On the Expedition
Visit America’s Wild West and track deer, moose, bears and more in an effort to design effective wildlife corridors.
You can expect a whole new perspective on wildlife while exploring these rugged, mountainous landscapes. You will hike along routes used by deer, moose, elk, coyotes, mountain lions, bobcats, black bears, wolverines, and wolves. Along the way, you'll census wildlife, identify and count tracks, map game trails and kill sites using Global Positioning System (GPS) units, and survey vegetation. To document predators, you'll prepare carnivore scent and track stations and monitor and download data collected by remote cameras. Volunteers need to be fit for hilly country, unpredictable weather, and steep, slippery paths. You will be hiking five or six hours a day along some of the trails that Lewis and Clark followed 200 years ago.
Note: Teams working in Red Butte, Utah, may have the opportunity to work at beautiful but particularly rugged sites requiring rigorous hikes. Anyone wishing to join a team that will include these more challenging sites will be interviewed by Dr. William Newmark prior to participating. Contact us for more information.
Meals and Accommodations
In Idaho, your team will stay in a rustic but comfortable mountain lodge. Volunteers will sleep in heated cabins with hot showers, essential after a hard day of mapping muddy trails. Team members will share cooking and cleanup duties.
In Utah, volunteers will share double-occupancy rooms with bathrooms at the University Guesthouse. Volunteers will eat breakfast at the guesthouse, lunch in the field, and choose from a variety of meal options at the student dining area located near the accommodations.
About the Research Area
Little Sheep Creek is located in the remote and rugged Beaverhead Mountains, which are part of the Bitterroot Range in the Salmon-Challis National Forest along the eastern border of central Idaho. The research area, which straddles the western edge of the US Continental Divide, is located 32 miles north of Salmon, Idaho and 5 miles to the east and south of Gibbonsville, Idaho. The elevation of the area ranges from 4,000 to 7,200 feet. During the spring and fall, Little Sheep Creek is an important seasonal migration route for deer and elk. Moose, mountain lions, coyotes, black bears, bobcats, lynx, wolverines, and gray wolves also inhabit the region.
Red Butte Canyon is a Research Natural Area managed by the U.S. Forest Service in cooperation with the Biology Department at the University of Utah and other governmental agencies. It is the only Research Natural Area in the Wasatch Range and is closed to the general public. Located above the University of Utah Campus and immediately above the housing for the 2002 Winter Olympics, the site offers a stunning view of the Great Salt Lake valley. The canyon’s elevation ranges from 5,020 up to 8,235 feet. Riparian, grass-forb, oak-maple, and coniferous vegetation are all found in the area.