What's It Like Being A DTRNA Naturalist?

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klawnskale
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What's It Like Being A DTRNA Naturalist?

Post by klawnskale »

For the past two Spring Seasons I have served as the onsite naturalist at he Desert Tortoise Research Natural Area in Kern County, California. I really enjoyed living in a protected area of the Mojave Desert and being immersed 24/7 in its beauty and natural history. The major drawback was having to experience this section of the Northwestern Mojave Desert during two drought seasons. The abundance of spring flowers was not there which made desert tortoise activity above the ground infrequent. This also affected the number of visitors coming to the Preserve. People like to take photos of tortoises munching happily on colorful Spring flowers. As a result, I had to endure alot of downtime. I spent most of the mornings going on hikes and recording wildlife sightings and anything else notable; including finding things that shouldn't be on the Preserve (like trash, mylar balloons, bullet and shotgun shell casings). I have composed a tour here that gives the reader some idea of what they could expect if they would like serve as the DTRNA Naturalist. I highly recommend it if you don't mind being alone for extended periods of time and love the desert.

When a visitor enters the Preserve, these are the signs they encounter in the parking area. The information on it seems quite legible and obvious; however there would still be an occasional visitor that politely needed to be reminded of the rules. I still had people showing up with collection bags, snake hooks,
and lizard nooses.

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This is the RV where the Onsite Naturalist resides in while on duty. It was acquired in 2013 and I was the lucky one to break it in. Prior to that, the previous Naturalists had to live in an RV dating back to the 1970's which was very shabby and in disrepair. The committee supervising the DTRNA finally voted to get a nice new one. Although there are no hookups it is very comfy inside with a fridge, microwave, heater and stereo system.
Unfortunately, the air conditioning cannot be used because the generator is not powerful enough to handle it. But you can use a fan. The Naturalist has to refill the water tanks, and also provide propane and gasoline . No hook ups, remember?

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And here is where one dumps the gray water and is the latrine. It is kind of cool to sometimes have to go outside to the loo in the middle of the night and hear the lesser nighthawks calling to each other; or surprise a kangaroo rat with your flash light. I saw signs of kit fox activity around the trailer (they left their calling cards). A rope that was attached to the trailer was chewed up either by a black tailed hare or a kit fox. There were so many different tracks around the trailer, it was too hard for me to tell.

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This was my view from inside the trailer when I rolled up the blinds in the morning

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And because of all the ambient dust and particulates in the desert air, the sunsets are really beautiful. Contrails courtesy of Edwards Air Force Base
aircraft. You will have to deal with the occasional sonic boom.

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I became very familiar with the resident native diurnal lizards whose territories overlapped the Visitor Center. Some individuals I could identify by unique traits such as regenerated tails or skin patterns. Here are a few pics of some of my VC buddies:

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western whiptail consuming a pepsis wasp (tarantula hawk)

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Can you see who is perched on the harvester ant mound waiting for a snack?

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Unidentified beetles that were prevalent on the Preserve in the Spring doing the nasty. Anyone know the ID for these miniature cannonballs? They, and Arizona Blister Beetles congregated in massive numbers to eat and mate. Unfortunately, I did not get any good photos of the Blister Beetles. They met in huge orgies on paperbag bushes and were so driven by pheromones they even 'bugged' me and several visitors. This high rate of activity was also present in creosote miner bees. They spent more time fighting over the creosote flowers than actually feeding on them.

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I encountered few snakes during the day on the Preserve. Snake activity appeared to be affected far more by the drought conditions than the lizards'.
Most of the lizards appeared well fed. Perhaps this was due to not enough rodent presence. There are usually Antelope and Mohave Ground Squirrels
(as well as ofcourse,pack rats and kangaroo rats). I did see red coachwhips, Mojave patch nose and gopher snakes . Road cruising at night in the area outside of the Preserve turned up more species diversity. I recorded only one juvenile Mojave Rattlesnake under a creosote bush from a visitor (they showed me a photo). In the early morning, I would walk down the Entrance Road to open the gate and happily spotted this gopher snake basking in the mid May morning sun. He took off under a creosote bush when I approached.

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Sometimes during my morning hikes, I came upon objects not indigenous to the Preserve. Some people might consider this collection of found objects a statement of personal expression. I consider it a pile of sheep and dog bones, sex toys, a straw hat and a few other items that was covered by a cloth:

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Sadly, due to the drought, I encountered far too many remains for my own personal liking of deceased desert tortoises. In all, within a 2 mile radius I found the remains of three adult females and one male. This may not sound like a lot, however, four dead tortoises within a small area is heartbreaking. There were probably more out there that I never got a chance to find and record. After a couple of times, you can readily identify desert tortoise remains from a distance. A sight I never could get used to.

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One particular adult female tortoise that I ran into on several occasions had two burrows within close proximity of each other. She dug her burrows within old mine tailing mounds and preferred to defecate primarily outside of her burrow. I had visited the burrows of other individual tortoises and none of the others I encountered were as fastidious as she was. Usually there were a couple of scats at burrow entrances. With her, it was a lot. Even my supervisor was surprised to see this.

Here is the fastidious lady:

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And here is one of her burrows:

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The above female tortoise preferred not to be near people. There were some individuals though that were regular visitors to the Visitor Center and didn't mind being around humans. Some of them liked to graze and forage on the little bit of sprouting plants available between the latrine and the information kiosk. This made it easier for some people to see a tortoise and get photos of them. One of the duties of the Naturalist is to make sure
visitors don't get too close to the tortoises and possibly stress them. Although I have to say that the individuals who frequented the Visitor Center appeared to be habituated and sometimes didn't mind resting in someone's shadow or being an unintended photographer's model.

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And in closing, Number 1056 would just like to wish everyone "good night" and hopes to see you one day at the Desert Tortoise Research Natural Area
He likes hanging around the kiosk.

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hellihooks
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Re: What's It Like Being A DTRNA Naturalist?

Post by hellihooks »

:thumb: :beer:
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El Garia
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Re: What's It Like Being A DTRNA Naturalist?

Post by El Garia »

What an excellent post!

Thanks for sharing your experiences with us, klawnskale :beer:
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jonathan
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Re: What's It Like Being A DTRNA Naturalist?

Post by jonathan »

Nice post! Not quite Desert Solitaire, but good work nonetheless.
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Jeroen Speybroeck
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Re: What's It Like Being A DTRNA Naturalist?

Post by Jeroen Speybroeck »

Nice!
Geqqo
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Re: What's It Like Being A DTRNA Naturalist?

Post by Geqqo »

Your beetles are Cysteodemus armatus (Desert spider beetle). That is one cool job to have even with this heavy drought. I thought of Abbey as well.

http://bugguide.net/node/view/14860


dan
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klawnskale
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Re: What's It Like Being A DTRNA Naturalist?

Post by klawnskale »

Thanks for the comments guys!
Geqqo (Dan): Thank you for the beetle ID. I was told by my friends about the comparison with Edward Abbey; He too was guilty of anthropomorphizing resident native animals. I did not mention the bird life in my post, but the Preserve is a wonderful site for birding and they get alot of migratory species coming through. One particular Say's Phoebe would hang around the Visitor's Center to consume flying insects. It was obviously habituated to the presence of the trailers and actually flew into my trailer a couple of times pursuing prey. It would do this in the Interpretive trailer as well (when I wasn't inside it) and perched for a minute or so and fly out. I missed my pet birds when I saw it and couldn't help but engage in a brief one way conversation with it.
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Re: What's It Like Being A DTRNA Naturalist?

Post by hellihooks »

Hanna... why are the people you work for generally so Stingy with their data? I notice this a lot with Field assistants who work for State/Fed agencies?
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klawnskale
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Re: What's It Like Being A DTRNA Naturalist?

Post by klawnskale »

hellihooks wrote:Hanna... why are the people you work for generally so Stingy with their data? I notice this a lot with Field assistants who work for State/Fed agencies?
What is the purpose of this remark and how does it relate to this post? What it basically comes down to is this: NAFHA is an inconsistent resource for data. The sources of the data are not reliable in consistent accuracy. Because of this, they would treat most NAFHA data as anecdotal accounts. They can be useful, but since they may not have been recorded with mandatory protocols, not considered scientifically reliable. Most government agencies practice security until a study has been made public. Then you can generally find a report on an agency website as a pdf download for public use. That data will usually be available to the public after finalization and the data has been checked and re-checked for consistency and accuracy. It would be a violation of security for ANY field assistant actively involved in an ongoing project to publicly share until AFTER publication. I can't believe I am typing this out. Most of the general public is aware State and Federal information is classified until it is officially gone public. Now, what other wonderful information can I give you?
hellihooks
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Re: What's It Like Being A DTRNA Naturalist?

Post by hellihooks »

I wasn't trying to cast any aspersions... I honestly didn't know. thank you for your concise answer. I do find it strange that certain agencies that utilize our data, Like the State (for the RASSC update) and the USGS find HERP 'unreliable' HERP, like museums, now has permenent data, not subject to 'whimsical' removal by contributors ( I ceed all my data collected, to HERP)

I just always felt it was a shame that you and others in your position can't 'judiciously' share all the cool stuff you get to see. It is nice to see you sharing what you can... :)
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Kelly Mc
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Re: What's It Like Being A DTRNA Naturalist?

Post by Kelly Mc »

Thank you for sharing this gift Klawnskale.

I have a question about individual proclivities, like some of the ones you have observed, Hanna have you noticed differences in the way tortoises that you know or discern are older individuals, in the way/methods they handle, eat food materials?

I have watched tortoises of different types (and also box turtles) and the way different individuals manipulate food items, in captivity.

Older tortoises show an adeptness in using their paws, that less mature animals do not.

It seems that the handling of foods encorperates some seasoned skill of a true gourmand. Like the pinwheeling of a food item around and around until it disappears, and the manipulation of more viscous materials neatly, using deft angles and the backs of their paws.

Some of the items they are eating are novel. like sliced disks of yam, which to me strikes even more impressively.

But juveniles and younger adults don't present with these, and just eat against the ground. As time goes on, they paw at it more and become more proficient.

Im curious to hear your thoughts
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Kelly Mc
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Re: What's It Like Being A DTRNA Naturalist?

Post by Kelly Mc »

Besides a cultivation of food manipulative skills from experience, I even think in captive situ, even many "out door pens' there is an impetus for stimuli, that without the diversity and terrain details of life in the wild, feeding and food is one of the few opportunities there is in the limited dimension of captive situ to incite and fulfill it.

I am very curious to see if you have noticed anything similar in wild tortoises, and also if you have not, for that would be interesting too, as their natural activity in navigating their way through the changing weather conditions, topography of biome and foraging, would be telling too, in regards to the captive counterpart of food item maneuvering, as one of the few opportunities for stimuli in captivity.

Although I have found myself in position of captive care, please know any critique you have of captivity will not be taken in offense - whatsoever.
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klawnskale
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Re: What's It Like Being A DTRNA Naturalist?

Post by klawnskale »

Kelly Mc wrote:Besides a cultivation of food manipulative skills from experience, I even think in captive situ, even many "out door pens' there is an impetus for stimuli, that without the diversity and terrain details of life in the wild, feeding and food is one of the few opportunities there is in the limited dimension of captive situ to incite and fulfill it.

I am very curious to see if you have noticed anything similar in wild tortoises, and also if you have not, for that would be interesting too, as their natural activity in navigating their way through the changing weather conditions, topography of biome and foraging, would be telling too, in regards to the captive counterpart of food item maneuvering, as one of the few opportunities for stimuli in captivity.

Although I have found myself in position of captive care, please know any critique you have of captivity will not be taken in offense - whatsoever.
Kelly:
The diet of the wild desert tortoise consists primarily of flowers, leaves, young shoots, stems, occasionally berries, cactus fruit and pads. They have to consume pieces chomped off directly from the plant. Root vegetables are not a part of their diet. The digging they do is soil mining to consume soil and small pebbles for minerals or to dig out a burrow/pallet/egg nest, and dig out shallow depressions to gather rain water. They may stomp on a plant to anchor it to tear off a piece of what they want to eat, or rake it with their claws while trying to swallow the piece they have bitten off. I would not refer to this as tool use and they do not turn their food into a tool. They will also chomp pieces off bones as another mineral source. Wild desert tortoises have incredible memories. Each individual seems to be able to remember its favorite feeding areas and will return to those specific geographic locations to feed. Especially during the drought we have been experiencing this is critical for them to find reliable food sources. A favorite area for several individuals was a space between the information kiosk and the latrine due to surface water seepage. There would always be something sprouting there for them to eat. Common habitat that desert tortoises share to forage are sandy washes and alluvial fans because they do gather more water during rain and vegetation is generally more abundant within them as a result. If you would like to deploy 'behavioral enrichment' with your captive tortoises, you may try to make them 'work' to get their food as they would in the wild. Instead of piling everything in a feeding dish, try taking chunks of their favorite foods and skewering them on sticks and anchor them into the substrate so the torts have to reach and tear much in the same way their wild counterparts have to. Just make sure it's low enough within reasonable tortoise reach. It would be fun to watch a tortoise having a go at a dangling tied bunch of dandelions that is just low enough for them to pull on :)
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klawnskale
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Re: What's It Like Being A DTRNA Naturalist?

Post by klawnskale »

I just always felt it was a shame that you and others in your position can't 'judiciously' share all the cool stuff you get to see. It is nice to see you sharing what you can... :)[/quote]

This remark is so tellingly inane. It's all cool so far as I am concerned. I think there are enough posters on this forum that willingly share their finds of desirable collectables like kingsnakes, rosy boas, and color morph rattlesnakes. I would be a fool to assume that everyone who participates on this forum does not collect or poach.While stationed at the DTRNA, I took a teenage girl who loves herps roadcrusing for the first time in her life. She was ecstatic for days afterward from the diversity of snake species we found that night. That was enough satisfaction for me. I don't have a need to publicly share everything I find as ego gratification and then getting PM's from people who want to know localities.
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Re: What's It Like Being A DTRNA Naturalist?

Post by hellihooks »

yeah whatever....I got a herp education talk to prepare for tomorrow... that I've been doing for free, at the cost of several thou a year for 15 years. I'd invite you, but I doubt that high horse you're riding could make it that far. :roll: :lol: :lol: :lol:
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Kelly Mc
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Re: What's It Like Being A DTRNA Naturalist?

Post by Kelly Mc »

Omar my Marginated is going to have a more interesting day today :)
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klawnskale
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Re: What's It Like Being A DTRNA Naturalist?

Post by klawnskale »

Kelly Mc wrote:Omar my Marginated is going to have a more interesting day today :)
:thumb: :thumb: :thumb:
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Ribbit
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Re: What's It Like Being A DTRNA Naturalist?

Post by Ribbit »

I somehow overlooked this extremely enjoyable post earlier. Thanks for posting it, Klawnskale, and thanks for being the DTRNA Naturalist. I've made it down that way several times, but not since the new RV got put in. I've had several pleasant chats with the friendly naturalists there. I'm really glad that the DTRNA exists and does its part in protecting habitat and educating the public. (And I am indeed an annual contributor to the Desert Tortoise Preserve Committee.)

John
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