SW Idaho Herping.

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Ryan Young
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Joined: May 18th, 2013, 4:05 pm

SW Idaho Herping.

Post by Ryan Young »

I was vending at a Reptile Show near Boise ID over the weekend and we were able to get out for a little herping Fri and Sat evening. The weather was less than ideal fri afternoon and evening and Sat was worse. We had some success locating some herps on fri but nothing on Sat. I was very excited to get the chance to herp SW Idaho as I live around 8 hours north so I do not get down there very often. A friend of mine who lives in the area took me and Steve Perry out despite his reservations about the conditions. It was to cold for the Great Basin Collared lizards to be out but I was shown a spot they can be found so I hope to try and get back down soon. We were able find 2 Great Basin Rattle snakes, 2 ground snakes, and what I think was a common Side-blotched lizard.

Ryan Young

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M Wolverton
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Re: SW Idaho Herping.

Post by M Wolverton »

Nice work, especially on the ground snakes.
Tamara D. McConnell
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Re: SW Idaho Herping.

Post by Tamara D. McConnell »

The ground snakes are so very cool.
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jonathan
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Re: SW Idaho Herping.

Post by jonathan »

Awesome. You saw more ground snakes on that trip than I've seen in my whole life. But from what I've heard from other people, the poor conditions for everything else might have made it especially likely to see them...they seem to wander out when the weather's bad.

Make sure you get that stuff in the database. We have very little for Idaho there, and no ground snakes for Idaho at all.
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Ryan Young
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Re: SW Idaho Herping.

Post by Ryan Young »

I was not expecting to see the ground snakes either but we were lucky to have a local who knew the area and he had caught many in the area including a few days before we were there. Knowing for sure we were in the right spot made it easier to stick with the rock flipping for as long as it took. I will have to look into the database.

Thanks Ryan Young
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M Wolverton
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Re: SW Idaho Herping.

Post by M Wolverton »

The database is at naherp.com. The northwest chapter/states could use as many entries as we can get.

If you register there with the same e-mail and user name I can add you to the northwest chapter as a member.
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jonathan
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Re: SW Idaho Herping.

Post by jonathan »

Yeah - data has picked up a lot so we're now over 3,000 combined records for Oregon/Washington, but there are still just 63 vouchered records for Idaho. It's a great place to herp when you're in the right place at the right time of year, just not many people. Every data point possible there could be useful. But yours are especially nice, considering that there are 0 Idaho ground snakes, 0 Idaho side-blotched lizards, and 0 Idaho Great Basin Rattlesnakes in the database so far.

http://www.naherp.com
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Ryan Young
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Re: SW Idaho Herping.

Post by Ryan Young »

I signed up for the data base but am I doing something wrong or are GPS coordinates required to make an entry?

Ryan Young
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jonathan
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Re: SW Idaho Herping.

Post by jonathan »

Yup, GPS coordinates are now required. Nearly every single one of our data requesters was telling us "we only want the data that has GPS coordinates", and we began to realize that data entries without coordinates were pretty much useless for the most important purpose of the database.

If you don't use a GPS or smartphone, it's still easy to add coordinates when you make the entry. When you are filling out the form, just click on one of the little wrench symbols above "longitude" or "latitude." That will open a small GoogleEarth window. Find the (approximate) location of where you found the herp and click on that spot. The spot will now be marked by an orange marker. Now click the little "x" in the upper righthand corner to close the window and you're done. Or, you can use your own copy of GoogleEarth, and copy/paste the coordinates of your find into the longitude and latitude boxes.

(That was all copied from this post by Kent: http://www.fieldherpforum.com/forum/vie ... f=6&t=7526)

I'm always happy to answer any questions people have about the database. You can also check out this post by Fundad:

http://www.fieldherpforum.com/forum/vie ... =6&t=12735
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Ryan Young
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Re: SW Idaho Herping.

Post by Ryan Young »

So who gets to see the GPS location other than the person posting?

Ryan
Zach_Lim
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Re: SW Idaho Herping.

Post by Zach_Lim »

Ryan Young wrote:So who gets to see the GPS location other than the person posting?

Ryan
The GPS can only be seen by the poster and when/if the data is requested by a scientific source, the GPS will be given to that source.
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jonathan
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Re: SW Idaho Herping.

Post by jonathan »

Zach_Lim wrote:
Ryan Young wrote:So who gets to see the GPS location other than the person posting?

Ryan
The GPS can only be seen by the poster and when/if the data is requested by a scientific source, the GPS will be given to that source.
IF the poster approves the data request, it will be given to that source.

Technically, the database administrator could also break into the system and view the GPS himself. He's the only one who has access to that information. But we picked him for this job for a reason (he deals with far more sensitive data in the rest of his life), and over the many years that we've been doing this I haven't heard one person cast doubt on the trust we have in him on that front.
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Ryan Young
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Re: SW Idaho Herping.

Post by Ryan Young »

Is that what the sensitivity settings are for? I will have to start getting things in there. Thanks for the info everyone.

Ryan Young
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DesertZone
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Re: SW Idaho Herping.

Post by DesertZone »

Amazing finds! :)
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