Two weeks at the refuge so far and things are going smoothly. I put out a camera trap almost as soon as I got here and so here is my pull from the first week. Given that the refuge is along ten miles of river corridor, I'm hoping for some good results this summer.
This is my first picture of a bear so I'm pretty excited. Here in New Jersey, there are bears everywhere, and it is not uncommon to see sows with four or five cubs (that's unusually high). This year there is going to be another bear hunting season, but hunting bears has been a fairly political issue in the state in the past. From what I've gathered, the American Black bear (Ursus americanus) is overpopulated here.
Two Coyotes (Canis latrans) made a run through, and a brave white-tailed deer
followed only a few minutes behind.
And to finish things off, a comical picture of the woodchuck (Marmota monax): also
known as the land beaver, whistle-pig and groundhog.
These past couple of weeks have been fairly busy (and it
wasn’t the Avengers movie this time, although Men in Black 3 was entertaining);
instead, I have recently returned from an adventure to the northern Midwest.
Shortly upon returning home, I packed everything and moved up to New Jersey. I
will be in the Garden State for the summer, working at Wallkill River National
Wildlife Refuge.
While on my adventure, I had the pleasure of exploring some
great prairie bluffs with a variety of folks. Without them, my trip would have
not been nearly as fascinating or rewarding.
We looked a few different places for the snakes, and it looking through brush and under shelf-rocks.
Venomous snakes should never be handled with bare hands, so snake hooks were used hold them and
release them.
Perhaps my favorite one of my favorite experience was
finding my first wild rattlesnake. In this case it was the timber rattlesnake (Crotalus horridus “The horrid rattle tail”).
Like many of the world’s critters, these snakes are declining across their
range in the Midwest, South, and Northeast. Besides its loss of habitat, snakes
receive a fair amount of persecution.
The famous rattle of the rattlesnake. This individual had a surprisingly large rattle,
as they can often break.
The timber rattlesnake, which can grow up to almost 6 feet,
has been exterminated by shotgun, by car (snakes are an easy target on the
road), and by yearly roundups in some locales (killings of almost entire snake
populations). Historically the snake was considered for our national animal
(think “Don’t Tread On Me”), and Benjamin Franklin considered the timber
rattlesnake to be of higher character than the bald eagle.
Timbers are relatively rare, are secretive, and are
mild-mannered compared to other vipers (like many other venomous snakes,
timbers have infrared sensing “pits” nears their eyes and nostrils”). They like
south-facing woodlands, montane regions, rock shelf, pine savanna, and swamps.
A brief video of one of our encounters. This dude suprised us while he was basking,
and then he headed straight for his home under the boulder.
While timbers are often killed because of the fear they
impose, they rarely bite humans unless greatly provoked. Sometimes they will
strike defensively with a closed mouth. Mostly, timbers use their potent venom
to hunt small mammals—namely mice (38%) and chipmunks/squirrels (25%). Interestingly,
timbers only eat 6-20 meals annually, and over a year, they eat twice their
body weight mass. I have to say, I would love my grocery bill if I could eat
that little. Unfortunately, I will never have the metabolism of an ectotherm.
All facts were from publications found in Snakes of the United States and Canada authored by Ernst and Ernst.
