Science on Skis

This week, scientists in the zoo’s Urban Wildlife Institute (UWI) retrieved more than 100 trail cameras from three transects across the Chicago metro area. The motion-triggered cameras are part of the team’s trailblazing biodiversity-monitoring study (scroll to page 4) that documents species locally and has inspired similar efforts in other cities.

The team collects this vital data during four one-month spans every year: in January, April, July, and October. The data-collection season ending this week began January 8.

Gathering gear isn’t a snap when it's bitterly cold and snow blankets the parks, golf courses, cemeteries, and other green spaces where cameras are installed.

"We monitor year-round through snow, ice, and any other challenging weather condition,” says UWI Assistant Director Liza Watson Lehrer. “It can be really difficult to access cameras in deep snow. On the golf courses where we set up cameras we normally use golf carts or hike out there, but Travis had a better idea this past week.”

That would be Travis Gallo, Ph.D., a UWI postdoctoral researcher (pictured above), who resourcefully strapped on skis this week to retrieve trail cameras.

"I think the cross-country skis are a first for us,” says Watson Lehrer.

Here's what Travis was retrieving:

Want to help ID wildlife in photos the UWI team collects? You can do just that at Chicagowildlifewatch.org!

In addition to the coyote pictured at the top of this blog post, here are some more recent trail-camera photos of local wildlife the researchers have gathered:

White-tailed deer

Cooper’s hawk

Raccoon

Virginia opossum