March 2018 Field Work: Santa Cruz Island

We were very lucky to have a professional photographer, Eirini Pajak, join us on our trip to SCI. All the photos below were taken by her and I think the provide a perfect documentary of our typical field procedure. Thank you Eirini!

Step 1. Coffee and ohh and ahh over the adorable foxes. Then get to work!

Step 2. Use "Curly" to drive the field crew to the first site to look for animals.

Step 3. Use GPS to find the plywood boards and tin that have been strategically placed to attract snakes and lizards - or so we hope!

Step 4. Flip boards and grab all the snakes and lizards you can!

Step 5. Teach undergraduate students how to identify species and sex, and put them in a bag for temporary holding.

Step 6. Start processing (collecting data) on all the animals.

Step 7-9. Take temperature, a blood sample and make a blood smear to look at parasites and blood cells.

Step 10. Take a blood glucose reading using a typical glucometer. The rest of the blood sample will be used for hormone measurements and genetic analysis.

Step 11. Take size measurements including weight. This scale has a lizard in a bag hanging from it.

Finally, release the animals back to their home, and share our knowledge with the next generation.