July 2009
2 posts
June 11th, 12th, and 13th, 2009
This week is lab week. This means that nothing really exciting happens during this time since we are all indoors either processing or quantifying scats and hairs. Although the physical work is not exciting there are many benefits that come with lab week. For example, we get to sleep in about an hour more, get to dress in clothes that do not include zip offs and hiking boots, and always take a trip...
June 10th, 2009
Today I went out with Faustio and a girl named Laura who previously worked on the wolf project and was visiting for a few days in order to finish up the last details of her thesis. Our mission was to “fix” the location of four bears. “Fixing” means that we use radio telemetry to locate the bear and then use a compass and topographic maps to figure out where exactly on the mountain the bear is...
June 2009
13 posts
June 9th, 2009
Gigi and I woke up around 5am to the sound of a park ranger car approaching which was not good sign. This meant that no bear came to the trapping site and I failed at my opportunity to help trap a bear. Gigi had to leave for an hour to disassemble the trap with a few of the park rangers so I stayed in the van and slept for another hour. It was freezing cold but my North Face sleeping bag did its...
June 8th, 2009
This morning I left with Tiziana and Daniela to do surveys. I do not know if the surveys are becoming less difficult or I am just getting more in shape, but the hiking was not bad. I think we had to walk about 800m to the first site and 1km to the second where we ended up finding a bear bed. The only thing that sucked is the fact that I have a giant blister on the heel of my right foot that makes...
June 7th, 2009
Today was my weekly day of rest. Tiziana was also given her day of rest today as well but she had to work on her undergraduate thesis paper all day so Paulo could approve it. I was on my own as usual. I slept in till 10am which I was very proud of myself for and after having a small breakfast of biscuits and milk I worked on this blog (which I was obviously very behind in considering this post is...
June 6th, 2009
Today I went out with Faustio to investigate two survey points in the northern part of the park which ended up being very close to the locations Giovanna and I visited on the 29th of May. It was an easy day considering the two points were not more than 800m away from where we parked the car. We ended up finding one bedding site which is always rewarding.
That afternoon, we went back into...
June 5th, 2009
This morning Tiziana and I were responsible for doing surveys in the south part of the park by ourselves. I was surprised Giovanna paired us together since we are the newest individuals to join the project (Tiziana arrived in Villetta Barrea on April 25th), but I was excited since Tiziana is the closest to my age and very funny. I knew I was in for an adventure. That afternoon we ended up...
June 4th, 2009
Today was Tiziana’s 25th Birthday! Unfortunately, this meant nothing special for any of us since we all had to go out and do surveys, even Tiziana. In fact, Daniella, Tiziana, and I were responsible for doing about four surveys in the northern part of the park. The surveys were not too difficult, and we ended up getting done around 1pm which was nice. This allowed us to visit the Arab lady’s shop...
June 3rd, 2009
Today Daniela and I were responsible for surveying one cluster and one singular point in the northern part of the park as well as locating a bear cub using radio telemetry to see if he was still with his mother. The hike was not bad since the majority of it required us walking on a designated road instead of weaving in and out of beech trees. We did not find anything at our two survey site,...
June 2nd, 2009
Today was technically an Italian holiday but of course we did not get the day off. Instead, since it was raining we returned to the lab for another day of scat analysis. It was just like the day before except this time Tiziana was there and Daniela was not. Around 11am we decided to take a coffee break in the middle of town. There were a ridiculous amount of people in Pescasseroli due to it being...
June 1st, 2009
We were allowed to sleep in till 8am today since the night before Giovanna had found out it would be raining all day which meant libratory work. Tiziana stayed home to work on her thesis paper but the rest of us went in the lab to do scat analysis. Faustio coached me on what to do:
Fill out a scat analysis form which requires one to record what sample number the scat is, what day it is, how long...
May 31st, 2009
This morning Giovanna and I were paired up together to do surveys in the northern part of Abruzzo. Before we started hiking however, we stopped in Pescasseroli to grab some pizza to eat for lunch. Right as Giovanna and I were about to step foot into the bakery we heard someone yell out Giovanna’s name. To our delight it was, Big Table, who ended up following us into the bakery even though he was...
May 30th, 2009
If my buns and thighs are not as tight as Suzanne Summers’ after these few months in Abuzzo then it must be genetically impossible for me, since there is no way that the amount of hiking I do per day does not amount to at least 3 hours straight on the thigh master! Today was the longest day of hiking I have experienced within these past two weeks, which makes me wonder what else I might encounter...
May 29th, 2009
My day started in pursuit of a carcass. It was not a human carcass I was pursing but a red deer carcass since the previous day Giovanna and Tiziana had found bear scat containing red deer hairs. This is a pretty rare thing considering the majority of the time the bear’s diet is strictly vegetarian so this carcass was an important object to locate. To my surprise, the quest for the carcass only...
May 28th, 2009
After a two day separation Faustio and I were once again rejoined to do surveys in the south part of the park. Ominous rain clouds and fog manifested in the sky during the early morning and refused to depart the entire afternoon causing it to be abnormally cold. On our hour drive to the GPS site I tested Faustio on his American bands. To my surprise, he passed with flying colors.
The survey we...
May 2009
10 posts
Comments!
Ciao everyone! Comments are now enabled thanks to my bff, Mary Hannah Lizenberger, so feel free to leave comments about my posts!
May 27th, 2009
Every week each one of us working on the bear project is given a day of rest and today was mine. It started off with me sleeping in till 9:00am (sleeping in for me is now considered 9am not 11am), eating biscuits, watching Zack and Miri Make a Porno (for those of you unaware, this movie is not an actual a porno but a comedy), reading “We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our...
May 26th, 2009
God must have answered my prayers for rest because today I was paired with Daniela who was responsible for re-baiting the trapping sites and surveying 3 GPS locations. This might sound like a lot of work but we were given Gigi’s truck to use (since he left for a few days with Davide and Lorenza) which allowed us to drive right up to each place we needed to go. I do not think we were more than 200m...
May 25th, 2009
I must give a shout out to my brother, Greg, who is turning 22 today! Congrats! I hope you are partying hard l in Barcelona! :)
Today, Faustio and I were once again teamed up to go and do surveys together. I like working with Faustio since after two days we have already developed a system. We say we are going to leave at 8am when it reality it means 8:30am; we listen to a selection from my Ipod on...
May 24th, 2009
Today, Faustio and I teamed up again to do a scat trail at the center of the park but first we had to meet up with Gigi so he could show us a trapping site nearby. On the way, I educated Faustio on Animal Collective, Crystal Castles, MGMT, Red Hot Chili Peppers (which he already knew) and a mix of other Americans bands since the previous day I noticed that the Panda had a tape adapter which allows...
May 23rd, 2009
Today, Faustio and I took the Panda (a car not the Asian bear) to the south part of Abruzzo National Park near where Giovanna, Tiziana, and I travelled the day before. On the way to the site we spotted a baby roe deer that was hard to miss since it jumped out right in front of us on the road. We did not hit it however, making the incident enjoyable. Since we left the house late and it was a...
May 22nd, 2009
Today was my first day in the field which required me waking up at 7:15am so we could be on our way to the south side of the park by 8:00am. Giovanna and Tiziana were my field partners for the day and our mission was to survey 3 different GPS points that, Claudio, visited during the beginning of May (Claudio is one of the two bears they have radio collared for the project, he is the male). Before,...
May 21st, 2009
To be honest, my first impressions of Italy were nothing like I had imagined. The trains were filled with graffiti and half of the stuff in the train stations were broken (including the escalators so I got to drag my bags up and down large flights of stairs- I have calluses to prove it). Also, a lot of trash and abandoned buildings could be seen alongside the train tracks, livestock and pets are...
May 20th, 2009
Today I arrived in Italy around 9:15am Italian time, 2:15am North Carolina time. My airport experiences were not bad besides the fact that on my first flight from NC to Chicago I had a baby behind me that would kick my chair every 5 minutes; I had to listen to a mother who only talked in baby voices; and had to deal with a sassy flight attendant named, Pablo, who for some reason hated everyone on...
Biongorino!
Ciao Everyone! As many of you know this summer I will be working with a mixture of University of Rome graduate students, PHD students, and hired field technicians in Abruzzo National Park helping them conduct research on brown bears and wolves within the park. During my stay I will mostly focus on brown bear research which includes analyzing fine scale resource use by the bears, scat analysis,...