CSERC’s camera surveys also found highly varying results in the Rim Fire
Not all of our baited camera stations’ pictures were triggered at night, but the four examples shown on this page provide a good range of the wildlife species that were photographed this year during CSERC’s Rim Fire surveys. We provided the months of surveys at no cost in order to assist the Forest Service. The fluffy white tail of the spotted skunk looks almost like plumes. The mountain lion is rubbing its head against the stinky attractant scent that we’d smeared on the bait tree. The lion obviously found the gross smell to be a perfume. The bobcat never actually pulled on the sock with the chicken legs inside. It was too cautious. But the gray fox hungrily tugged and pulled until it got the bait.
Responses to the cameras ranged greatly. At two stations in the broad area of burned forest where the lion was photographed, only three total animals were photographed at the two cameras over an entire month. In contrast, in other parts of the fire, especially where intact patches of unburned, green forest survived, we got as many as four different species of animals photographed at a camera in just two days.
