Sagehen Research Review scheduled

Sagehen is getting very busy these days and there is a lot of interesting research, among other things, going on here. In the past we used to host an annual research review where everyone conducting or interested in the research that is going on at Sagehen and within the Sagehen Experimental Forest, would get together to share and learn as well as to discuss what additional opportunities might arise.

We think it a great idea to get this going again! So, We've got a date:

Monday October the 29th beginning at 9am and running until around 4:30pm at the Sagehen Creek Field Station.

Put it on your calendar and let me know if you can make it! Also let me know if there is anyone else that I missed or should invite!

Thanks!

Jeff Brown

Update: Due to early snowfall in the Truckee area, this event has been moved to the Sierra Mountain Middle School, auditorium!

Directions: From I-80 - Get off at the Truckee/Lake Tahoe exit, go North to traffic light, left on Donner Pass Rd (West), Make first left just past the Fire Station (on left) No street name, at stop sign go left to end in large parking lot. Go through double doors and auditorium is to the right after entering the building.

Jeff’s will be carrying a cell phone: 530-386-1715, if you get lost!

Please give some thought to future opportunities prior to the meeting! See our Events page for a schedule & a map.

Distributed Proofreaders

This is a fantastic idea: put volunteers to work proofreading public-domain books for transfer to the web. Distributed Proofreaders is doing just that for the popular Project Gutenberg, which makes classic publications with expired copyrights available to the public free of charge.

When you digitally scan a book, there are lots of errors introduced by optical character recognition [OCR]. It still takes a human eyeball to identify & correct these problems before this content is an accurate copy & truly usable.

Check out their website to proof-read a page or to submit your own public-domain content.

KGO-TV ABC 7 News revisits Sagehen

The Bay Area's ABC affiliate, KGO-TV 7, visited Sagehen last year to report on the new Experimental Forest. This month they returned for a follow-up. You can read &/or watch the first report Sierra's Experimental Forest Is A Scientist's Dream on the KGO-TV website. Or watch with different formats [including iPod] on Sagehen TV.

Sagehen Creek Field Station at Fifty

Sagehen Creek Field Station passed it's 50th anniversary in 2001 & we held an Anniversary Reunion in 2004 to celebrate this significant milestone. UC Berkeley's Bancroft Library received a grant from the UC Natural Reserve System (UCNRS) to conduct oral interviews of some of the station's original founders & researchers. The document became available last year, but I forgot to blog it at the time (oops). Here's the reference & a link [PDF-150pp.]:

Hughes, S. S., 2006.
UC’s Sagehen Creek Field Station at Fifty,” an oral history conducted in 2004.
Regional Oral History
Office, Bancroft Library, UC Berkeley
PDF - 150 pp.

Sagehen bear movie now available on Amazon.com

The Sagehen-produced movie: "Black Bear Research in Sagehen Basin" is now available to purchase through Amazon.com's new CreateSpace service [formerly CustomFlix]! You can either order a boxed DVD, or download the 34 minute video to your computer. "Sagehen News" blog readers can take a special discount using this number: EFHLJETX [which gets you the movie at our cost].

The movie is a half-hour documentary that follows California Dept. of Fish & Game researcher Jennapher Miller on her quest to trap & GPS-collar the bears of Sagehen Basin...but the bears have other ideas. More info, productions stills, a blog, etc. are available on the movie's official web-site.

You can read a review of the movie at Reviews Brothers.

Sagehen alumn in Smithsonian Magazine

Sagehen alumnus Bob Behnke appears prominently in an article in Smithsonian Magazine this month. Behnke discusses native trout recovery & wild vs. hatchery trout--a seminal issue behind the founding of Sagehen Creek Field Station in 1951.

Article on frog-killing fungus.

There's an informative article out on the Berkeley News web page. The article discusses a recent study on the chytridiomycosis fungus, which is killing endangered frogs in the Sierra Nevada. The news is potentially not good for the Mountain Yellow-legged frogs resident in the Central Sierra Field Research Stations.

Bat Workshop at Sagehen

Bat Ecology and Field Techniques Workshop
September 6 – 9, 2007

Instructors: Dave Johnston, Stephanie Remington, and Joe Szewczak

Coordinator: Cynthia Perrine, csgperrine@yahoo. com

Description: Workshop participants will be introduced to the ecology and conservation of California bats through lectures and demonstrations on species accounts, physiology, anatomy, behavioral ecology, conservation issues, and mitigation strategies. Field techniques of mist-netting, assessing species presence or absence, & acoustic monitoring will be demonstrated with participants assisting in set-up and analysis. Evening field exercises should allow capture of several bat species and give participants practice in recording data from captured individuals. Participants must furnish proof of rabies vaccination to handle bats. All participants will participate in field techniques of mist-net set-up and acoustic monitoring. 20 participants maximum!

Registration: Registration fee includes 3 nights' lodging, gourmet meals and beverages from Thursday dinner through Sunday lunch, and all workshop materials. Registration starts August 1, 2007.

Pre-registration required by September 3rd*

$450 Western Section Members

$200 Students with proof of current university affiliation or Young Professionals (within 6 months of graduation from university or employed part-time or seasonally in a wildlife technician position.

$485 Others

* The maximum enrollment is 20 after which, a waiting list will be kept. A minimum of 10 participants must register or the workshop by August 23rd or the workshop will be cancelled and all registration fees will be returned. Registrants will be notified via e-mail, starting August 24th, of workshop logistics and information.

Download registration, then send by mail to:

The Western Section of The Wildlife Society
attn: Bat Workshop
Post Office Box 3275
Oakland, CA 94609-0275

OR

Register on-line at www.tws-west.org starting August 1, 2007.