On Monday, October 28th, The Millersville Conservation Biology Class participated in trapping and banding of house sparrows on the Millersville campus.  The purpose of this study will be to begin a mark/recapture effort of house sparrows on campus to determine their population density and sex ratio.

Click on links below for videos

Releasing Male House Sparrow

Students Banding House Sparrow

On Thursday night, October 24th, Biology students from Millersville University went to the Hidden Valley Northern Saw-whet Owl Banding Station.  They got an overview of the Northern saw-whet owl research project and a first hand look at the field procedures used for the owl research project.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Click here for a quick video Northern Saw-whet Owl

 

On Friday October 11^th, Millersville University Environmental Biology Students, Matt Zak and Tristan Conrad, had an opportunity to work with the New Jersey Division of Fish and Wildlife’s black bear research project.  Under the supervision of New Jersey’s Black Bear Project Leader, Kelsey Burguss, students got exposed on how to trap, mark and sedate bears.  They were also involved in taking important measurements on bears and were informed of the management challenges for black bears in the state of New Jersey.  A total of 4 bears were trapped, sedated, processed and released.  We also got to help researchers from East Stroudsburg University take blood and tick samples from bears so they could conduct genetic analysis and identify infectious bacteria.  This was an amazing experience for the students.  We all learned a lot, and are very grateful to Kelsey Burguss and his team for providing us this valuable educational experience.

Refer below for some great pictures of bears as well as Tristan Conrad, Matt Zak and myself in the field.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

Students Gabrielle Barry and Justin Young have been working on organizing the Millersville Animal Museum.  Both are currently inputting data into the Museum Archive Database. The goal is to finish identifying and marking all birds, mammals, reptiles and amphibians.  After this is complete, the database of all these specimens will be made available online.