Day 3: Setting the Traps

It was another beautiful day today! After breakfast we loaded up the van and left Cherry Hill for Cook's Lake. It was gorgeous, we have had the absolute perfect weather. Once we got to Cook's Lake (the research site) we took a long walk around and explored. When we were done it was time for lunch at the make shift gazebo/tent. After everyone was done, we headed out to the feild and Christina showed everyone how the traps work. We all set up different traps from different boxes since everyone has such different scents, there were twenty traps in each box. Then we placed them back in the boxes and took them out to the clearing. By clearing they mean a patch of land that had been clear cutted.... twenty years ago. It is now overcome with brush and shrubs. We had to get in teams of three to place traps in the feild. Then each group got a number A through E, we would place a trap then walk twenty paces and set another, doing this so that there were 5 columns with 10 traps in each. Then we moved on to the forest part where we did the same thing with rest of our traps, the forest was much more challenging for our group since there were plenty of fallen trees, walls of bushes and swamps. I will say that Brittney, Shana,Kelsie and I have the most colorful rain boots. Also the deer flies and mysquitos are very determined and persistent. I got my first blister today on my big toe from walking around in rain boots for so long. It won't be that bad anymore, today was one of the hardest since we had to set up the grid. Chris said that we may find only 3 to 8 mammals tomorrow when we check the traps; however, each day it tends to double as they get used to and less afraid of our prescence.

This is part of the group grabbing some lunch after our hike around the lake.

This is the view we had after lunch when we were about to start setting traps.

I am on Team B with Brittney and Lauren, we seem to get along and do a great job with each other. Even though, we all managed to fall at least once in the dense forest.

Here is Brittney carrying our box with the traps inside. The foliage was so tall that it was easier to carry the box on top so the branches couldn't scratch you!

Here is Team A, it had Shana, Kelsie and our team faciliator Kathy. They are fun to have next to us even though at times, we can't see each other through the trees.

On the bus ride back to Cherry Hill Brittney found an inch worm on Chris's seat belt, his name is Chubby Ellis!