This summer, with funding from the Thoreau Foundation (http://www.thoreauscholar.org/), I’m keeping track of the animals that visit different areas of the field station. The main question this project is exploring is how species composition is different between burned and unburned areas, and because of the 2013 fire, the BFS is an invaluable resource for this project. We have set up 10 cameras in a grid at the BFS, with 4 in the unburned area and 6 in the burned area. So far we’ve seen far more kangaroo rats and rabbits in the burned area, and woodrats have only been seen in unburned areas. This makes sense, since kangaroo rats and rabbits prefer more open areas similar to the burned portion of the BFS, while woodrats prefer more densely vegetated areas. More updates coming soon!
Kangaroo rat
Rabbit
Kangaroo rat and rabbit!