|
Thank you to our trail camera monitoring volunteers who classify
their photos in MySnapshot. This month we are continuing our series showing you
some of what we are learning from those classifications. This
week our Science Update is all about black bears!
So far, we’ve had 1808 triggers from 275 survey blocks
classified as bears, 224 of which were classified as having young bears. Upon
further review of the cub photos, we found that 43 triggers contained at least
1 cub and 1 adult (Photo set 1), 75 contained at least 1 cub and no adults
(Photo set 2), 98 could not easily be identified as either cub or adult, and 8
were not bears at all. Most (60%) of the
photos with young present had a sow with 1 cub, while 40% had a
sow with 2 cubs. One trigger contained a sow with 3 cubs. Of the photos with at
least 1 cub and no adults, 35% had just 1 cub pictured and 65% had 2 cubs
pictured. If there is just a single bear pictured, it can be very difficult to
tell whether it is a cub or an adult. In the future it will be important to
have some temporal delineation in place for when we consider counting cubs as
young bears. Once cubs get to a certain size it would be better not to distinguish
them from adult bears.
 Example
pictures of adult and young bears present in the same picture (photos from Sawyer and Jackson Counties)
 Example
pictures classified as young bears and confirmed as such. (photos from Sawyer and Jackson Counties)
Some
of our first volunteers in Iowa and Sawyer Counties,
as well as our first group of educators, have recently reached their one-year
anniversary with Snapshot Wisconsin. We
are planning a celebration event for this fall but wanted to acknowledge their
contribution here as well. Thank you to all of our volunteers, especially
those who have been with us for one year or longer. We hope you enjoy the
project and want to continue indefinitely. |
|
 |
 |
|
(contributed by Cynthia Koepke
– Green and Healthy Schools program)
Snapshot Wisconsin is a
citizen science project that Green & Healthy Schools Wisconsin loves to
promote! A partnership between the Wisconsin Center for Environmental Education
(at UW-Stevens Point), Department of Natural Resources, and Department of
Public Instruction, Green & Healthy Schools Wisconsin helps Wisconsin
schools reach their goals in outdoor learning, environmental education,
improved health & wellness, and reduced costs and environmental impacts.
Please encourage your local
school to participate in Snapshot Wisconsin. Identifying animals is a fun
educational class activity and gives students real-world knowledge about Wisconsin
wildlife. Some schools may also be able to host trail cams. If your local
school becomes part of Snapshot Wisconsin, the school can put that in a Green
& Healthy Schools Wisconsin application to get state recognition and access
to our resources and partners! For more information on Green & Healthy
Schools Wisconsin, go to ghswisconsin.org, call 608-267-7622, or email DNRGHSWisconsin@wisconsin.gov.
|
 |
|
In case you missed it we had some interesting blog features over
the last month:
July Super Snap – #SuperSnap is a new feature on our Zooniverse talk boards.
Volunteers classifying photos are encouraged to use #SuperSnap when sharing
particularly good photos on the talk boards. Each month the Snapshot
Wisconsin team picks one photo to feature on the blog. This month’s
#SuperSnap is of a fisher and the blog post includes some fisher fun facts!
How does NASA play into Snapshot Wisconsin? –
If you’re wondering how NASA and Snapshot Wisconsin are connected, find out all
the details in this blog post.
New Elk reintroduction – A
guest post from Joe Dittrich, a scientist here in the Office of Applied Science,
who shares his experience collaring elk recently released in the Flambeau River
State Forest.
When Programs Intersect – Gives
information about other programs landowners might be interested in.
|
This month the Snapshot team travelled
to Wausau and Neillsville for our first trainings in Marathon and Clark
Counties. During August we have trainings planned for Medford and Stevens
Point. If you are an accepted Snapshot Wisconsin volunteer near Medford or
Stevens Point please check your email for an invitation from DNRSnapshotWisconsin@Wisconsin.gov.
If you don’t find an invite, please email us. Next month we plan to
travel to Platteville for our first training session in Grant County.
More details about that session will be sent out soon to accepted volunteers in
Grant County.
If
you are interested in attending an upcoming training session but haven’t yet
applied to host a camera, please sign up to participate! We
will be reviewing applications again on August 15th and will send out invites
to any new accepted volunteers at that time.
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 was selected by the Snapshot Wisconsin
team. This Sandhill crane looks majestic
standing in the early morning sunshine in Jackson County earlier this
summer.
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
| 
