Money, Money, Money

So as the wildlife biologist for Katmai I have a lot of things I would like to study.  I would love to fly around in a helicopter looking for trumpeter swans that may be wintering in the park.  I would love to take a boat ride up our coast and look for raptors.  I would love to spend about a week at Novarupta and see what animals have returned to the area because last summer I got reports that there were hares there and that is the first recording of hares since the eruption in 1912.  I would love to go to Aniakchak and start studying the caribou or the moose or the bear population since they have not been done since 1984 and then only in the caldera.  But to do that takes money and lots of it. 

This week is budget week.  Each national park gets a base amount of money and then each department gets a junk of that then projects get decided.  I have some projects that have to be done for instance the camera project that takes pictures of bear and people density on the lower falls platform.  This number is used to decide where the bridge goes and how many seasonal staff may be required to get people across.  I also have to do annual moose surveys as they help keep track of how many can be hunted. 

Nationally all the park biologist compete for additional funding to do their projects.  Proposals for that are due the end of the Dec.  I am currently working on four for that.  A swan survey, as trumpeters have been seen in Katmai and that is an extension of their range and I would like to see if it is just a rare occurrence or a major shift.  I want to study wolverines so I am writing a proposal to do that, my boss wants me to look into doing a project to study the invasive animal species that may exist in the park.  For instance in the early 1900's fox farms were found all along our coast on the islands.  He wants to know if we have farmed fox relatives in our fox population.  And last but not least I want to get a citizen science app for peoples IPhone and Ipads so that when they visit the park they can record animal sightings with the app and help me collect more data.  Wouldn't that be awesome!!!  I could make all of you part of my biological team.  Of course that takes money.  Keep your fingers crossed that we get some of pot.  Or that I find a rare money tree growing in the tundra.