Snapshot Saturday: April 20th, 2019
Check out this hawk captured on a Columbia County Snapshot Wisconsin camera. Happy Snapshot Saturday!
Interested in hosting your own Snapshot Wisconsin camera? Visit our webpage to find out how to get involved: https://dnr.wi.gov/topic/research/projects/snapshot/.
The Process of Deer Antlers
Did you know that white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) antlers are one of the fastest growing tissues known to man? For instance, human fingernails grow between 1 to 10 centimeters a year whereas white-tailed antlers grow several centimeters each day during the growing stage! Unlike human fingernails, deer antlers are composed of veins, arteries, vessels, and cartilaginous tissue. Many hunters believe that the bigger the rack the older the buck. Yet, the inspection of teeth is the only accurate indication of a deer’s age. The greatest antler size within a buck’s life is from age five to seven. Factors sure as age, genetics, and nutrition of the buck determines the magnitude of antler size. Keep reading below to learn how antlers grow and change throughout the year!
Pedicles, the area attaching the antler to the skull, are first formed on top of a buck’s head during late winter and spring and can reach up to ¼ of the ear-length. Snapshot Wisconsin asks volunteers to classify any deer with formations less than ¼ of the deer’s ear-length as antlerless, while reserving the antlered classifications for more than ¼ of the deer’s ear-length.
To create antlers in early spring, minerals in the ribs and shoulders of the buck are redistributed in his body. Velvet (pubescent skin) covers the antler and provides nutrients through the flow of blood. These nutrients cause antler growth. During the velvet stage, the antlers are very sensitive. Any impact will be painful and could, due to the fragile state, cause breakage. Nevertheless, this sensitivity allows the buck to comprehend the size of its antlers and, eventually, the buck will move through the forest with ease.
By late summer, the antlers are fully grown. Blood flow becomes constricted, causing gradual hardening and calcification. The velvet dies off in response and, like a sunburnt human, the buck becomes annoyed and wants to peel the excess skin off. The buck rubs his antlers on trees to rid himself of the velvet, exposing glabrous antlers. This rubbing strengthens the buck’s neck, which will come in handy during the rut where the buck will compete with other bucks’ antlered attacks.
Due to reduced sunlight and testosterone, white-tailed bucks’ antlers fall off around January and February. Their body absorbs the calcium between the antler and pedicle, which weakens the antler, causing it to eventually fall off. If you’re looking for a hobby this time of year, check out shed hunting! Shed hunting is the pastime of searching for antlers that have been naturally shed by antlered bearing mammals. Another great hobby for this time of year is checking out the trail camera photos captured by the Snapshot Wisconsin project! Start viewing and classify photos today!
For more information, please visit these sources:
Snapshot Saturday: April 13th, 2019
Each spring greater prairie-chickens congregate on leks, or mating grounds, to show off their ornate displays. Male birds use their orange air sacs to create a distinctive booming sound that can be heard from across the prairie.
Snapshot Wisconsin paired up with DNR Wildlife Management staff to start a pilot project last spring using trail cameras to monitor greater prairie-chickens, and we think it has been a “booming” success! Check out these two male greater prairie-chickens caught on camera.
Did you know you can view and classify photos collected from Snapshot Wisconsin cameras across the state at www.SnapshotWisconsin.org? It’s a fun activity for the whole family!
Citizen Science Day 2019
Are you ready to celebrate Citizen Science Day?
Before we dive into the details, let’s start with what is citizen science? There are many definitions for citizen science, which may also be referred to as community science, crowd-sourced science or volunteer monitoring. The Oxford English Dictionary defines citizen science as,
“Scientific work undertaken by members of the general public, often in collaboration with or under the direction of professional scientists and scientific institutions.”
Citizen scientists partaking in Snapshot Wisconsin monitor trail cameras across to state to gather year-round data about wildlife. Data collected from the project help inform wildlife management decisions at the WDNR, and also engage the public in learning about the state’s natural resources. Snapshot Wisconsin has over one thousand volunteers hosting trail cameras across the state, and hundreds more from around the globe helping to identify the wildlife caught on camera on Zooniverse.
Citizen Science Day is hosted annually to celebrate and recognize the projects, researchers, and dedicated volunteers that contribute to citizen science all over the world. Mark your calendars for April 13th, this year’s Citizen Science Day kick-off! The Citizen Science Association and SciStarter have teamed up to promote events in celebration of citizen science. Are you interested in celebrating Citizen Science Day this year? Check out SciStarter’s project finder to find Citizen Science Day events near you!
You can celebrate citizen science any day of the year by participating in Snapshot Wisconsin, whether you are interested in hosting a trail camera or identifying the exciting critters captured on camera (which can be done from anywhere!)
Snapshot Saturday: April 6th, 2019
The charismatic red fox are ubiquitous in Wisconsin, although they are found most commonly in the southern, central, and western parts of the state. A Snapshot Wisconsin trail camera deployed in northeastern Wisconsin captured this red fox on a particularly snowy day last winter.
Interested in hosting your own Snapshot Wisconsin camera? Visit our webpage to find out how to get involved: https://dnr.wi.gov/topic/research/projects/snapshot/.
April Volunteer of the Month
April’s Volunteer of the Month is
Mark and Sue from Columbia County!
April’s Volunteer of the Month goes to Mark and Sue from Columbia County! Before retirement, Mark and Sue spent their careers as Conservation Biologists for the DNR Natural Heritage Conservation Program. For the past 40 years they have served as resident managers at the Madison Audubon Society’s Goose Pond Sanctuary. Goose Pond Sanctuary, located near Arlington, is comprised of 660 acres including restored tallgrass prairie, wetlands, some cropland and a one-acre oak savannah. In addition to hosting two Snapshot Wisconsin cameras, Mark and Sue are also involved in trapping and releasing black-footed ferrets in South Dakota to vaccinate them against Sylvatic plague.
Mark and Sue were motivated to join Snapshot Wisconsin because they enjoyed viewing and surveying wildlife and wanted to use the project to help Madison Audubon members to learn about the wildlife at the Goose Pond Sanctuary. The project provides them a way to view the wildlife responses to habitat restorations on the property, and to see how populations change over time. A few previously absent species they were intrigued to find in their photos were coyote and red fox. Mark and Sue also capture a great diversity of avian life including Cooper’s hawk, snowy owl, ring-necked pheasants, northern harrier and more. Check out a glimpse of what Mark and Sue are finding below!
Thank you, Mark and Sue! Thank you to all our trail camera hosts and Zooniverse volunteers for helping us discover our wildlife together.
March #SuperSnap
This month’s #SuperSnap features an Oneida County pair of North American porcupine (Erethizon dorsatum) nominated by Zooniverse volunteer cjpope!
Did you know that a baby porcupine is referred to as a “porcupette”? Porcupine give birth to a single porcupette. Porcupettes enter the world with soft quills, which harden within an hour. Contrary to popular belief, porcupine cannot shoot their quills – although they still come in handy for defense!
Continue classifying photos on Zooniverse and hashtagging your favorites for a chance to be featured in the next #SuperSnap blog post. Check out all of the nominations by searching “#SuperSnap” on the Snapshot Wisconsin Talk boards.
Snapshot Saturday: March 30th, 2019
This Snapshot Saturday features an early morning white-tailed buck captured on an Iowa County Snapshot Wisconsin camera.
Did you know you can view and classify photos collected from Snapshot Wisconsin cameras across the state at www.SnapshotWisconsin.org? It’s a fun activity for the whole family!
#SuperNap The Science of Hibernation
If you are familiar with Snapshot Wisconsin’s crowdsourcing website hosted by Zooniverse, you likely have heard of the term #SuperSnap used by volunteers to denote especially captivating photos. Recently a slight typo, #SuperNap, not only gave Snapshot staff members a good laugh – but also a potentially catchy new phrase for hibernation? In this blog post, we will dive into the science behind slumbering wildlife in winter.
What is hibernation?
When winter rolls around, critters get creative with how to stay alive! In some cases, animals combat the considerable metabolic challenges of winter by entering into a state of temporary hypothermia, such as the black-capped chickadee. The ruby-throated hummingbird migrates south to Central America to avoid the entire winter thing all together. Others avoid the perils of induced hypothermia and the exertions of migrating by going to “sleep”, or hibernation. During this state of sleep the temperature, breathing rate and heart rate of animals drops significantly. To survive harsh winter conditions and scant food availability, animals can quite literally shut off for a few weeks at a time. If you’ve lived through a Wisconsin winter, you understand the appeal of this!
Not all sleep is created equal
There are two main sleep survival strategies that animals use in the winter. True hibernation is a voluntary state that animals enter induced by day length and hormone changes. These conditions indicate to an animal that it’s time to go into a truly deep, long sleep. Hibernation can last anywhere from several days to months depending on the species. Animals still need to wake up to drink water every one to three weeks. Waking up from hibernation every few weeks is a good idea to improve your immune system by removing those pesky parasites.
Torpor, similar to hibernation, is a sleep tactic animals use to survive the winter. Unlike hibernation, it is involuntary and induced by outside temperatures and food scarcity. Torpor can reduce an animal’s normal metabolic rate by 40 times in as short as two hours. In contrast to hibernation, torpor only lasts for a short period of time, sometimes just the night or day depending on the activity of the animal. Torpor can be considered “light hibernation”. To awake from torpor requires ample amounts of shivering and muscle contractions to return to a normal metabolic rate!
Torpor or hibernation?
Whether an animal goes into torpor or hibernation is usually based on body size. The smaller the body size, the more likely an animal is to enter into a state of hibernation over torpor. A large body requires removing higher levels of excess body heat which would make light bouts of torpor energy inefficient. Smaller bodied animals can adjust to winter conditions more quickly.
Based on what we now know about the differences between torpor and hibernation, can you take a guess as to what type of sleep the below animals use to get through the winter?
Quiz
A.
B.
C.
D.
Results
A. The black bear (Urus americanus) enters a state of TORPOR. Contrary to widespread belief, black bears go into torpor in the winter! They can turn their pee into protein through a urea recycling process and the females will wake up to give birth and go right back into a state of torpor! (source).
B. The chipmunk (Tamias spp.) uses HIBERNATION to survive the winter. A chipmunk can bring its heart rate down from 250 beats per minute (bpm) to as low as 4bpm.
C. Raccoons (Procyon lotor) enter into a state of TORPOR, along with species like skunks.
D. The common poorwill (Phalaenoptilus nuttallii), native to the western United States, is the only bird species known to truly hibernate in the winter (source). Birders may be familiar with their Wisconsin relative nightjars – the common nighthawk and eastern whip-poor-will!
Additional Sources:
Snapshot Saturday: March 23rd, 2019
Happy Snapshot Saturday featuring a rafter of Trempealeau County turkeys!
Interested in hosting your own Snapshot Wisconsin camera? Visit our webpage to find out how to get involved: https://dnr.wi.gov/topic/research/projects/snapshot/.
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