Happy Thanksgiving !

Very short blog for this week.

We were two people short from another math problem blog on the number of bucks harvested this hunting season! For those who did read the last blog, I hope you enjoyed it. We do appreciate feedback on the posts. Please let us know if there is anything in particular you would like for us to discuss in future blogs.

We did some telemetry practice this week. Even after a few weeks of not practicing, it was surprising how quickly we were able to pick it back up. I (Audrey) really enjoy using the radio to find the collars. I hope that eventually, I get to track live animals. It's certainly harder to track a moving animal. Our telemetry experience at Big Oaks will come in handy for future internships and careers, so we are both very grateful for the opportunity. On the other hand, we have not found any foxes in Big Oaks yet. Hunting season has made it a little complicated. With humans walking around the woods, foxes may be avoiding certain places if they pick up a human scent. Gun shots can easily scare them away from areas. After this weekend, we will be able to set up more cameras and hopefully get a glimpse of one. Otherwise, the cameras have picked up on some other animals across the refuge: bobcats, coyotes, raccoons, squirrels, turkeys and opossums. So even if the foxes remain camera shy, other animals got to get their picture taken.

As most of you probably already know, this weekend was our last deer hunt of the season. We’ve had some pretty successful weekends here at Big Oaks with a lot of happy hunters. This weekend was a success as well, the deer are in rut and we had sunny. Hopefully everyone remembered to bundle up because it was really cold out there this weekend with temperatures below freezing.

After Thanksgiving, we will be back to working Monday-Friday and having the weekends off. We've been doing a lot of things for hunting season these past two months, we are looking forward to doing things that do not involve hunting for our last three weeks. Noticeably the Crhistmas bird count is coming up! Hopefully we get to see a lot of birds!

We did spot a juvenile bald eagle over the lake! Beautiful creatures. Hopefully we get a picture of one!

Both of us would like to wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving! 🦃 We will be back in two weeks time 🙂

Please note: These pictures are taken from cameras that have been approved to be on the refuge by staff members for an ongoing gray fox research project. They are not for hunting purposes. Hunters and the public are not allowed to place cameras on the refuge.