Field Herpetology: It's better than playing Frogger

Day 7: Ummm yeah

2007-06-16T17:38:00.000-07:00

The drive home from Port Clinton, where I had parked my car, was actually a great drive. I was in a pretty good mood considering I had just finished an exhausting/successful week.

We had our final exam at 8 in the morning. A week prior to that date, I would have gotten maybe a 1/5 of the questions right if I was lucky. But after a week of hands on experience, the answers came pretty naturally to me. I didn't even study like I would for a 10 week class on main campus. Its like I actually learned from doing it. I really wish more classes were like this...

I think I forgot the cover letter for my questions...

I left Stone Lab with not only 3 really disgusting spider bites, but an awesome experience I'll never forget. I really wish I could have taken more classes there this summer, but I still have to take Biochemistry and unfortunately they didn't offer that on the lake. Next summer I definitely going to try and do the REU program which is basically doing research on an island. Can't be that, CAN YOU, CAN YOU???? NO... you can't.

Overall that is the best class I have taken in college. While it was intense, it was definitely worth it. It's safe to say the rest of the class probably feels the same. I do wish I could have hit up the bars though... its a good thing I kept my free taxi pass HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAA AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAA

I'll be back

Day 6: VIP at the TZ

2007-06-15T19:10:00.001-07:00

Today, we wound up in Toledo. My disdain for that city did not decrease any as I entered the city limits. I would have been fine, however for some reason despite being near the airport and 4 major interstates, I still did not have cell phone service. Good start I thought.

So we went to Oak Openings Park, which was a real nice area... even for Toledo. We were told that it was the location of a large variety of turtles and snakes, not to mention a ton of common Ohio frog life. After our failure with the Hellbenders at Mohican, seeing some herps would bring up the morale a bit.

Today, we were to be helping out conservation efforts of the Toledo Zoo with the Blandings Turtle. If you have been religiously following my blog you will remember back to Monday when I talked about our pal Ron Jeremy and how we released back into the wild of Middle Bass Island. Here at Oak Openings, the total number of Blandings turtles was known to be at around 1o. It is essentially a ghost population in which it is nearing extinction because there is no recruitment to the population by means of reproduction or new migrations. Part of this is due to the development of Toledo. Another reason to hate the city.

At the park we checked out 6 six net traps designed to trap the Blandings turtles so that we could monitor their movements and ages. In the process we caught plenty of these giant snapping turtles.

These things were pretty vicious and therefore I really liked them. They clearly did not want to be in the nets or in Toledo I'm sure.

I really liked these guys.... plain and simple

These snapping turtles were pretty powerful. So powerful that someone needed to basically step on them to make sure they didn't go any where or chop any feet off.

We ended up spotting a bunch of frogs including the bull frog, the green frog, and the spring peeper in the next couple hours. Being the frog guy I am, I was digging it. Eventually it was time to leave for the zoo so we could see everything, but from a behind the scenes look.

This is the "Stink pot" turtle... clearly it smelled awful

Little did we know that the cafeteria would stiff us about 8 sandwiches and leave us all either angry or hungry. I was fine though, during a gas stop at around 9 I thought it would be a good idea to get a Mountain Dew. In the process I saw they had premade sandwiches from this place with hundreds of cheeses... we drove by it every day and I can't remember the name, but regardless I had to try it. Needless to say it was delicious.

I did not eat this painted turtle, though I wanted to...

So we soon got to the Zoo in which B Flanny got us special VIP treatment. It was the best trip to the zoo I have ever had and we only saw the reptile house.

Didn't see these on Gibraltar...

Of course, we saw poison arrow frogs

Now I know most Zoos likely put one way glass on their exhibits so that the animals don't get stressed by visitors and that is probably a good idea. In our case we were in the area which these lovely King Cobras were fed. This glass was not one way. So we got to look at these guys "behind" the scenes and they were not happy. To think I was a 1/4 an inch of glass away from being bitten by probably the deadliest snake in the world and it felt pretty surreal. These two were striking the glass and making it known that they did infact want to get back at us. You might be asking why would they want to get back me, Erik? Well I believe it to be, they aren't that smart and think I'm the reason they are stuck in these zoo dungeons. I am very sorry to them. I tried telling them, but they just wouldn't have it. I eventually walked away knowing they would never accept my apology with anything other than a shot right to my face.

This Komodo dragon looked depressed.. poor guy

As our tour of the behinds of the scenes of the reptile house continued, we managed to get to touch and see stuff that common folk could dream (or dread) of doing.

The turtle he is holding is from somewhere around New Guinea. It has a long a neck and looks like something very inappropriate.

Baby alligators are so cute and cuddly.

After an extensive Zoo tour and some humping turtles, we left the cursed city. When we got back to the Gibraltar we had much fun still awaiting us. Not only would we be shortchanged dinner, we also had our species presentation to give. I wouldn't want to spend my night any other way.

Feeling bad due to our now apparent foes, the dining hall staff, Kristin decided to be real awesome and got us all pizza. She was through with the bologna (literally and figuratively) and decided to take matters into her own hands. I definitely will be giving her the 5 (excellent) on the teacher evaluation.

So despite not having much time during the week, besides when we got back from our field trips to do our power point presentations, we all did fine. Even Jim and his old school ways stepped it up and did great.

It was pretty obvious that while we may not have realized it, we learned a ton in the last week. Just the fact we all had so much general and even specific knowledge in our reports and were able to understand each other without looking puzzled really says something about our experience.

Tomorrow... is doomsday. Well not really.. we just turn in that insanely huge stack of questions and take a final. I'm sure we will sleep well with the hundreds of people partying at the bars of Put-in-bay yelling from across the bay. They are very considerate. zzz..zzz..zzz NOT

Day 5: The Hellbender left money under my pillow last night!!

2007-06-14T17:12:00.000-07:00

Today was supposed to be an incredible journey to Mohican State Park to find the elusive Hellbender salamander. With yet another 5:30 departure time and even less sleep than an insomniac usually gets, I was fully energized by my extremely large diet coke from McDonald's as well as a sausage McGriddle sandwich.

I know I went on a rant yesterday about how people misuse terms, but I have one more qualm. Why would you call a single sandwich a McGriddles when you are only getting one sandwich? Wouldn't it therefore be just a McGriddle sandwich? Why does there need to be the 's' at the end? Its bad grammar and I will NOT stand for it. I ATE ONE MCGRIDDLE SANDWICH TODAY, NOT A MCGRIDDLESSSSSSS.

Now that I'm all fired up, I need to finish my story. So we drove down to around Mansfield Ohio which is quaint to say the least. We met up with Greg Lipps, the Hellbender authority of the buckeye state. He was very optimistic about finding the Hellbender, the largest salamander in this side of the EARTH! By large I mean cat sized. I was of course excited for this and even more excited that I would get to go snorkeling. Turns out I would not accomplish either...

As you can see I am serious and ready for action today...

We all were real excited to start the search and started to enter the river. Its a good thing I had the proper skateboarding shoes to wear in a moving stream or else I could have been really unprepared, and not to mention uncomfortable for about 6 straight hours.

I decided not to take my camera (which is why I have hardly any picture from today) with me into the river because it was not water proof and I figured the large chunk of change it cost me (my parents) would not be worth destroying over what I would eventually find out is clearly a huge wive's tale.

Here is another Hellbender that also can't be located

We all collectively lifted up what where near 1 ton rocks in the river for several hours. By the end of it all we managed to not find a single Hellbender. We did however find several smaller salamanders including the spring salamander and the red back salamander. While they were cool, they were not Hellbenders.

Once 4 pm came around we accepted defeat and headed back to Stone Lab. The rolling hills of eastern Ohio were very kind to us on the way home in our 16 person passenger van. My fellow students and I now have the bumps to prove it.

We have one more field trip tomorrow to Toledo. I personally dislike Toledo, but we are going to the zoo and I like zoos, so the two cancel each other out. We are supposed to get a behind the scenes look at the reptile and amphibian exhibits as well as conservation stuff. It should be interesting. I mean at least we will see animals that exist, unlike the "Hellbender," which to me is now on the same level as the tooth fairy.

Day 4: Fred Flintstone and Barney Rubble worked in a quarry too

2007-06-13T17:07:00.000-07:00

After a choppy boat ride on the USS Minnow, we finally made it to Kelley's Island. The island as a whole looked just like South Bass Island, only with a different name... great I thought I... Was that 25 minute boat ride worth it?

Eventually once we boarded the Minnow's equivalent in van-form we made it to a massive quarry in the center of the island. Apparently back in the 1920's everyone was trying to take limestone out of this island due to its ridiculous abundance caused by the glaciers. In any event, I had never seen anything like it. It looks like that stereotypical baron waste land you see in scifi movies. When we first got there a huge Racer (snake) waiting for us. Snakes must follow Kristin around every where because not a day has gone by without them popping up out of no where.

The quarry reminded me of Led Zeppelin's "Houses of the Holy" album cover. If you have never seen or heard that album I highly suggest buying it. It is their quintessential masterpiece in my opinion as it is their peak in both lyrical content and musical experimentation.

Here is the big blue Racer that greeted us at the entrance of the quarry. He (or she) was very excited to spend the next 4 hours in a pillow case.

The main reason for our trip to Kelley's Island and especially this quarry was to take witness to the very large number of Salamanders located there. It is especially strange because the quarry itself is very dry and really not conducive to that kind of amphibious life, yet around the edges of it these things were throwing parties under all of the big stones.

We ended up catching around 30 of these unisexual hybrids that are a result of a couple theories including that they were geographically isolated and forced to mate because of the glaciers or just that they really like messing with their DNA. I ended up thinking it would be cool to pick up about 6 of them and take their picture. They kind of just sat that there and slimed my hands up.

Due to various forms of research going on with the genetics of salamanders with OSU graduate students, as well as other major scientists, we were cutting a tiny piece of tail off of each so that it could be sent off to a lab and it's genetic structure figured out. I guess it is to see why they keep making different kinds of offspring. Personally I think they just like making whoever writes and reads the Peterson's Field guide very confused.

Here is everyone processing the salamanders we caught.

Here is the second quarry we went to. I don't know if you can tell from this picture, but it was gigantic and very deep. It's funny how in college no one told us to be careful around there. It's like we were supposed to already know. I could have been seriously injured.

Here is a picture of a small red back salamander. They are very tiny and squirmy. Not to mention sticky too. I'd like to point out here that reptiles are NOT slimy! Especially snakes. there is nothing slimy about them, in fact they are dry. It is amphibians like salamanders that ARE slimly. That has always bothered me...

Here is the marbled salamander. They are slimy too, but very cuddly, yet not as cuddly as yesterday's Massausaga rattlesnake.

Through the course of the day I kept running into these American Toads. I have seen these things every where in Ohio since I was a young lad. They like to pee on you when you pick them up. So after about 22 years on Earth I finally figure out to pick them up from their sides so they just soil themselves rather than me.

Later on, in a failed attempt at finding the Hognosed snake I found two more American Toads underneath an old door in yet another quarry site on Kelley's Island. I'm not sure what they were doing before I found them, but something tells me it was X-rated.

So that about wraps up today. Tomorrow is another wake up at the crack of dawn day in order to head to Mansfield to look for the Hellbender salamander. Apparently it is also a big deal to see one of those in nature. I'm debating whether they are as mean as their name implies. Unless it has like 8 limbs and 3 heads shooting fire out of their mouths I think it should probably have a different and kinder name.

Day 3: Snakes on a plain

2007-06-12T16:02:00.000-07:00

The only good thing about waking up at 4:30 am and catching the first ferry out is this beautiful sunrise I got to witness on the waters of lake Erie...

Since we were up so early and nearly everyone over the age of 18 has a caffeine dependence, we luckily stopped by the world's slowest McDonald's to get coffee and in my case, diet coke. I'm sorry, but I will never like coffee. So once we got that taken care of we headed to a place called the Killdeer Plains Wildlife Area. Basically its a giant prairie full of endangered animals such as the Massasauga rattlesnake and the Plains garter snake. I should also point out that it isn't uncommon to spot our national bird among many other rare avian species in this area.

When we finally arrived at the wildlife area, we met Doug Wynn, whom pretty much is the master authority of snakes in that area and snakes in Ohio for that matter. Much like the work Kristin does up here at Lake Erie, Doug does with the Massasauga and Plains garter snakes at Killdeer.

Now unlike the rubber matted areas we turned over to look for the Lake Erie Water Snakes the day prior, we had to lift up these tins that were strategically placed all about the plains area. As much of it was rusting in the above picture it made me wonder several questions...

1.) I wonder if I need a tetanus shot?
2.) Do these snakes need tetanus shots?
3.) Is there going to be bologna again for lunch?

While I managed to only answer the third and quite possibly most important question, I'm still wondering about the tetanus... I guess I will google it later if I really have nothing better to do.

Oh and by the way, no bologna. Maybe the people who prepare our lunches are reading?

In any event, right away we ran into a rattle snake.

Just in case you miss the tetanus from lifting up the rusty tin, you still might be lucky enough to find some other type of danger, thank God...

Soon after finding the first snake, we moved on to check more of the tins in an attempt to find more of these rattle snakes. We eventually found one, but not under a tin, rather sitting right beside a student. This one we would keep for later and see basically how one processes a venomous snake such as the Massasauga.

Perhaps the coolest part of the trip came soon after, when we were all able to release young Plains Garter snakes into the wild that were raised at the Columbus zoo. It is considered a very big deal since they are so rare and threatened.

While my friends and family know me to be a frog type of guy, I must admit these little guys were pretty cool and it was definitely an honor being someone letting them go back into nature.

Sadly, they weren't as good as gummy worms

The rest of the day involved us looking for more garter snakes and flipping more tins. It was alright, but the last part of the day was awesome.

The processing of the rattle snake, which wrapped up our experience at Killdeer, was similar to something seen on animal planet. We got to see how to handle a rattle snake, milk it, mark it, measure it, and even palpate the embryos inside it.

Got venom?

Here is the Massasauga posing for us all, they are really cuddly in person...

Today ended up being another great day of actual biology unlike the last 4 years of text books and lectures (no offense OSU, but the field is much better than any lecture class). It is kind of a shame that as a Zoology major this kind of course wasn't even a requirement. Luckily due to transferring schools early in college and a bit too much of partying at times, I am able to prolong this experience.

Tomorrow we go to Kelley's Island. Who is Kelley? and why does she have an island? We will all find out tomorrow...

Day 2: Snakes and Bologna = trouble

2007-06-11T16:47:00.000-07:00

Day 2 came rather quickly. Since I forgot bed sheets and my own pillow sleep isn't exactly just like it is at home for me, but luckily today I am so tired that it won't even matter. To help enhance my nocturnal experience, I purchased an over-priced beach towel for 21 dollars at a wanna be surf shop in Put-In-Bay; it will have to suffice as a temporary comforter. So onto what happened today...

At 8 am we headed to Middle Bass Island for a what I will call a snake hunt. In particular the Lake Erie Water Snake, which despite how it seems they are as common as mosquito's here, they are in fact a state and federally threatened animal. Before I get into the snake experience, I want to mention our re-release experience of Ron Jeremy into the wild.

Here is our pal, Ron Jeremy, a Blandings Turtle

Here is why they named him Ron Jeremy...
Hey don't call me a pervert, it was the class's idea for the name

Apparently a couple days prior to our classes arrival, this turtle was caught and we were to re-release him back to his luxurious life of mating and doing whatever it is a turtle does with their time on Middle Bass Island. He was clearly real excited by anyone who held him...

The majority of the day would be spent catching the Lake Erie Water Snake. These things were pretty easy find on this island. It's not unusual to see them swimming along the shore line or basking in the sun on rocks near the shore line. These snakes in particular, are not understood well by common folk of this region. It appears that some people don't comprehend why they an important animal to this ecosystem... even I was skeptical at first.

With buildup and human interference, the Lake Erie Water Snakes are losing some of their natural hibernation locations as well as their overall active areas. Our main instructor, Kristin, who is monitoring the distribution of these snakes discussed with the class many of the ways the department of wildlife and herself are trying to help these snakes as well as the human inhabitants of this environment. The interesting part was of course, the whole point of this class... field herpetology.

Using PIT to track snakes

For example, here we are learning about Passive Integrated Transponders, which are basically surgically implanted beacons that allow researchers such as Kristin find and keep track of snakes.

Soon enough we got to take part in the best part of actual field herpetology, which was collecting the snakes. In the picture above, Keith decided to chase one of them in the lake and was successful. He would pretty much spend the rest of the time in the lake cutting himself on zebra mussels and catching more snakes. It's safe to say he had a good time.

After learning tracking and capturing techniques we finally got to eat lunch. To my dismay after a request that I would not have to see bologna, we opened the cooler to find a couple bologna sandwiches. I must have been a very cruel person in a past life... but luckily there were other types of sandwiches besides bologna, but still come on now people...

"snake bite"

As the day went on we would catch more and more water snakes. These snakes weren't exactly the happiest to see us. However, they were kind enough to serve most of us my favorite drink, a "snake bite". While theirs did not contain Yukon Jack and lime, they still packed quite a punch. Ironically since the Lake Erie Water Snakes aren't venomous, this type of snake bite is probably not as bad for you as the one I prefer...

Moving on... we concluded the day with marking, measuring and and releasing of the water snakes back to their shoreline homes.

I dare you to stick your hand in the middle...

So it turned out to be a very busy and exciting day. Tomorrow should be the same... except for the whole 5:30 departure time which means 4:30 am wake up, which means no sleep, which means me not happy. Oh and to make it even more fun we will be looking for the Massasauga Rattlesnake... I wonder if their bites hurt?

Day 1: The Arrival/deforestation of the giant red wood trees

2007-06-10T17:02:00.000-07:00

As I arrived to Port Clinton to board the ferry to South Bass Island (Put-In-Bay) the weather was absolutely perfect. The car ride from Columbus was only about an hour and forty five minutes, which totally disproved the mapquest.com directions claiming a whopping 2 hours 24 minutes. Anyway... So I get to the dock and board the ferry and finally arrive at Put-in-Bay and then to Gibraltar Island where Stone lab was located.

Shot of Gibraltar Island (Stone Lab) from the ferry

After orientation and dinner we had our first class with Kristin Stanford and Bill Flannigan. Kristin was the one who was featured on the show "Dirty Jobs," dealing with the water snakes in the Lake Erie region. In our description of the class we learned that we could be literally doing field herpetology in the field rather than just taking notes from a power point slide like your typical biology class. So it seems like a pretty good deal thus far.... well except for the mass amount of reading we were given...

This 3 pound stack of papers is for just one week!!
So sorry trees

Despite what may seem to be an overwhelming amount of reading, Kristin assured us it was very doable and we would all do fine... We shall see, but at least we get to go water snake hunting tomorrow on Middle Bass Island.