weekend (September 28-29-30, 2012) I travelled back west to the Finger Lakes region to visit my family and some old classmates and professors. A class I took 2 years ago, in the fall of 2010, was in progress that weekend at FLCC's Muller Field Station on the South end of Honeoye Lake.

Muller Field Station - 9/29/2012

The class, Wetland Mammals, is taught by Professor John Van Niel, and Conservation Tech Sasha Mackenzie. It's taught over 2 weekends, where the class eats, sleeps, and learns at the field station. I believe there are also some meeting times outside of those weekends in the traditional classroom. All in all, it ends up to 3 credits worth of face time with John and Sasha, and one of the best classes I've taken yet. And I took it the first round, when they were still figuring out how to run the course...I could tell this past weekend they really had established the class and articulated what they expected from their students.

I was barely able to contain my jealousy, I'm not sure those FLCC students realize how lucky they are to have classes like this available to them! :)

The part I wanted to blog about from my experience hanging out with them for the day on Saturday (9/29/12), was the river otter dissection I got to watch. The NYS Department of Environmental Conservation Region 8 Furbearer Biologist, Scott Smith, came to guest speak on the ins and outs of trapping in New York. I first met Scott when I was a student in this course, and have since gotten to work with him a couple times (Honeoye Fur Auction). He's a great biologist, down to earth, and really willing to talk about his job. He's great addition to the course.

 

Scott ran through different types of traps, methods of making a set, using scent lures, the biology of how the animals actually die (FYI, it's not drowning, it's high levels of CO2 in the blood stream), and set them all up so we could see how it was done. He explained the necessity of trapping: I am not a hunter or a trapper, but I realize the importance of these methods of harvest for managing these species of wildlife.

Scott also brought with him some road-killed specimens of interest. It's great for FLCC's conservation faculty and staff and the local DEC biologists to have such a close relationship. The students get to totally take advantage of that relationship and shadow the biologists, and also get cool presents like dead beavers, bobcats and otters delivered to them in class!

Sasha and student Rodney checking out the beaver.

Bobcat

...and student Luke with the river otter (and a couple of really excited classmates behind him)!

A side note before I talk about the dissection:

One of these is the tail of the beaver, and one is the sole of a porcupine foot.

Both have similar textures, and are REALLY cool! Glad I got the check them out.

(The porcupine picture was from the Porcupine Paws entry I wrote recently..)

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 **WARNING**

The following pictures will be increasignly gory.

If you have a weak stomach, please don't continue.

This otter was killed by a car, retrieved by the DEC and saved for educational use. It's opportunities like this that allow students an up-close chance to appreciate a rare, BEAUTIFUL animal that's slowly making it's way back up in numbers.

 

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So Scott took the otter, and strung it up by a foot for easy access and leverage while skinning.

 

 

Once he made it down the tail, around the ankles, and around the vent, it was just like "pulling a sweatshirt off"...gross, but I guess true. An analogy we could all relate to :)

On one leg, he found these parasites. I don't know what they were, but it seemed very strange to me that they were between the skin and muscle. I would expect to find them in the organs, but Scott seemed unsurprised.

 

Once the skin was totally removed (it was going to be saved, tanned, and used as an educational skin), we moved the group outdoors. A naked, dead, thawing river otter smells a bit...ripe...and we needed that fresh air.

 

Scott took the lead on the dissection, with John as back up...and as you'll see in a few pictures, a ton of student help as well!

 

Working up the animal: I thought these round, bulbous features were testicles, making this a male otter. WRONG, these are scent glands. Otters are in the Mustelidae family, along with weasels, mink, fisher, badger, and wolverine. All are stinky critters, and possess this scent gland. Both males and females have these glands, and this, by the way is a female!

 

Scott cut through the sternum and through the diaphragm to expose the internal organs.

 

Kidney(s?)...very different than what we "know" kidneys to look like. This is was all segmented and in one group, rather than separated into 2 halves.

The heart- we all agreed it seemed relatively large for the size of the animal. A human heart is about the size of our fist, right? Well I imagine if this otter made an adorable little fist with it's paw, this heart would easily be twice as large.

Gall bladder- full of bile, which is apparent because of the color of the organ.

We had a visiting professor, Lisa Tracy (North Hennepin Community College, MN) with us for the weekend, a professor of biology, who had a lot to share. It was really neat to have John (the wildlife educator), Scott (the practicing biologist), and then Lisa (the lab biology educator) all on the panel dissecting the otter. Having taken this class 2 years ago, and watching John go through this alone, I had something to compare to. Lisa talked a bit about function of the parts, and how they connect.

 

THEN...they took the large intestine and stretched it out. This picture only shows part of the students holding it. To my left there were 2-3 other people standing, stretching the organ out. It was REALLY impressive!

OK, this is the part that got me and made me walk away for a minute.

They began squeezing the contents of the intestine out. Along the way were various levels of digested food matter. Otters eat fish and small invertebrates, which stink on their own. This was truly a smell to behold in person. I'm sorry I can't convey it through my blog.

Jackie sorted through a bit of the "scat", and found these indigestible parts. There's a bone there on the right sticking up, and the thing in the middle looks like part of some kind of carapace. Belonging to perhaps an insect or maybe a crayfish?

It was really cool to see all the hands in on the dissection. Morbidly, it was like kids and play-dough! I love this kind of learning, and haven't really had the opportunity to "get dirty" yet here at Cobleskill. I know it's gross to look at, but for people like us who want to learn to be biologists, this is a golden opportunity.

 

 

 

That pretty much ends the dissection, and I walked away shortly after the squeezing of the intestines. I'm pretty tough, and can handle doing this kind of stuff. But the smell was a little overwhelming, kudos to those who stuck it out!

 

 

I miss this place, but I must move on for now!

And come back to visit as often as I can.

Thanks to John and Sasha for letting me hang out for the day!

 

The Mystery of the Owl

Back in May (the 21st-25th of 2012), I was involved with FLCC's Conservation Field Camp, a 3 level field course taught throughout the week. Long days, nights camping out, but tons of fun. I was a student at Field Camp in 2011, but this past course I was hired as a technician for the week to work with the wildlife professors John Van Niel and Clinton Krager.

For past entries, please check out my previous entry: Field Camp 2012, as well as John's entries: Field Camp.

A couple weeks before the class ran, the 4 of us:

Photo credit: Melissa Miller

Team Wildlife: Mady (the other technician and my roommate!), Clinton, John, and myself.

... went out to Camp Cutler, a property of the Boy Scouts, to set up some equipment that would be ready to use at the start of Field Camp.

John and I had a bunch of camera traps to deploy: Cuddeback Attacks/Captures and both flash and IR. I don't remember how many we had, but I want to focus on one particular camera/location, which happens to an IR Cuddeback Capture.

John wanted to set this type of camera in this particular spot for a reason: flying squirrels. It was set on tree, about 5 feet off the ground, that was aimed at a crooked tree. John had great success with this location before, during the previous year's course. And we wanted to use an IR camera so that the flash wouldn't spook any nocturnal visitors to the crooked tree.

We got our flying squirrel (sp.), so it was a good placement!

Anyway, the REAL excitement is the picture we got of a certain nocturnal bird species. It's an owl, definitely an owl, but the specific species is under discussion at the moment. Here it is:

As we're scrolling through pictures on John's laptop, with students standing behind us watching, we get to this guy or gal. And John (a bird-nerd-camera-fanatic) and myself (someone who's aspiring to be that too) looked at eachother in disbelief. To be honest, I didn't know what I was looking at at first, but I KNEW it was something special...and possibly not an Owl I was familiar with. John was super excited, because he HAD an idea of what it could be...and the students were picking up on our excitement too...it was a really cool moment for all of us.

The species that were coming to mind: Eastern Screech Owl (Megascops asio) and Barn Owl (Tyto alba). The EASO is common in Western NY/Finger Lakes region. The BNOW is not common. In fact, it's listed as rare.

I've referred to the NY Breeding Bird Atlas for information...

As you can see...the Barn Owl is few and far between, even more so in the last set of data collecting years from 2000-2005.

And the Eastern Screech Owl is MUCH more prolific.

So, the odds of seeing an EASO is much greater than a BNOW.

Well, this summer while I was in Alaska (did you all know I went there???), I kept thinking about this Owl thing. During Field Camp, all of the Bird Nerds that were there all took at look at the photo, all agreed it looked VERY much like a BNOW, but how could it be? BNOWs haven't been seen or reported in the area in a really loooong time.

While in Alaska, I took an eBird workshop. eBird is really freaking cool, and if you're into wildlife and especially birds, you need to create an account and get eBirding. It's like a social network JUST for Bird Nerds! Plus, it's a really great way for everyone (from the layperson to researchers) to collaborate data and see what the birds are up to.

Basically you input sightings and observations. Each region has a moderator, so that if some astronomical number of birds, or a strange species gets reported, they can contact the observer and figure out what the sighting was all about.

So, guess what I did? I reported a 'rare' species in Naples, NY.

A day later, I got an email from the moderator, who I shall keep anonymous. He wanted to know every piece of information about the sighting, as well as wanted to see the pictures that I had. It was so exciting! I felt like I was really contributing to the bird world, and this expert in the field was asking ME for my thoughts. I sent the below pictures to the moderator. One is the"The Owl" and then the second picture is an American Crow taken in the same spot (yet during the day, hence the presence of color).

 

 

Thankfully, I had a couple of bird enthusiasts in my corner to help with me the verbage and vernaculum. I was with John when this picture was captured, so of course he was the main source of information. He has instilled in me this skeptical and critical way of thinking. I try not to take anything at face value, but ask why, why, why, why, why...until it probably gets tiresome. ((sorry everyone))

I also have Dr. Losito, my new advisor here at SUNY Cobleskill AND the resident ornithologist. I'd call him a Bird Nerd, but I don't know him that well yet...! I sent Dr. Losito the pictures as well, and as I expected- he got fired up. I mean, in the grand scope of the world's goings on, this Owl thing is null. But, in our backyard here in NY, this is big news for birders.

I'm going to share comments that I received from my professors, and from the moderator. All anonymously and leave it at that.

"Not a Barn Owl. Too much streaking below, legs look too thick/short/heavily feathered, proportions look wrong. Much smaller than the crow - an overexposed Screech Owl. The facial disc doesn’t curve around at the top like a Barn Owl-more like the shape of Screech up towards the folded back ear tufts. The dark on the edge of the “cheek” portion of the disc is exactly right for Screech too."

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I measured the tarsus length of each of the three species in involved in this scenario from study skins in the college collection and came up with the following:

BAOW = 80mm (hence the nick name long-legged owl)

AMCR = 65mm

EASO = 40mm

Ratio of EASO:AMCR = 0.615

Ratio of BAOW:AMCR = 1.23

Here is a rough measurement of the tarsus length of the birds in the photographs:

Owl = 19mm

AMCR = 29mm

Ratio of Owl:AMCR = 0.655

Therefore the final ruling is that it has to be an EASO based upon these morphological limits.

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I think EASO is correct relative to the BAOW question. The EASO is only 8.5 inches and the BAOW is 16 inches. The American Crow is 17.5. So in looking at the relative size of the birds the owl in the picture is relatively small - more toward 8.5 or 9 inches as opposed to the larger BAOW and Crow. In looking at the squirrel it looks large relative to the tree to the tree is probably around 9-10 inches across. Again the Owl in the picture is small relative to these two metrics. So based on size alone it looks like an EASO.

 

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So, birders: what do we think?

 

Lepus americanus

One of my favorite animals here in Alaska are the snowshoe hares. Although pretty common, I think that's why I'm so interested in them: I have ample opportunity to watch them. I see them pretty much nightly hopping (or shall I say...bounding) around the cabins where I live. They're larger than the Eastern cottontails that live in my area of New York, and have longer ears, huge feet...they're just different!

I want to link to my own blog, one of my first entries. Reading through Snowshoe Hares DO Live in NY! makes me laugh. I don't really remember that writer- fairly new to "The Field" she was uncertain of blogging, public writing, sharing thoughts. It's like watching a home movie of yourself as a child- you recognize yourself but no longer resemble that person.

Anyway, I wrote that entry as an assignment for CON 102: Intro to Fish & Wildlife, and John (Backyard Beasts) was my professor for the "wildlife" portion. He encouraged me to write, to write well, and then when I showed interest in the blog he was writing, to start my own. I was not really sure I had much to say, and knew I had to pick a "theme" but couldn't decide. So I started with these portfolio entries of mammal signs and sightings. Since then it's grown into a picture album, journal, scrapbook, memoir, and a great way to keep in touch.

I decided to dedicate a WHOLE entry to the snowshoes because they are pretty dang cool. Such neat physical adaptations to predation and climate, that other similar critters don't exactly share.

When I first got to the Kenai Peninsula in Alaska, it was May 27th. To us "Lower 48ers" that is summer. Memorial Day was upon us, school was out, BBQs had begun...but up here in the Last Frontier, it was probably comparable to mid April in the Northeast. Plants were just budded out, snow capped the mountains (and still does now in July), birds were migrating back, and the snowshoes were losing their white fur.

As you can see on this little guy, his toes are still white. The picture at the top is the same hare, and you can see his lips and bits of his ears are still white as well. The "edges" of the rabbit, if you will :)

Snowshoes will start to turn white in I believe mid-late fall. I'm sure that is different between NY and AK, as it gets colder, darker, snowier here sooner than in NY. The hares use that coloration to help them blend into the snowy ground, and interestingly enough, even if it doesn't snow one winter season, they still turn white. This, I'm sure, makes them even more noticeable to predators. I've done a lot of thinking about these types of "season-dependent" behaviors (migration, creating winter cover, caching, etc), and physical changes (fat storage, winter coat growth, fur color change, etc), and I really think the changes occur because of the length of daylight. I wish I could remember the term..."photo___"? I'm sure someone can help me out with this. For example, NY experienced unseasonably warm temperatures and lack of snowfall during the 2011-2012 winter. These hares I'm sure all donned their white digs still because of course they can't predict weather patterns, so they have to turn white. I wonder how this effected their population this year in NY?

All of the above pictures were taken on May 30th, 2012 to give you a frame of reference, and are of the same hare.

Later that same day, I was searching for a good spot to hang my Cuddeback Attack camera trap. Due to unforeseen issues, I've only gotten ONE picture on that camera.

(trying to figure out the watermarking...as I work for the USFWS right now, they co-own some of my pictures...)

I was so excited to finally get something, and a species I've never gotten before! There are two snowshoes in this picture, I particularly like the one in the foregrounds stance. He/she is on the move!

 The camera has since come back from the Cuddeback Doctor, and I sure hope it's fixed. Half of my time in AK has come and gone, there is wildlife galore here, and if I only come home with 1 picture of hares...I'll be disappointed.

A couple of neat finds:

Snowshoe hare scat!

Please excuse the lack of gloves. I USUALLY do not handle scat A) at all and B) with bare hands. But snowshoe hares are herbivores, and their pellets were just sawdust. I will say though, handling scat is unsanitary, and I did wash my hands :)

Now if you thought that was unsanitary... haha...

This is a dead baby snowshoe hare. I'm not sure why it died, or how it died. I did not notice any wounds or sign of trauma. This picture was taken June 7th, 2012- and I estimate this hare to be several days old. It appears like it was able to move around, and its eyes had opened.

I wonder when cottontail babies are born in NY?

Then I found this on July 1st, 2012:

Another young hare. This one was kind of "yucky"... on the other side it was bloody, but I couldn't tell what the wound was from. This was found on the path in front of our cabins, it showed up overnight, and laid there for a couple of days. It's gone now, a week later.

Typically when I see hares, they're alive and kicking like the top photos, or like at right: tufts of fur that is evidence of predation.

There aren't as many scavengers here as in NY. There aren't any skunks, raccoon, opossum... there are bears, but right now they're on the rivers fishing for salmon! I don't think they immdiately live around here anyway, we'd definitely notice them. A hare is not a really a meal for them either I don't think.

The animals that DO eat hares are lynx, wolverine, wolves, coyote, red fox..but they actively hunt them. This is not to say they won't eat carrion, but they are less inclined to do so. When given the chance (and there is plenty of chance), they'd take a live, fresh hare. So this still leaves me wondering how those young ones died, and who carried off their bodies?

I wanted to put one in front of my camera trap!

I do suppose though, a bird could have flown off with it. There are a lot of crows, ravens, gulls...all of which I'm sure are keen on an easy (disgusting) meal.

I still have more to say about these hares, but it is getting late, and I've written more than I had anticipated in this entry. Perhaps I will come across a dead adult and be able to take some neat pics of their feet- which have adapted really well to life in the snow!

As I end for the evening, I wanted to share one of the most bad-ass critters I've seen yet. I don't have photographic proof, it all happened too fast. But my roommate WAS with me, and she can vouch for our sighting: a wolverine!