Tom Stienstra has an interesting article in the San Francisco Chronicle about trail cams in the wilds of Northern California:
A “critter cam,” also known as a “trail cam,” can unveil the wildlife secrets of forests, streams and lakes. These are movement-activated cameras strapped to trees, or fixed video cameras positioned at strategic locations on land and underwater. They are like having hidden eye-witnesses in the wilderness.
In Northern California, these cameras aid scientists when they count salmon spawning on remote streams or to verify the presence of endangered and threatened species in forests. In March, for instance, a critter cam captured a digital image of a wolverine in Tahoe National Forest in the Sierra Nevada. This was the first wolverine documented in California since 1922.
Careful what you do when you think you’re alone in the woods!
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Wolverines in the Sierra – that’s amazing! I remember growing up – must have been around 1979 or 80, a farmer in Alsea, Oregon snapped a picture of a moose grazing in a field with his cows. The picture definitely wasn’t doctored – this was prior to the digital age, but the Coast Range is 400 miles from the nearest known moose population – strange.
Twitter: @TheJohnSoares
It’s good to know that there are critters out there we can’t find, or find easily. And I’m glad we have wolverines. Now if we could just bring back the wolves…