|
Thanks to a concentrated effort by some of our volunteers as well as DNR staff and UW Students we were able to get all of our 2016 photos from the Clam Lake and Black River Falls elk cameras classified. The data from the Clam Lake cameras has been analyzed by Office of Applied Science staff and we will be sharing it in the next few newsletters, while the data from Black River Falls has not yet been completely analyzed. Many of the elk in the Black River Falls have moved out of the camera area and the ones that remained tend to hang out in large groups. This has led to fewer overall photos of elk from Black River Falls compared to Clam Lake. We do know that they are still around since almost all of them have GPS collars and local DNR staff in Black River Falls keep tabs on them. Hopefully when we have more Snapshot Wisconsin cameras in Jackson County we will have more photos of those elk in the future.
There were 155 cameras deployed in the Clam Lake camera grid in 2016, of which 120 produced photos. There were 3,996 elk triggers representing 305 unique events. We looked at daily activity pattern of all elk (and
separated into bulls, antlerless, and calves) from the 305 unique elk events
and found that elk were most active between 6 and 9 AM and 5 and 6 PM.
Elk were least active during the late night, early morning, and middle of the
day. Bulls had a peak in activity in the late morning and in the
evening. Antlerless elk and calves were most active around dawn and dusk.
 |
|
Tim Van Deelen is a professor in the Department of Forest
and Wildlife Ecology at the University of Wisconsin - Madison and has worked
there since 2004. Prior to this, Tim worked as a research scientist for the
Illinois Natural History Survey and the Wisconsin Department of Natural
Resources. Tim’s professional interest is the conservation of wildlife
populations in the face of human influences and he has worked on several
species including black bears, wolves, deer, badgers, sandhill cranes, turkeys,
and flying squirrels. Tim teaches the UW’s class on Animal Population Dynamics
and the Department’s Senior Capstone class focused on deer management.
Tim is a co-investigator on Snapshot Wisconsin and brings
expertise on large animal ecology and landscape influences. With his background
in working for state management agencies, Tim also brings expertise to
designing and using monitoring systems, like Snapshot Wisconsin, that bridge
the gap between researchers and the information needs of agencies like the
Wisconsin DNR.
Tim and his family live in Waunakee, just north of Madison.
In his spare time, Tim enjoys paddling, hiking, cross-country skiing and almost
anything that gets him on or near the water.
|
 We have a new Elk Monitoring effort starting later this spring in the Flambeau River State Forest. Twenty-eight elk were recently released into the quarantine pen there, check out this news release and video for more details about the new elk herd.
We are currently recruiting volunteers to help us deploy and monitor the cameras in the Flambeau River State Forest. We hope to have training for new volunteers and camera deployments in early May. Please get in touch with Susan Frett for more details or signup to participate now. If current elk monitoring volunteers in Clam Lake or Black River Falls would like to help deploy cameras as part of a bio-blitz effort please get in touch with Susan.
 |
|
If you have ever wanted to find out more about what is involved in hosting a Snapshot Wisconsin camera you can find out by signing up to attend one of our field trips offered through the Natural Resources Foundation of Wisconsin's field trip program. Our first trip is on April 27th in Sawyer County and our second trip is June 26th in Iowa County. These trips offer the opportunity to meet the Snapshot Wisconsin DNR team as well as the trail camera hosts who have generously opened their properties for this opportunity. A NRFW membership is required to register but it is an inexpensive way to support conservation work throughout Wisconsin! Signup today! |
Christina and Susan will be co-presenting about Snapshot Wisconsin on April 19th at 7pm at the Kickapoo Valley Reserve Visitor Center near LaFarge, Wisconsin. Come out and hear our presentation and then come back the next day for our training session! |
|
 |
 |
|
We have three training opportunities for new, accepted trail camera hosts in April. If you have been accepted into the program and have not yet attended training let us know if one of these options works for you.
Wednesday April 5th, 6-8PM Science Operations Center in Madison
Tuesday, April 11th, 530-730PM Waterford Public Library in Waterford
Thursday, April 20th, 930-1130AM Kickapoo Valley Reserve Nature Center, Lafarge, WI
|
|
The next season on Zooniverse is planned to start on April 18th! This season we will have a few new features including a zoom function and we will begin classifying elk photos the same way we have been classifying deer photos (antlered, adult antlerless, adult head not visible, young).
We are also going to be having another chat with the research team. Mark your calendars to be online April 25th from 5 to 7pm for an opportunity to ask questions of the research team on the Zooniverse Talk boards.
|
|
 |
 |
|
The Snapshot Wisconsin team has been hard at work getting the word out about our newly opened counties this month! We had 150 applications during the month of March - the most in one month since we started last year! Thanks to everyone we have reached out to for helping us with our outreach.
Newswatch 12 - Snapshot Wisconsin now open in Oneida County
WXPR - Snapshot Wisconsin now open in Marinette, St Croix and Oneida Counties
|
We will share one awesome animal photo each month. To enter one of your favorites from a Snapshot Wisconsin camera please send the image as a jpeg attachment with the animal classification, county location and date taken along with the reason why you love the image to DNRSnapshotWisconsin@wisconsin.gov.
This month's image of two leaping deer was captured by one of our Sawyer County cameras last month.
Other interesting photos from our cameras can be viewed on our Pinterest board!
Contact Information for Snapshot Wisconsin
Phone: 608-572-6103
Participate on Zooniverse: www.SnapshotWisconsin.org
Find out more details on our webpage:
dnr.wi.gov Keyword "Snapshot Wisconsin
| 
