- Author: Rick Sweitzer
The UC Berkeley Sierra Nevada Adaptive Management Project (SNAMP) Fisher Team has just finished closely monitoring reproductive-age female Pacific fishers living in the Sierra National Forest near Bass Lake for the spring 2011 denning season. Each year the denning season for fishers starts around late March and ends in mid June.
The fact that one of the study's radio-collared female fishers moved her kit from a natal den tree (where the kits were born) in the Sierra National Forest to a maternal den tree in the Mariposa Grove area of Yosemite National Park was a highlight. The event was significant for the park service because it represents the first known fisher den tree...
- Author: Kim Ingram
Adult and juvenile California spotted owl
During a Sierra Nevada Adaptive Management Project (SNAMP) public meeting, a participant brought up the idea that California spotted owls preferred to nest near forest edges to be closer to foraging habitat and their prey. Principal investigator for the SNAMP Owl Team, Dr. Rocky Gutierrez, charged research fellow Casey Phillips and SNAMP Owl Team project leader Doug Tempel to research this question at SNAMP study sites in the Tahoe and Eldorado National Forests to see if this was...
- Author: Kim Ingram
A new wireless data collection system deployed at Duncan Peak, located near the town of Foresthill on the Middle Fork of the American River basin, is part of a new water information system for California. This extensively distributed sensor network will allow for better characterization on the amount of water stored in the snow and the soil throughout the watershed.
This wireless system is part of the research being conducted by University of California researchers as part of the Sierra Nevada Adaptive Management Project (SNAMP) to investigate the impacts of fuels treatment projects on water quality and quantity and how water is routed through catchments. Information collected from...
- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
Four baby Pacific fishers were released in the forest this week, with the aid of UC Berkeley scientists who are studying the Sierra Nevada population of the rare weasel-like carnivore.
Pacific fishers were once an abundant species, but the population has been in decline for more than 20 years. As part of the Sierra Nevada Adaptive Management Project (SNAMP), an ongoing study aims to determine what factors are influencing the fishers' fate, such as habitat loss, timber harvest, disease, development and climate change.
"We are extremely excited that the four fisher kits have been repatriated back out in the forest, where we hope they will survive and become part of the fisher...
- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
What effect do changes made to the forest - for wildfire management or timber harvest, for example - have on California spotted owl? That question prompted the organizers of the Sierra Nevada Adaptive Management Project (SNAMP) to incorporate an owl team into its wide-ranging effort.
The owl team recently gathered at the UC Blodgett Forest near Georgetown with members of the public and representatives of agencies involved in SNAMP. They explained the scope of the on-going spotted owl research program and the smaller subsection that is part of the SNAMP project.
Project manager Doug Tempel and assistant project...