Outdoorspeople working with scientists

The New York Times has an interesting article on how wildlife scientists work with outdoorspeople to help them with their research. Interesting piece, and it got me thinking about how much information could be gained from the folks who hike year round, in terms of reporting tracks of various animals and so forth.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/12/us/matching-adventurers-with-scientists.html?_r=1&hpw


Brian

B the Hiker said:

The New York Times has an interesting article on how wildlife scientists work with outdoorspeople to help them with their research. Interesting piece, and it got me thinking about how much information could be gained from the folks who hike year round, in terms of reporting tracks of various animals and so forth.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/12/us/matching-adventurers-with-scientists.html?_r=1&hpw


Brian

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Laurie and I, and other Forum members, have spent many days hiking with 'Dr. Mike', Michael Kudish. He is perhaps the foremost authority on the Catskill Forest Preserve, at least from the botanical perspective. When I say 'hike', it's usually not a peakbagging expedition, although Mike's 35'er # is around 100. Now retired from teaching at Paul Smith's, his love of the outdoors continues unabated. We've mostly gone with Dr. Mike to bogs, which he believes are the natural history books for the Catskills, holding a record back to at least the last ice age (several thousand years). If you ever go to the Wild Center in Tupper Lake (a trip I HIGHLY recommend), you can see Dr. Mike 'lecturing' from the field in several short videos.