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September 11th 2023
By Ashley Giovaninni - Hodges lab Honours student & WiRE lab Wildlife Projects Assistant Hey, my name is Ashley Giovannini. I’m an undergraduate student majoring in Biology at UBCO and I’m very passionate about sharing science through photography. I hope to build a career as a scientific photographer helping researchers present their work to the public. I joined the Southern BC Cougar Project team as an Honours Student working with Dr. Karen Hodges in September 2022. My research topic involved analyzing the behaviours, presence, and abundance of scavenging birds using camera trap data from fresh cougar-kills. This research gave me the opportunity to get a sense of what it’s like working with camera data and transitioned into a position expanding my work into a full manuscript for publication.
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Oct 14 2022 - By Reese Embree, Wildlife Projects Assistant
My name is Reese Embree and I am working as a Summer Cougar Technician for the Southern BC Cougar Project. I grew up in Calgary, where I first ended up falling in love with the outdoors at a summer camp in the Kananaskis. Besides just spending time outdoors, I enjoy hiking, paddleboarding, and any sort of arts and crafts. I am currently working towards my undergraduate degree in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at UBC Okanagan. I have been eager to get involved with wildlife biology and feel extremely fortunate to have landed my first field technician job with this project. September 9 2022 - by Emily Matthew, Wildlife Projects Assistant
My name is Emily Matthew, and I am a Summer Cougar Technician for the Southern BC Cougar Project. I am currently attending the University of British Columbia at the Okanagan Campus completing my Bachelor of Science. I will be going into my fourth year, and I am interested in pursuing a career in research, specifically behaviour ecology. I am incredibly fortunate to be working on the project this summer as it has provided so many amazing experiences and I have learned so much. August 4th 2022 - By Kirstyn Falck, Cougar Crew Lead UBCO
Hello there! My name is Kirstyn Falck, and I am a year into living the post undergraduate life. I graduated from the University of British Columbia – Okanagan campus in April 2021 and started my career up in the north working for the Government of the Northwest Territories – Fish and Wildlife Division. I was a Wildlife Health Technician for a year, conducting animal necropsies and collecting biological samples before moving back to BC. I moved to Vancouver Island and started volunteering and eventually working with the BC Government’s Wildlife Health Program. Finally, I moved back to Kelowna to start a new contract as a cougar field technician. By Mariah Mueller, Winter Cougar Technician
April 3rd, 2022 My name is Mariah, and I am a Winter Cougar Technician for the Southern BC Cougar Project. I have recently graduated from the University of Northern British Columbia with a BSc in Wildlife and Fisheries. I am passionate about wildlife conservation and love being able to work outside everyday, so I feel very fortunate to have landed this job. Field days can be very long and involve some difficult weather conditions, however they never get old because you always find something different and exciting! March 18 2022
By Siobhan Darlington The Southern BC Cougar project team had the incredible opportunity to conduct a day of fieldwork by helicopter thanks to the Ministry of Forests, Lands, Natural Resource Operations and Rural Development. We started our day at the Penticton airport and took off flying transects across the West Okanagan study area down towards Keremeos. Our objective for the day was to scan for the VHF frequencies of 3 offline cougars, C6, C16 and C1. Their collars stopped transmitting GPS locations prematurely, however the radio signal continues to function and can be detected using a handheld receiver and antenna. While we normally drive roads and scan for cougars on the ground, flying high above the cougar's territory and scanning from a helicopter is much more efficient to pick up a signal. We input the collar frequencies and listen for the sound of methodical beeps - the louder it gets, the closer we are. By: Cynthia Kielpinski, Wildlife Projects Assistant
January 22 2022 Hey! My name is Cynthia Kielpinski, and I am an undergraduate student at UBCO studying Statistics and Ecology. My experience in wildlife ecology began this past summer working as a Wildlife Technician in Hinton, Alberta where I conducted ground-based wildlife surveys and in-stream waterbird surveys. I was tasked with installing and analyzing data from wildlife cameras, and assisting in the banding of Harlequin Ducks. I am currently working as a Wildlife Projects Assistant for the WiRE lab on the Southern BC Cougar Project and one of my main responsibilities is to classify camera footage collected at cougar kill sites. By Brooklyn Maher, Cougar Technician September 19th 2021 My name is Brooklyn Maher, I recently graduated with a B.Sc. in Zoology and am starting my Masters degree in Biology this fall at UBC Okanagan. Wildlife and conservation have always been my passion, so I felt very lucky to spend my summer as a cougar technician for the Southern BC Cougar Project.
One of the main tasks of my job this summer was locating radio-collared cougars. We track cougars while hiking to their kill sites, locating those whose collars fail to transmit regularly, or while visiting a den site. Each collar has a VHF frequency that we detect using telemetry equipment. The range of telemetry equipment depends on the terrain and the elevation from which we scan with our antenna, so we would drive to different areas within a cougar’s home range hoping to pick up a signal. Under optimal conditions a signal can be picked up from as much as 25 kilometers away. If the collar is updating normally, the sound is a medium pitch beeping noise. If a cougar is close (within 100 m), we can hear the beeping sound when turning the gain on the receiver almost all the way down. By Shannon Werden, Cougar technician
September 3 2021 My name is Shannon Werden and I’m a graduate from the Selkirk College Recreation, Fish, and Wildlife diploma, and I’m currently a BSc undergraduate student in Wildlife and Fisheries at the University of Northern British Columbia. As someone who has always had pet cats, and an interest in wild felids, I feel very fortunate to have landed a position as a summer technician on the Southern BC Cougar project. By Jakob Von Andrian, Wildlife Projects Assistant
July 2nd 2021 My name is Jakob von Andrian and I am an undergraduate student at UBC Okanagan. This summer I was fortunate enough to work for the WIRE Lab as Wildlife Projects Assistant. While I primarily worked on the Southern BC Cougar project, I also had the opportunity to work on Southern Interior Mule Deer (SIM deer) Project lead by PhD candidate Chloe Wright. The two projects have overlapping study areas in the West Okanagan and the Boundary region. Together these studies will provide insight into how Cougars and Mule Deer interact on the landscape. |
Authors
The authors are Southern BC Cougar Project team members & volunteers. Past Blog Entries
September 2023
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