NEBRASKAland Magazine is dedicated to outstanding photography and informative writing with an engaging mix of articles and photos highlighting Nebraska’s outdoor activities, parklands, wildlife, history and people.
Issue link: http://mag.outdoornebraska.gov/i/823575
22 NEBRASKAland • MAY 2017 By Scott Schrage, University of Nebraska-Lincoln It darts through the darkness of a chilly night in the Nebraska Panhandle, drawn across the shortgrass prairie by the wafting stench of a skunk. No larger than a house cat, it accelerates to 25 miles per hour, then coasts within eyeshot of a stake capped by a glob of petroleum jelly. As the nocturnal sleuth approaches the skunk-scented lure, a camera mounted on a nearby fence registers the movement and heat. In a flash, the camera snaps a three-photo burst of the elusive creature before it moves on to search for dinner. Two weeks later, the University of Nebraska-Lincoln undergraduate who planted the camera trap will sit down to a computer that reveals what she was hoping to find: images of the swift fox, once a common Great Plains predator now residing on Nebraska' s list of endangered species. The experience, part of a new one-credit course at the university, exposes undergrads to biological fieldwork while furthering a statewide conservation effort to map the distribution of the swift fox. Faculty are also examining how the experience can help students learn about the ecological factors affecting canids, the family of mammals comprising foxes and coyotes. Since 2012, the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission has worked with the university to determine which areas the swift fox still inhabits. That knowledge can inform decision- making – whether to follow through on the building of roads, for instance – that affects the prospect of swift fox survival in the Cornhusker State. And clarifying where the species no longer resides can offer clues about its decline while helping state agencies save significant time, effort and money. More than 50 students from the University of Nebraska- Lincoln and Chadron State College surveyed sites – many private, some public; many rural, some suburban – during the fall 2016 semester, after swift foxes raised their young to independence and began venturing beyond their dens. Though the swift fox remains the prized subject, many different animals of interest wander by the cameras: other fox species, coyotes, deer, owls, bobcats, badgers and more. Those species' classifications, and where they were found, then enter a database that is used to update a map of swift fox distribution. "To have a student get to pick a spot on the planet where they put out this camera and not know what's going to walk by – but know that whatever walks by is adding to science – I think that's a unique opportunity," said project leader T.J. Fontaine. "It's pretty exciting just to see how they're all responding to it." ■ Caught on Camera PHOTO COURTESY OF THE NEBRASKA CANID PROJECT Students at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and Chadron State College surveyed sites during the fall 2016 semester in the Nebraska Panhandle to place camera traps in an effort to determine areas the swift fox still inhabits.