Wednesday, July 30, 2008

Badger counting

When I first noticed the Badger Crossing sign on the north border of 100 Mile, I thought it was a joke.
On the way to Seymour Mountain in North Vancouver, motorists are entertained by various joke animal-crossing signs, like camel. I didn't realize badgers resided in BC.
When I think of badgers, Wind in the Willows seems to come to mind. What I didn't realize was Mr. Badger wouldn't have gotten along with Mole and the other inhabitants of the Wild Wood - he would have eaten them.
Then again, as student and researcher Richard Klafki told me, English badgers are not as tough as their North American counterparts.
I went along with Klafki on a badger count, part of the Cariboo Badger Project. Klafki and others from the Ministry of Environment, Ministry of Transportation and Thompson Rivers University are using radio telemetry to track members of the dwindling badger population in the province.
Badgers have few natural predators; the steel monsters driven by humans are what really picks them off.
Roger Packham, biologist with the Ministry of Environment, set me up with Klafki, a Master's student doing his thesis on badgers.
We set out on a Sunday morning, driving along Horse Lake Road toward our Bridge Lake area destination.
Along the way, Klafki tried to enlighten me on the ways of the badgers.
He laughed when I asked if I could pet one, and told me we'd be lucky if we even saw one from afar during our trek.
He said, contrary to popular belief, badgers are not rodents - they are part of the weasel family - and they are not interested in eating household pets.
Also contrary to a popular Internet fad video (available at www.badgerbadgerbadger.com) - in which multiple badgers dance about while singing "Badger, badger, badger, badger; mushroom, mushroom! Oh no, snake!" - badgers are not afraid of snakes - they'll eat those, too.
Once we reached a known badger's territory, Klafki turned on the equipment in his truck and I could hear a faint beep.
"That's a female who has two kits,' he said.
He explained 10 badgers - five male, five female - had been trapped and implanted with transmitters.
"Badgers don't really have necks, so it's hard to fit them with a radio collar."
Occasionally Klafki would exit the vehicle and hold out a long antenna to figure out the location of the badger.
Soon we were out of the vehicle, trudging across a vast field, Klafki holding the antenna above his head. The beeping was growing stronger and more frequent, and he pointed to a field and said the badger was in a particular mound of grass.
And that's when we saw a tiny, striped head poke out of the ground.
Mother badger was inspecting us; she was only a few feet away. She slowly dragged her pudgy body from her temporary den and sat on a mound of dirt, lazily scratching her side.
She didn't seem exactly comfortable with our presence, but she wasn't bursting out of the hole like the rabbit from Monty Python's Holy Grail, either.
After a while, two more striped faces could be seen emerging from the ground, and mother shepherded her kits a few feet away from the strange visitors.
Klafki and I backed away, leaving the family and allowing mom to hunt the plentiful ground squirrels that whistled warnings around us.

Saturday, July 26, 2008

Wednesday, July 16, 2008

Recent columns

http://www.bclocalnews.com/bc_cariboo/100milefreepress/opinion/25489479.html

http://www.bclocalnews.com/bc_cariboo/100milefreepress/opinion/24258429.html

http://www.bclocalnews.com/bc_cariboo/100milefreepress/opinion/25489484.html

http://www.bclocalnews.com/bc_cariboo/100milefreepress/opinion/24258544.html

http://www.bclocalnews.com/bc_cariboo/100milefreepress/opinion/22821359.html

http://www.bclocalnews.com/bc_cariboo/100milefreepress/opinion/20818344.html

http://www.bclocalnews.com/bc_cariboo/100milefreepress/opinion/22821349.html

Monitoring a budworm spray


It was early - 3:20 a.m. early - when my alarm woke me. I dressed cozily and drove to the 108 Airport where Ministry of Forests and Range entomologist Leo Rankin was waiting for me.
He introduced me to air coordinator Don Wright and helicopter pilot Jay Camille; they were there, in these wee hours, to combat an invisible enemy: the spruce budworm.
"We'll be flying in the helicopter over the Air Tractors (planes) as they spray the forest," Rankin told me. "They'll be spraying BTK all around the South Cariboo today."
Then Camille shared his mandatory safety-spiel with me, which my sleep drenched brain didn't seem to absorb.
"So, in case of engine failure, it's imperative that you..." I just nodded, trying to keep my eyes open.
"All right, we're ready to take off," said Camille after showing me how to do up my seatbelt.
I climbed into the back of the helicopter, sitting next to Rankin. He helped me with the belt and talked about bugs while passing me my headset.
I learned the spruce budworm was more interested in Douglas firs than spruce around the local forests, eating the buds and needles of the coniferous foliage until they resembled something Charlie Brown would pick out for his Christmas tree.
"The budworm doesn't kill the trees immediately," said Rankin. "It weakens them so other pests, like the Douglas fir beetle, can take advantage."
By this time the rotor was in full spin, and my stomach lurched as we lifted off the ground. I took out my video camera and filmed our ascent into the still-dark sky.
We flew over the 108, and then over miles and miles of red trees. I thought the pine problem looked bad from the ground; it looked ten-fold worse from the air.
The pine beetle epidemic is over, said Rankin. "Virtually all of our mature pine is dead. That's why we have to protect what trees we have left."
We spotted one of the Air Tractors streaking BTK (the bacteria used to kill the budworm) over the woods near Alberta Lake.
Rankin said they must spray early as the product needs specific climate conditions to be affective.
We circled the plane so I could get good photos and footage of the spray; but the circling was starting to coax my breakfast back out.
"Do you have a good shot?" I heard Camille say in my headphones.
"Yes, thank you," I replied. The truth was I had no idea, but the helicopter had to steady or else my fellow passengers were going to see Cheerios all over the cabin.
I must have looked how I felt, because Rankin asked me if I was OK. Camille brought the copter down in a middle-of-nowhere forest, where ground coordinator Joan Westfall and her dog were waiting.
Westfall's job was to monitor the spray from the ground, checking weather readings every few minutes; she broke open some fir buds and showed me the munching menace this whole operation was about: a very tiny black worm.
The mosquitoes were horrendous, though. My face was so covered with bugs I felt like a bee-beard fellow I once saw on TV.
I didn't know what was worse: twirling about in a warm, cramped helicopter or being eaten alive by blood suckers.
But all too soon we were back in the air, heading back to the 108 to watch the planes reload and refuel.
"Now we'll be heading out for another round of spraying. You up for it?" Rankin asked me.
I made some excuse that I had enough information for my article and thanked the team for bringing me along.
I would have stayed but my stomach and my skin just couldn't take another trip.

Move to the Cariboo



Until I moved here two months ago, I had never ventured north of North Vancouver for an extended amount of time. Lower Mainland temperatures rarely sneak below minus five, so, consequently, I had never experienced anything colder.
I didn't contact extreme cold until last February, while at a conference in Ontario. Stepping outside the hotel in Ottawa felt like a million needles stabbing my face with a horde of gremlins chewing off my ears.
As the frosty wind cut into my eyes, I swore I would live in Coquitlam forever.
Fast forward a few months: I'm offered jobs from around the province, but I am skeptical of the weather. Potential employers try to reassure me with comforting words:
"The thing about (insert Northern community here) is there are four distinct seasons."
"It's a dry cold here, not like the wet of the coast that you can feel in your bones. Minus 25 here feels like minus five down there."
"Snow? Barely."
"Rain? Never"
"Winters are always sunny, the skies are so clear. No one gets Seasonal Affective Disorder here!"
"The mosquitoes aren't so bad."
Convinced the Cariboo was some sort of year-round paradise, I moved up here and again heard the repetitive weather-related rhetoric. But some of the stories changed:
"Well, we had a bit of snow this year; but nothing major."
"There was snow, but the roads are always quickly cleared, and easy to drive on because of the pebbles Interior Roads puts on them."
"The mosquitoes are only bad because of the wet spring."
Now, as I become more settled and comfortable in the community, people seem to be a bit more honest:
"The huge rocks dumped onto the roads during the winter will destroy your windshield, over and over."
"It gets darn freezing here; you need a block heater for your car."
Regardless of the weather or the fictitious tales, I'm glad I moved.
But my tune might change come winter.

Ride for the first time





As soon as I walked up to the barn, I knew TJ was for me. He seemed a gentle spirit, not as intimidating as the other horses.
But the guide laughed at me.
"I think TJ's part donkey," said Bryce Stewart, employee at the Hills Health Ranch and horseback trail ride expert.
I ignored him.
TJ was saddled and ready to go - somewhat. He seemed a bit hungrier and sleepier than the other larger, more regal-looking horses, but I empathized - it was 35 C outside and now he had to exercise with someone on his back.
After a brief safety instruction, I mounted my steed in one swift jump. Proud of myself, I patiently waited while the other ride participants were assigned horses according to size and experience and used the time to braid TJ's stiff mane.
By the time we were ready to go, TJ was the only horse in the line with a mohawk.
The initial steps on to the trail were easy. I wondered how anyone could fall off a horse.
But that all changed when TJ burst into a trot to catch up to his stable mates.
And it got more intense when, halfway through the hour-long journey, the group was split into two.
"The fast group comes with me," fearless leader Bryce announced. "We'll be trotting and cantering; so I recommend the slow group if you're a beginner."
I felt confident in TJ's sure-feet and opted for the fast group, but it seems my own feet weren't as sturdy in their stirrups.
I bounced to-and-fro in the saddle, and held on for dear life positive I would be flying off the cream-coloured creature at any moment.
The bouncing wasn't the only surprise; I was unaware how much faltering the horses did. I watched them occasionally stumble and wondered how they didn't fall on their faces more often.
But between contracting shaken-person syndrome and fearing for my skull, I annoyed the group with squeals of glee as we travelled through the brush.
And just like that the ride was over, and I was standing next to TJ back at the barn. I expected him to nudge me good-bye, but he ignored me once I dismounted, resuming the search for hay I had so rudely interrupted by riding him.