On Thanksgiving, my good friend Jessie and I headed over to Austin, NV to revisit a couple surveyed pygmy sites and check out a new one in hopes of finding another permanent site to trap at for the next 4 years. It turned out to be a phenomenal survey day. There was a little bit of snow on the ground that allowed us to observe tracks and collect a few genetic fecal samples at each site. We expanded one site by almost double, if not more, and added over 60 burrow systems to the already existing 25. The first new site we went to was a total bust, but we stopped at another site nearby that turned out to be so amazing! We found over 100 burrow systems and saw 3 pygmy rabbits! Instead of finding 1 additional potential permanent site, we found 2! It was great to spend the day with Jessie and I'm so glad she wanted to hang out in the field for the day! Stay tuned for a potential trapping trip at the beginning of December!
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My first blog post! How exciting! Yesterday, Jen and I took a trip to Mammoth Lakes area to visit some hot springs and see some pygmy rabbits! Although Mono County, California is not one of our current regions for my PhD project, it was very exciting to see another couple sites where these cryptic lagomorphs occur- especially near Crowley Lake where we got to see at least 5 of them! This little cutie posed for us for a few minutes and I got close enough to see that someone had taken a genetic sample from it. We couldn't think of anyone doing pygmy rabbit work in this part of California (Bodie, Mono Lake, Crowley Lake), so if anyone knows anything please let me know because I would love to get in touch with them!
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Field work updatesA place to update on happenings in the field throughout the year. Sites visited. Status of the sagebrush-steppe. Samples collected. Milestones in lab work. Rabbits trapped. Pictures! Archives
April 2019
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