Answer Key Monitoring Animal Populations
1. Which of the animals in the quiz might you find in your neighborhood? Have you ever seen any of these tracks? Where?
Answer: Answers will vary. An example is: “I live in the northeastern United States where one might expect to find raccoons, squirrels, opossum, deer, badgers, and cottontails. I have only seen tracks of raccoons, squirrels, deer, and rabbits in my backyard and around the lake near our house.”
2. How can you tell the difference between tracks left by a wild pig and a black-tailed deer?
Answer: Pigs have rounder hooves. Deer tracks are more pointed.
3. Discuss similarities and differences in the tracks of a blue heron and a wild turkey.
Answer: Both tracks show three forward toes and claws. A blue heron however has a backward toe with a claw. The wild turkey print is smaller, with a circle in the middle, as opposed to a toe in the back.
4. Describe how the tracks of a deer in the snow would differ if the deer were bounding across a field as opposed to walking.
Answer: Deer are diagonal walkers. Their normal walking tracks are evenly spaced staggered hoof prints. If there deer is quickly bounding, there will be groups of four hoof prints separated by a distance of a yard or more.
5. How can you tell if an animal is an herbivore or carnivore by examining its scat?
Answer: It is easy to tell if the animal is a carnivore if there are pieces of indigestible bone or hair in its scat. Herbivores may have indigestible seeds or pits from berries.
6. Think about your answers. What evidence and information led you to the conclusion you came to?
Answer: Answers will vary. A complete answer would resemble: “The tracks are definitely from hooves as opposed to paws. I would guess that they are deer tracks.”
7. Check your answer. If you were not correct, discuss information you missed that might have changed your answer.
Answer: Answers will vary. A complete answer would resemble: “The correct answer was moose. I neglected to look at the size of the tracks, 4 ¾ inches wide and 6 inches long. That would be one big deer! A moose is much more likely to leave tracks that size.”
8. Discuss the advantages of using camera traps as opposed to direct observation by safari adventurers with telephoto lenses.
Answer: Camera traps are valuable because they can be left in a given location for long periods. A person would have a difficult time remaining quietly in one place. Cameras are also not afraid of dangerous predators such as tigers. Finally, camera traps can take pictures of animals at night. Infrared detectors can be used to detect motion even in the absence of light. Human eyes can only see in the visible spectrum.
9. What are some of the challenges of using a Crittercam?
Answer: It is difficult to attach and then retrieve the Crittercam.
10. Why would it be difficult for a diver to follow a leatherback sea turtle?
Answer: The sea turtles swim can swim in very cold deep water and they stay out at sea unless they swim to shore to lay eggs, which only happens once every few years.
11. What type of animal behavior can be studied using radiotelemetry?
Answer: Radiotelemetry can help us study animal location, habitat, social interaction, feeding, hunting, and mating rituals. It can also help us estimate population size and migration patterns.
12. Recount how ocelots share their environment and establish territory.
Answer: Male territories are large and do not overlap. Likewise, females will not share territories. However, male and female territories can overlap. This solitary lifestyle and tendency to separate the sexes results in the need for large amounts of continuous land to range.
13. What is the primary reason that there are so few ocelots in Texas?
Answer: The primary threat to ocelots is the destruction of habitat. Ocelots require large territories to hunt and roam. Development of land to build roads, residential communities, commercial enterprise, and agriculture destroys the habitat of these animals and minimizes contact between males and females.
14. Describe the polar bears’ current location and guess what they might be doing.
Answer: Three of the bears are on land close to the coast. The fourth looks like it is traveling on the sea ice.
15. What might happen to these bears if global climate change caused the sea ice to melt?
Answer: The bears that are on the sea ice would be swimming in the open ocean. They might not be able to go far enough on the ice to catch fish and seals.
16. Give an example of how the information we gain from satellite tracking helps conservation of sea turtles.
Answer: If we know which beaches sea turtles use to mate and lay eggs, we can avoid human development on their breeding grounds.
17. Give a general observation about the location of the animals.
Answer: The animals are concentrated near coastlines, most likely because that is where the ocean is most productive in terms of food.
18. What do the chlorophyll maps tell us?
Answer: The amount of chlorophyll is related to the amount of phytoplankton, and therefore food and productivity in the ocean.
 

Study Questions Monitoring Animal Populations
1. Which of the animals in the quiz might you find in your neighborhood? Have you ever seen any of these tracks? Where?



2. How can you tell the difference between tracks left by a wild pig and a black-tailed deer?



3. Discuss similarities and differences in the tracks of a blue heron and a wild turkey.



4. Describe how the tracks of a deer in the snow would differ if the deer were bounding across a field as opposed to walking.



5. How can you tell if an animal is an herbivore or carnivore by examining its scat?



6. Think about your answers. What evidence and information led you to the conclusion you came to?



7. Check your answer. If you were not correct, discuss information you missed that might have changed your answer.



8. Discuss the advantages of using camera traps as opposed to direct observation by safari adventurers with telephoto lenses.



9. What are some of the challenges of using a Crittercam?



10. Why would it be difficult for a diver to follow a leatherback sea turtle?



11. What type of animal behavior can be studied using radiotelemetry?



12. Recount how ocelots share their environment and establish territory.



13. What is the primary reason that there are so few ocelots in Texas?



14. Describe the polar bears’ current location and guess what they might be doing.



15. What might happen to these bears if global climate change caused the sea ice to melt?



16. Give an example of how the information we gain from satellite tracking helps conservation of sea turtles.



17. Give a general observation about the location of the animals.



18. What do the chlorophyll maps tell us?



 

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