Clouded Leopard Summit

In January, I spent an intensive week at the Smithsonian’s Conservation and Research Center.  Dr. Peter Leimgruber and I completed a manuscript using camera trap data from Khao Yai National Park and it is now being edited by all authors.  We plan to submit the paper by the end of February.  We also made progress with models predicting carnivore distribution in the park.  I will continue to tweak these in the upcoming months.

I submitted grant proposals for a Smithsonian Predoctoral Fellowship and Association for Women in Science grant.  My dissertation proposal was officially signed by my committee.

I am now back in Thailand and attended a Clouded Leopard and Small Felid Summit last week.  It was great to get all SE Asia felid researchers in one room to update distribution maps for species.  In working groups by country we outlined threats and identified actions that members of the group thought would have a conservation impact and that we could actually implement.  We identified the need to share data between study sites in Thailand and I was charged with organizing that from the complex where I am working.  I also made some good networking contacts which led to a couple of ideas to implement for trapping dholes.

Next month I will be back at my field site to check out what our camera traps captured while I was away.  I will purchase supplies and work with our vet’s schedule to determine when we can open our traps.  I received and tested two GPS/GSM collars last month.  My dog, Zeus, was happy to run around as my guinea pig and recorded very accurate locations (not under forest cover though…out on a frozen lake in Wisconsin).  Anyway, I am looking forward to finally getting trapping started.