UC Berkeley museum biologists to repeat 85-year-old Yosemite National Park wildl...( m in which he laid out really really c...)

m in which he laid out really, really clearly the purpose of building a museum the way he did," Moritz said. "He actually specified that his hope was that future curators and zoologists could come back in 100 years and look at the effect of human changes to the landscapes on the vertebrate fauna. As soon as I read that, it was really clear what we had to do for our centenary - do what Grinnell told us to do and resurvey his transects."

While the earlier biologists used shotguns, leg-hold traps and snap traps to do much of their surveying and collecting, the current team will capture and release most of the animals. Bird populations will be assessed by observation and point counts, while mammals will be sampled through live trapping and release. A few small mammals will be taken to ensure correct identification and to provide reference material, as will some amphibians and reptiles.

This year so far, UC Berkeley biologists have made four trips to the park, often packing in their food and traps on mules. The first was in May to survey Yosemite Valley; followed by a trip in June to the northwest part of the park near Crane Flat and Merced Big Trees; one in early July to the Glacier Point area; and one in late July to Lyell Canyon. The team sets off Aug. 5 for a 10-day survey near the Tuolumne area at Glen Aulin. During the summer the team is comprised of between four and eight people, including park service biologists, who are surveying mammals, birds, reptiles and amphibians. A separate team of herpetologists will descend on the park this fall and next spring to look for amphibians like frogs and salamanders.

A museum photographer will follow up by taking photos of the same areas as did Grinnell and his crew, ideally from the exact same spot.

Though the study is designed to assess the status of all vertebrates, there are some animals the park is specifically interested in because their status is currently unknown. These are not the
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Contact: Robert Sanders
rls@pa.urel.berkeley.edu
510-643-6998
University of California - Berkeley
5-Aug-2003

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