Wolverine researcher Audrey Magoun captured two wolverines feeding at a camera trap in the Wallowa Mountains of Northeast Oregon. Just five days earlier she had discovered tracks. The photos were taken on Apr 2 and 13, 2011.
http://www.dfw.state.or.us/news/2011/april/042511c.asp
Audrey literally wrote the book on using trail cameras to identify and monitor wolverines without capturing them.
Since researchers at Craighead Beringia South have been able to document a rise in lead levels in ravens and eagles during hunting season, it’s gotten a little easier for outfitters and environmentalists to see eye-to-eye, at least on the issue of lead poisioning.
The Jackson Hole News and Guide reports that Kelly outfitter B.J. Hill said recently that he supports the switch from lead bullets to copper bullets. He stated that 95% of his clients have already made the switch to copper bullets on their own.
?Copper is a better-technology bullet to begin with,? he said, in part because there?s less fragmenting than with lead. ?It?s a better bullet for harvesting elk, [and] it doesn?t have the poisoning effect.?
Hill is a board member of the Wyoming Outfitters and Guides Association and a member of Jackson Hole Outfitters.
Researchers from Craighead Beringia South have been doing field work capturing eagles and ravens and sampling their blood, which is then tested for lead levels. They have found that lead levels rise about two weeks after hunting season starts, and then drop off about two weeks after hunting season ends. This last hunting season, the researchers passed out 194 boxes of copper ammo to the hunters who had permits to hunt on the refuge and found that the lead levels in the birds’ blood did not rise as high this year.
When a lead bullet strikes an animal such as an elk, there are a lot of lead fragments.
So when the birds feed on the gut pile, they ingest lead.
This is a big problem for California Condors too. The Beringia researchers say that “Each year, more condors are clinically treated for lead poisoning.”