April 29th- May 15th

On Tuesday we had our first speech at the Olympic National Park visitor center. Our group (wildlife) went first and I felt that we were successfull in presenting what we have been doing so far. We had a few strange questions asked by the audience, but we talked about alot of strange things so it made sence. I was glad when it was over, I have never been very good at giving speeches in front of many people. All the other groups did great as well, and many of the audience members congradulated us in the lobby after the show. Thats all for now.

-Gus

April 17-29th

I hate Windows Vista. For the past week it has made my projects mostly impossible to do. From what I hear, im not the only one. Anyways, everything is figured out now, and I have ArcGIS finally working. The wildlife group started working on our Power Point for the presentation at the NPS headquarters next month. It is coming along well, but we need some more pictures for the slides, hopefully Robert Knapp will have some. That’s all for now!

-Gus

spring break - april 17th

Over spring break I went out with the otter crew a few times to look for new latrine sites and to check trap. One trip that stands out in my mind was the last trip I took with the group. We were checking snares in the vicinity of the Lower Elwha Reservation. The day started off nice and sunny, and we were consistantly finding hair and scat at traps. Yet, around lunch time the weather took a turn for the worse and started to get cold and windy. When we were checking the last trap it started to snow, and of course the trap had been sprung and had tons of hair in it that needed to be collected. That was... not too fun.

-Gus

feb. 29-march 15th

Spent the past few weeks finishing up video and pod casts. Erin and I received alot of help from video masters, and ended up with the video we wanted. The podcast has been a bit more challanging because of tecnical difficulties with installing software on my computer. Further more my computers microphone has very fuzzy sound quality unless I am the PERFECT distance away from it. If I am too near, then it sounds fuzzy and loud, and too far away it sounds distorted and full of static. I will solve this problem some how or another.... I hope.

-Gus

feb 18th-29th

A few days ago Erin, Jen, and myself got together and started working on our vidcast and our research breifing. We were able to get a vauge outline of our research breif started, and the first half of our video filmed. Then yesterday me and erin went out in the field with Robert Knapp and searched for river otter latrines all day and finished up our vidcast. We then finished the day by going down to the lower elwah reservation and locating a dead beaver which we then bagged and put in a USGS freezer for later research. Thats all for now!

-Gus

Feb. 4 - 18

Last week we had a meeting with members of the wildlife grop at the Olympic National Park headquarters. We discussed what our objectives would be over the spring and summer and what would need to be done to achieve them. I was given some traps to snip to make jagged, so that they will catch on animal fur and hopefully pull it out. The wire snippers that i had however were not very well suited to do the job, and I quit clipping before i ruined all the traps. We met again at the college on valentines day and spent 2 hours working on traps, mostly snipping and attaching groud anchors to them. Field work should start within the next few weeks. Thats all for now!

-Gus

jan. 19th - feb 4

A week ago, Dwight, Cris, Shaelee and I drove deep into the mountains up a network of old logging roads in the colleges jeep. Despite the 4wd, and eventually chains, we still managed to get stuck, and spent a good hour and a half digging, and re-digging the car out. The rest of the day was spent hiking up Deer Ridge, looking for good sampling spots, and coming across a varitiy of cougar tracks. Luckily the weather was cool and clear, and we were greeted with many beautiful views up the Graywolf River. On the way back down we set up 4 different snow plots, and took 6 samples at each spot. By the time we got back to the car it was close to being dark and we were all exausted from the job well done. Thats all for now!

-Gus