Counting marmots…
Western Colorado University Mammalogy Class Ecology of wintering mammals in the Rocky Mountains The class will involve natural history and winter ecology with focus on mammals and the physics of snow. To explore life histories of mammals we will ?hike? throughout the area looking for mammals and their sign, including scat, tracks, and fur. We hope to snowshoe through parts of the townsite where RMBL staff permits, including along the East River and across the river to the base of Gothic Peak. We will also hike north out of the townsite and do additional mammal tracking and natural history study in the National Forest near the East River bridge crossing. We also plan to dig 12 snow pits on USFS lands and where no existing RMBL research plots are located to measure snow depth and thermal profiles and relate these physical properties to mammal winter ecology. We will fill in the pits upon completion of the experiment. I will travel to RMBL on a Friday afternoon in January and spend the weekend with 24 students from Western Colorado University at the RMBL huts. We will gather in one of the huts on Friday night to learn about the foundations of mammal tracks and tracking. The following morning we will snowshoe around the Gothic townsite along an RMBL approved path in single file pattern in search of mammals and mammal tracks. On Saturday afternoon we will trek above the RMBL townsite to USDA FS land and break into 6 small groups with each group digging two snow pits. The snow will be trampled by snowshoes on one pit and left untouched for the control pits. Students will measure the depth of each snow event and measure the temperature within each snow layer. On Saturday night we will gather in one of the huts and students will build thermal profiles and answer questions about the impact of human activities on the subnivean environment used by a number of wintering mammal species. They will also create wildlife skits to demonstrate a variety of winter adaptive strategies employed by high elevation mammals. On Sunday morning, we will snowshoe around the townsite and discuss winter ecology of mammals and observe wildlife and their adaptations for the winter environment. We will depart Gothic around 1 pm on Sunday.