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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.
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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. |
Authors
The authors are Southern BC Cougar Project team members & volunteers. Past Blog Entries
September 2023
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