Working Like a Dog

We had our annual holiday party today at work today, which consisted of a potluck lunch, a group photo, and a gift exchange. We also took the opportunity to conduct our monthly all-hands meeting, which keeps everyone up-to-date with what is going on with the program. At our all-hands meetings we also award a "Working Like A Dog" title to that employee who was nominated and then "elected" by fellow employees for their hard work. The recipient receives a little stuffed dog that is passed from one award winner to the next each month and is supposed to be adorned with some sort of trinket by each award winner. Winners also get a little award certificate, as well as 8 hours of paid time off. Anyway, I was nominated by two people this month, and one other person was also nominated. I won the award this month, so that was cool. Nothing like getting rewarded for hard work.

Snow in Southern California

But not in Riverside! Just wanted to post some pics of the nearby mountains that now have lots of snow. The first picture is of the San Jacinto Mountains, to our east. They just got snow within the last couple of days, and it looks like it fell as low as 3000 feet or so. These are the mountains that overlook Palm Springs. The last two pictures are of the San Bernardino Mountains, to our north. Note how absolutely clear the air is. The fact that it is a weekend day helps minimize the smog, as do the cool, cloudy conditions.

Starting carnivores

On Tuesday we started our mammalian carnivore project. Set-up consisted of driving to pre-determined points along remote roads and creating a circular plot of sand and then placing a scent tablet in the middle of the sand. We did the set-up in teams of two: one person drove the vehicle along the road and set up the sand points, while the other person walked the roads and recorded (to the best of their ability) which species' scat they found along the road. Walking the roads looking for scat doesn't sound too exciting, but because we had gotten over 2 inches of rain last Friday the fresh mud gave us a great idea of what animals had been travelling the road in the recent past (mostly raccoons and coyotes). On Tuesday I had a bit of a surprise while I was walking one of our roads. In the middle of this dirt road lay a freshly deceased coyote. There were no obvious signs of trauma to it, and there were no tire tracks on the road to indicate it had been struck by a vehicle. I borrowed a large shovel from my field partner and scooped it off to the side of the road. Surprisingly, it wasn't very heavy, perhaps 40 - 50 pounds.

Wednesday was our first day of actually going out and checking our scent stations for tracks. My partner and I spent the day in the Badlands of Riverside County. As you can see, they are similar in appearance to the Badlands of South Dakota, but they have their differences. Regardless, the term "Badlands" is definitely justified. In the second picture you can see San Gorgonio in the background (with snow), which is a nearby mountain peak that is over 11,000 feet tall.

Along the way on Wednesday, we managed to go down a road that was supposed to bring us to a main highway. The road brought us to the highway, but there was a gate around which we were unable to pass, so we had to turn around. There was a nearby house that had been abandoned long ago, which was an interesting find, so we decided to stop and look around before having to back-track down a long dirt road. Wednesday turned out to be a 10-hour day because we had to go about one hour out of our way to get some coworkers and their vehicle out of some mud they had gotten stuck in, but it was a pretty easy fix.

On Thursday we checked stations that were in a Reserve area that was previously used by Lockheed for military artillery testing. The area isn't full of holes or anything, but the groundwater is unfit for human consumption. In addition, there are unexploded ordinances (artillery) that are occasionally found on the Reserve, but they don't pose too much of a problem. Below is a photo of some of the mountains at the reserve as viewed from the Reserve's air strip.

We actually had some scent stations that we had to visit on top of the mountains in the above photo, and fortunately there was a dirt road the entire way. Some of the scent stations showed signs of coyote activity (see below; note the wet spot that my field partner is smelling - he is just goofing off for the photo, but smelling a wet spot is a good way of telling if the urine belongs to a cat or a dog). One of our points on top of the mountain even overlooked Gold Base, which is the International Headquarters for the the Church of Scientology.

Friday was another rain day, which meant it was spent doing office work. Hopefully next week will be drier, but anything can happen this time of the year.