Summer 2015 Muskoxen and Leaf Miners

This past summer, I have had the privilege of working at UAF Large Animal Research Station (LARS). LARS has muskoxen, caribou, domesticated reindeer and a couple chubby marmots that live under the barns. I was a tour guide and gift shop attendant that had the wonderful opportunity to meet people from all around the world. I encountered quite a few language barriers, but one of my coworkers knew some french, and I knew some sign language so overall with lots of visuals and pantomiming, we were able to communicate some of the basic ideas of LARS. Which brings me to the basic ideas of LARS. The muskoxen became extinct in Alaska in the 1900s due to over harvesting. They are easy to hunt because they don't run away and their hide is extremely expensive. After a hundred years a reintroduction program began to reintroduce them back. (Luckily some muskoxen survived in northern Greenland and on the islands in northern Canada.) The population in Alaska is doing well and will continue to do well if there is no more rain during their calving season. (The calves are usually born with a thick fluffy undercoat that insulates them from the early spring cold, but if wet will cause the calve to freeze). LARS has the population for research, they do diet studies, herd movement studies, foraging behavior studies and other studies to get information about the species so Alaska's Board of Game can make educated decisions about how the wild muskoxen are impacting and will be impacted by various decisions. 

These muskoxen weight between 600-800 lbs but aren't very tall. They live in high wind and short vegetation.  They are the only large herbivore that doesn't migrate in the arctic circle.

^^These are baby muskoxen. They are so fluffy!!!^^

A local bumblebee enjoying some pink flora.

My other summer job was working for a professor looking at Aspen Leaf Miners. These moths lay their eggs on aspen tree leaves. The eggs have this cool enzyme that eats away at the top layer of the leaf. When the eggs hatch and the caterpillars crawl out, they are in the middle of the leaf. They eat the insides of the leaf (pictured left) until they are fully grown then they curl the leaf over, pupate, and hatch and little white moths that are a centimeter long.

Sometimes however, that little caterpillar gets a parasite. These parasites come from a couple special species of wasps. The wasps lay tiny eggs on the caterpillar which eats the caterpillar and hatch instead. I had the opportunity to do caterpillar autopsies to figure out how each caterpillar died. Here are some of the wasps that hatched from mt caterpillars. They are next to a milometer ruler. The largest ones were a centimeter long and the shortest were less than half a centimeter.

This past summer I had the opportunity to watch my friend's dog. My friend is also studying wildlife biology and she had a lot of out of town field work looking at Alaskan bats. While she was away, her dog and I had lots of good fun going for walks, joining me on my field work in town and overall enjoying having a canine companion. She is at least 7 years old and she was a stray so we don't know her breed, but we assume she is part husky and what looks like part Chihuahua. 

This year I went to Girls Camp. Our theme was Anchored to Christ and each ward had a marine mascot. We were the Steller Sea Lions. For the first day we all dressed as lions with face paint of lions and these cute headbands for our manes and a letter C in duct tape to be "sea lions." We had tons of fun. We only had one good scare when one of my girls knocked herself out. We have great youth in this ward.

Oh yes. This gal. This is a Northern Redback Vole. It is one of the most common little mouses here in Fairbanks and somehow we get one as a house guest each spring. Last year we used a drowning trap, this year I borrowed a live trap. This is the sweet thing that was stealing out guinea pig food and causing much anxiety in our friend's dog. We released her a mile (or so) away. 

I really should update my blog more recently. I remember braiding his hair, but that's about it. He shaved in late July and had been growing his beard since. It is quite long now.

"No comment."

And last, but not least, I went on Trek. I was a ma with a second ma (our husbands were serving missions). It was a great experience. Many of the youth still call me 'ma' in the halls at church.