Final Trapping Day-Big Surprise!

Well, I am nearing the end of my fantastic adventure here in Nova Scotia. While I am sad to leave, I am excited to see you all again back home! Since today was our last day working at East Port Medway we needed to take our traps out. When we did, we found an awesome surprise waiting for us… a rock lemming!

The rock lemming is an animal that looks like a vole, but is bigger and has larger claws to help them walk on the rocks. The cool part about finding a rock lemming is that scientists and researchers have said that there are NO rock lemming in Nova Scotia!! Now that we’ve caught one, our head researchers will try to catch more throughout the summer to gather data on them. At the end of the summer, they will report their findings to the Mersey Tobeatic Research Institute (MTRI) which basically the government’s research center in Nova Scotia. With their research they will hopefully get the rock lemming recorded as a species of Nova Scotia. Although it might not seem like a big deal to find such a small animal, these small findings can tell people a lot about the environment and how it is changing overtime. Also, remember that small animals are at the base of the food chain and eventually effect larger animals and even humans! Their habitats and numbers are also a good indicator of climate change.

After we packed our traps, we headed back to the trail we started yesterday and finished it! Hopefully this will be a great addition to the new research sight. We then came back to the house to call the schools and have an outdoor survival crash course. Tonight we’re going to search for bats along the lakes and ponds by our house. Since bats like eating mosquitoes and other insects, boggy areas are the best place to search for bats. I'll be sure to post my findings.