Why?
“The presence or absence of ground squirrels and other small mammals says a lot about the health of an ecosystem.” Richard Bautz, DNR Research Station
There are a number of reasons to study the diversity and abundance of shrews, voles, mice and other small grassland mammals. These little balls of fur provide food for hawks and foxes and play an important role in seed dispersal and influence insect populations. In Wisconsin, no comprehensive inventory of small mammal species has been done since H.H.T. Jackson's book Mammals of Wisconsin was published in 1961. We are especially interested in finding the least shrew, the pine vole, and Franklin's ground squirrel -- grassland species that historically occurred in the Sun Prairie area, but haven't be been sighted in some time.
There are a number of reasons to study the diversity and abundance of shrews, voles, mice and other small grassland mammals. These little balls of fur provide food for hawks and foxes and play an important role in seed dispersal and influence insect populations. In Wisconsin, no comprehensive inventory of small mammal species has been done since H.H.T. Jackson's book Mammals of Wisconsin was published in 1961. We are especially interested in finding the least shrew, the pine vole, and Franklin's ground squirrel -- grassland species that historically occurred in the Sun Prairie area, but haven't be been sighted in some time.
A Poem by Trevor Hamlet
Small Mammal Monitoring
Small Mammals research at the Patrick Marsh Wildlife area were monitored by using "Sherman Live Traps", "Drop Traps", & "Homemade Can Traps". We picked seven different habitats around the Patrick Marsh to place traps.
Two Sites were by the water
Sedges (native) and Reed Canary Grass (non-native). These sites had short duff areas.
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Two Sites were in the prairie uplands, a short grass site and a long grass site. These sites had deep duff areas. |  |
One Site was on the edge of Punk Racer Duck Pond. This is a small sink hole next of the large lake. This area is nearly dry in the fall but can have three feet of water in the spring. |  |
One site was in the Broome Grass(non-native) This site is located were a farm house was located before the DOT purchaed the land. |  |
The last site was in the Cup Flower(native) part of the restored prairie. |  |
Traps were baited but not set on Wednesday morning to let the animals acclimate to the trap. On Friday morning we baited and set traps. Traps were checked on Friday afternoon. When we caught an animal we collected the following data:
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Then the animal was marked by a bit of paint on the left ear and released.
Track Tubes
We also monitored small mammal activity by placing track tubes at our seven sites. A track tube is a plastic tube with a piece of paper inside. A special ink is placed on felt pads at each in of the paper. Oatmeal is used a bait. When an animal walks through the tube they leave their tracks. The tracks were then scanned and digitized. An image analysis program was used to measure the density of the track marks and provide a rough measure of small mammal activity.
