Adam Bradley is an avid adventure athlete with a speed record of the PCT in 2009 and has traveled over 20,000 miles on foot and 13,000 river miles on his quest for human powered adventures.  Adam is currently biking from his front door in Reno, NV to Prudhoe Bay, AK and back.  Along his journey he will be recording observations of road kill for the ASC Road Kill Survey for Road Bikers.  Adam's contribution to this project will help researchers identify areas with high animal/vehicle interactions along the stretches of road he travels.  Below is an excerpt from his blog, Never Came Back,  explaining how ASC will fit into his human powered trip

Mary Catherine O'Connor of Outside Magazine kindly put me in touch with another NGO: Scientists and Adventurers for Conservation.  This group I highly recommend to any outdoors aficionado as we all as outdoors people may contribute to science through our observations out in the wild.  There are several ongoing studies on their website that one may take part in by simply creating an account and uploading the locations of their observations.  One that caught my eye for being a perfect fit for my bicycle leg of the Tippy Top Tour is the road kill study.  Not only do they want data collected on road kill that is observed along my route, but also the waypoints of all the live animals I observe.  Cool thing about that is when I return they will also be able to use my uploaded data from last years BLC to Bering Sea adventure.  This data is then used with regards to recommendations for wildlife corridors along busy highways where collision with animals may be avoided.

I will have my gps located on the top of my handle bar bag again and will basically waypoint my observations while on the fly.  When I get in camp at night I will note like I did last year in my journal which waypoint was which animal.  I think the 7,600+ miles of the Tippy Top Tour is an excellent route to provide lots of data for this ongoing study.

I am very lucky and honored to have these two opportunities fit in with the Tippy Top Tour. Going forward I hope to have an environmental component to all of my adventures in addition to my commitment to human powered adventures.  I hope to inspire you to take part in or consider taking part in work with NGO's likeManomet or Scientists and Adventurers for Conservation too.  If that isn't possible maybe consider donating to non-profits like these.  Now is a really good time too as our budget is really lean for groups/ studies like this going forward.

- Adam Bradley
To follow Adam's Tippy Top Tour visit his blog

ASC Adventurer Paul Gamache is a professional white water kayaker who has explored waterways around the world.  His latest adventure is in Cameroon, one of the least explored countries for white water paddling.  Paul has spent the last few months scouting rivers and making first descents.  Along the way he has also  been collecting beetles for the ASC World Wide Beetle project.  Read more about Paul's kayaking expedition at http://www.chutesducameroun.com.  

I left  Arcata, California in January of 2013 and  headed to Cameroon, West Africa in search of whitewater. As I was packing my bags I received an email from my friend Haven Livingston. She had just had written an article for International Rivers on “Citizen Science” and went on to tell me about the work ASC was doing.

Excited about adding value to the kayaking expedition as well as helping out others with their research, I filled out the info request on the ASC website. Within a short time ASC had connected my exploratory whitewater kayaking expedition with a group of scientists who were looking to study beetle specimens from the area.  After a Skype meeting with ASC in the U.S. and a scientist currently in Kenya, I started collecting beetles.

Besides the fear of discovering a poisonous beetle in Cameroon or potentially being bitten by something, it has worked out really well. Collecting samples turned out to be much easier than I had anticipated. At night small beetles would fly into my apartment and it was just a matter of catching them and putting them in a zip-lock and adding alcohol.  While on the river, beetles would land on my kayak during lunch breaks and I would collect them in a Nalgene.

ASC did a great job pairing the two projects. In total a local entomologist, Mefondo Divine Lyonga, and I have collected over 50 beetles of 10 species from 4 different regions of Cameroon! 

For more information on the Cameroon Expedition go to: www.chutesducameroun.com and Sperry Top-Sider’s www.passionforthesea.com 

-Paul Gamache

Karen and Markus are world travellers and avid adventurers.  For the second leg of their trip, they are bicycling through Europe and recording roadkill observations for theASC Roadkill Survey for Road Bikers.  For more on their trip, visit their website http://2enroute.blogspot.com/.

There are many reasons the average person might stop and stare at Markus and I as we go about daily life on this trip. It might be because we are pushing fully loaded bikes up flights of stairs in a crowded train station. It could be the impossible-to-ignore fluorescent orange biking vests. Or it might be because we are standing in the middle of a road photographing squashed toads.

Yes, you read that right! We’ve partnered with Adventurers and Scientists for Conservation again for the European leg of our journey, this time with the goal of documenting roadkill observations for the University of California Davis Road Ecology Center.

It can be easy to forget, especially when speeding along at 100 km/hour in a car, that we share all the places we inhabit with other animals who have places to go and things to do too. Just as we humans move throughout our “home ranges” to carry out daily tasks, seasonal activities, or major events and milestones in our lives, other animals do the same. But how often do we imagine the landscapes we travel as multi-species landscapes? Animals use the same roads we do, sometimes just to cross them, sometimes as travel routes or foraging areas. And remembering this when we design roads can make a huge difference to some wildlife populations, whether by reducing vehicle collision deaths or by enabling fragmented subpopulations to stay connected.  

Bicycling thousands of kilometers through Europe in spring means passing through different wildlife habitats and patterns of land use nearly every day. Thanks to our re-route to begin our trip in Croatia while central Europe was still covered in snow, we have found ourselves surrounded by budding trees and blooming flowers all the way as we chase the leading edge of springtime to the north. The great benefit of covering so much territory is that we witness so many patterns. Though our roadkill observations have been much less frequent than we expected (perhaps because central Europe has less wildlife in general than other places such as California where other roadkill studies have been done), the patterns we see make sense. We see dead songbirds near forests, dead rats and birds of prey near farm fields, and dead frogs and toads near wetlands.

Our most striking observations yet have been the mass mortalities of toads in some places. We had seen only a couple roadkills so far when, one week into our trip, we biked through the village of Sava, Slovenia and passed approximately 30 squashed toads in the space of 200 meters. Over the next several days, when we passed small wetlands, we saw more and we probably missed a lot since it turns out the leathery, dark bodies of flattened toads look an awful lot like clumps of dirt or bits of tire rubber when you fly by them at 20 km/hour. Markus told me that many local conservation organizations in Europe put up frog fences along roadsides where crossings are common to reduce frog and toad deaths. In one Austrian village where we stopped to photograph a couple toads on the road, we noticed one such fence nearby that was in need of repair. It’s things like these fences, or wildlife crossing bridges, that can make a difference for wildlife populations

Grant Adams is passionate about making a difference. He is currently living and working in Ulcumayo, Peru as a Peace Corps Volunteer focusing on environmental management. While his work includes projects in everything from reforestation to tourism, much of it is focused around education in basic conservation and pollution reduction. As if this were not enough, Grant is also working with ASC and the Pacific Biodiversity Institute to collect data from the remote areas around the town in which he lives. The information he gathers and sends back will help to form a clearer picture of this region and the species at risk within it.

The Pacific Biodiversity Institute is making strides to collect as much data as possible in South America in order to identify areas that are at high risk for biodiversity loss. By exploring South America’s wild places, recording biodiversity, and determining the impacts of humans on various ecosystems, the organization is forming a more coherent image of these environments. With more information about wild areas, the Pacific Biodiversity Institute is able to identify how and where conservation efforts should be focused. This requires many partnerships stretching from the local level to a global scale, a great deal of coordination, and of course – volunteers like Grant.

Grant has been busy collecting data for the Pacific Biodiversity Institute in Peru. “I collect land-use and biodiversity data through GPS data, photos, and field notes,” Grant explains. “Documenting road characteristics (is the road paved, is there seasonal usage, is there high or low traffic, etc.) also plays a major role in my work.” In order to obtain information on vast and remote areas, Grant embarks on extended hiking trips, backpacking across mountainous and rugged terrain. In many of the small towns he visits, he is the first outsider the locals have ever seen. “While visiting one town, I found that the children would run away from me and hide behind buildings, peaking around the corners. I was confused by their reaction at first, but it turns out they thought I was the “Pishtaco,” the Peruvian boogie-man.”

Grant’s efforts are crucial to understanding Peru’s biodiversity and the threats that it faces. He is working in an area with comparatively few inhabitants, but like many regions in South America and the world over, it is challenged both directly and indirectly by humans despite the fact that relatively little is known about it. “My experience is unique in that I am one of the first to collect information in Ulcumayo for scientific purposes,” he says. “Very little is known about the district of Ulcumayo so I hope to assist in that aspect. I also have found throughout my experience that deforestation and pollution are large problems. [T]here is a need for a better understanding of how these two human impacts effect the local environment.”

As a citizen scientist, Grant has had his share of setbacks. Not only were his computer and camera stolen on a trip last year, but his two external hard drives - with all of his data backed up on them – crashed, wiping out most of his findings. Grant has a friend in the U.S. working to recover any data possible, but in the meantime he is continuing to collect information and send it on to the Pacific Biodiversity Institute. 

Despite the difficulties he has encountered, Grant has found that this endeavor is contributing to his sense of purpose in Peru. While his work with the Peace Corps is very rewarding, results are obviously not always instant and tangible. He is enjoying the immediate satisfaction of collecting and sharing data with the knowledge that it will contribute to the preservation and conservation of Ulcumayo. 

Grant’s work in exploring and documenting some of Peru’s more remote areas is a great example of the very real effect that people can have as ASC citizen scientists. If you’re in South America or planning a trip there, you can get involved in a number of projects through ASC, including the Pacific Biodiversity Institute. For more information on how to get involved in South America, visit http://www.adventureandscience.org/wildlands-south-america.html. 


~ Liam Dillaway

Hari Mix is a PhD Candidate at Stanford University and is climbing in the Himalaya as part of a team of researchers, TripleED, who are studying decision making in high altitude environments.  Hari is collecting snow samples and lichen for two ASC projects while attempting  to summit Mt. Everest and East Lobuche. 

Hari writes:

One interesting twist in my climb was that I’ve continued to work with Adventurers and Scientists for Conservation to do some climate science projects on these trips. As long as I’m a scientist and heading to these wild places, the least I can do is help some of my peers who need data. Just below the summit of Lobuche East yesterday, I rappelled off the lip of a crevasse to get some snow and ice samples for Natalie Kehrwald, who’s work focuses on the thinning of Himalayan glaciers due to climate change and the role of dust and other particles in accelerating the melting. A huge thanks to Chris Klinke, our expedition leader, who helped me set up our anchor system, and Markus Hallgren, the head of our TripleED research project on how teams are organized. Markus let me take the time off from my main research duties to pull this off. I’ll continue doing some science projects on Everest. I hope to collect the highest plant life ever and also create an altitude transect of smaller snow samples as high as I can. I’ll just say that carrying 15 1L Nalgene bottles up to 20,000ft was plenty hard!

Take care,
Hari

To follow Hari's expedition, learn more about his research, or see more beautiful photos please visit his blog www.hmix.org.  

Laura K.O. Smith recently returned from sailing the Antarctic Peninsula while collecting data for two ASC studies on whale and penguin behavior. Sailing on Quijote, a 40-foot sailboat designed and crafted by her husband, Federico Guerrero, the crew departed January 27 from Ushuaia, the capital of Tierra del Fuego, commonly regarded as the southernmost city in the world. 

Guerrero began building Quijote in 2008, and launched her maiden voyage in 2011. Guerrero and Smith had always dreamed of sailing the Antarctic Peninsula, and Quijote was built with that rigorous expedition in mind. Smith said the vessel did well on the journey that began with Deception Island and continued south through the Argentine Islands to Vernadsky Station, crossing the infamous Drake Passage twice and carefully meandering through seemingly endless ice fields.

For Smith and Guerrero, the plan was simple in theory: build a strong boat they could live on while completing various expeditions around the world. “We just wanted to travel on a ship that we built and enjoy it,” Smith said. The Quijote offered the adventurous couple the freedom they desired. Smith, however, wanted to add to the journey. When She became aware of ASC through an article in Adventure Journal, she immediately hopped on board. “I saw that it was exactly what I was looking for,” Smith said. 

She had experienced difficulty in the past attempting to contribute to scientific research. “The research needs to be basic enough to be able to do it without fear of messing up or getting bad data,” Smith said. “Had I done something with geology, I would need permits to collect samples in Antarctica. In the end it was better for us to do observations, and from a scientist’s perspective, it takes effort to coordinate to make sure you’re getting the right match.”

ASC found Smith the right match when it paired the crew with Julie Hagelin, a researcher studying whales and penguins. Hagelin is collecting data to determine if baleen whales (filter feeders) use scent to track down food. Scientists recently discovered an olfactory bulb in baleen whales, and if the gland is more than a defunct relic of evolution, Hagelin postulates that the massive mammals use this bulb to track plankton from their signature sulfur scent. Smith documented whale sightings by noting the direction they were swimming in conjunction with wind direction.

Hagelin also conducts research on penguin colonies that will determine if the flightless birds use their right and left eyes differently. Observations of paths that are formed during high snow pack suggest that penguins may walk in uniform lanes and pass on the same side each time they meet, similar to drivers on a two lane road. 

The crew documented 26 whale sightings, sometimes eyeing a long traveler or observing up to eight of the docile creatures in a group. They identified humpback, minke and fin whales. The team was also able to capture incredible images of penguins interacting in their harsh environment. 

For Smith, participating directly in citizen science is a meaningful way for her to directly understand the landscape. “When I travel, I feel like I’m taking, taking, and taking, and it’s nice to now have a strong connection where you’ve been and a sense of giving back.”

Smith said becoming an ASC adventurer helps her stay in touch with her scientific background. “For me, it meant a lot; it was a way to give back,” Smith said. “It put our trip in a broader context. We have other trips to Antarctica planned in the future. Hopefully we stay involved with ASC.”  For a full account of Laura's adventures in the arctic, visit her blog here.

- Dylan Jones

Irina Muschik is a wildlife biologist from Germany who has  been travelling  East through Russia interviewing wildlife researchers for her project, Greentrousers.  She has been collecting data for several ASC projects including Pika Monitoring andRoadkill Observations.  Irina is on her way to Mongolia, but wrote this interesting tale of the medicinal uses of pika. 

While travelling throughCentral Asia ASC connected me topika researcher, Andrew Smith, who commissioned me with a very mysterious task. He told me about a traditional medicine, called mumeo, that´s solely used in Central Asia and contains pika feces! My initial thought was: "What the heck?!", but at the same time I was hooked. I wanted to know everything about it and would ask any Central Asian I encountered about this mysterious stuff. Andrew wanted to know if mumeo is still in use and if you can buy it on the markets. The second demand he gave me wasn´t as funny unfortunately: pikas in Asia are threatened by poisoning and I should ask around if this is still happening.  I spent two month in Kazakhstan, travelling the vast country from west to east and south to north. Plenty of different pika species are inhabiting the steppes and the lesser known mountainous parts of this beautiful part of the world.

For my website interview project (www.greentrousers.org) I planned to visit Kazakh wildlife researchers who I hoped could answer my pika questions. In the capital of Astana I first met some people from the NGO ACBK, who are working on saiga and social lapwing conservation. They told me they don´t spot steppe pikas very often (due to their night activity I guess), but sometimes hear them whistling. Interestingly the ongoing poisoning doesn´t seem to be focussed on pikas and it´s not because of fearing harvest loss as I have initially thought.  They poison to try to defeating plague disease, which still occurs in gerbils, mostly in southern Kasakhstan. By poisoning the infected areas they of course eradicate all rodents who used to live there, including pikas. About mumeo they only said with a smile: "Some people still believe in it...". It seems to be found in more mountainous areas and Eastern Kazakhstan and that´s were I went next.

I took a train and traversed the whole country. Depending from where you start this can easily take up to three days, sitting or lying around in a wagon with 50 Kazakhs and loads of fresh air, ... mhh no, not really ;) But it´s great fun and I really enjoyed my train rides in Central Asia. It´s the best way to get in touch with locals and to experience a bit of their culture. Due to my russian language skills I was able to talk to them, was invited for dinner and I even got free lessons in the history of Kazakhstan. If you ever come to Central Asia or Russia please don´t hesitate to buy a cheap 3rd class train ticket and socialize with these super hospitable people. It´s like putting the cherry on a cake of great landscape views and beautiful nature. Eventually I ended up hiking the mountain ridge south of Almaty, close to the Kyrgiz border. Andrew gave me some directions to a good pika spot on a big talus field ,and down in the city a friend showed me some pictures of his pika sightings nearby at Big Almatinsky Lake. I was very keen to see those cuties finally, but isn´t it always like this? If you really long for something, you won´t get it and therefore I never saw a single pika in Kazakhstan. Instead I encountered lots of big, fat marmots, many different species of insects, plenty of beautiful alpine flowers and an Ibisbill next to the lake.

Back in the city I tried my luck with mumeo again and went to one of the bigger bazars in Almaty. A biologist whom I met said that it´s widely known in southern Kazakhstan and every pharmacy has it. You can even buy it as tablets in blister packs! He never heard about pika feces as an ingredient, but said it may contain lichen and other mountain plants. The people use it against colds and for lung diseases. Later on in the Russian Altai Mountains another biologist confirmed that mumeo contains dried out feces, but he insisted that it comes from voles and not from pikas! He also believed that it works if you´re got a cold. The people who produce mumeo would go to places in the mountains, where you can find vole scats on the bottom of rocks. By digging and scraping it off, mumeo would in the end contain the feces as well as some lichen and other plants. So for me the whole mumeo thing remains mysterious. Are there feces in it or not? And does it make sense to use scats as pre-processed mountain plants? I guess it´s a matter of belief and so far I never tried, although I carry mumeo in my first-aid-kit now because I really found it in the bazar :) An old lady sold herb teas and "natural" medicine. She had 5g plastic packs of a thick black substance for 100 Tengre each (~50ct). Her instructions for how to use it goes like this: Dissolve this 5g of mumeo (which is called mumiye here) in 200 ml boiled & cooled down water. Then give 1 small spoon of this dissolution into a half-filled glas of water. You should drink three times a day 1 big spoon of it before having a meal. On the plastic package it is said that mumeo does not expire and that you can use it against disease of bones, if you burned your skin (don´t know if to drink then) and that it´s good for your stomach, guts and kidneys. It also prevents heart attacks and thromboflebitis.

Without ASC I would have never known what Central Asian traditional medicine is about and that it can be linked to pika research. I really had a lot of fun with this task and hope you enjoyed my little report about it :)

- Irina Muschik

ASC adventurer, Grant Mooney, recently summited Mount Kilimanjaro, Africa’s highest mountain, and collected animal observations for UMass Amherst Senior Research Fellow, Doug Hardy.  Dr. Hardy, a specialist in climate and glaciers, is looking for evidence of mammals and birds at high elevations (above 13,000 ft) of Kilimanjaro.  He plans to use radiocarbon dating on frozen remains of animals in order to more accurately estimate the age of Kilimanjaro’s ice.

As Mooney ascended the 19,341-foot Tanzanian mountain, he used his GPS to mark the altitude and coordinates of the animals he spotted.  He observed 15 to 20 birds and small rodents at high altitudes, including a mouse at the 17,000-foot mark.  Most of the animals Mooney saw were scavengers, such as white napped ravens, which he assumed traveled to high elevations to feed on the scraps left behind by climbers.

Mooney, an economic and business analyst for the International Trade Administration, jumped on the opportunity to climb Kilimanjaro.  Although the climbing route they took, Machame, is not considered a technical climb, the high elevation demands extreme physical fitness.  Mooney, who had never previously climbed in such high altitudes, described the expedition as “long and intense” but “manageable.” 

“Working with ASC and Dr. Hardy made both me and my group aware of the effects that this glacier has, not only on Africa and the world, but also on the local communities that depend on it for fresh water,” said Mooney.

He added, “The ice fields on Kilimanjaro will disappear at some point.  Water will disappear for the surrounding native populations.”

Mount Kilimanjaro gained global attention in the early 2000s when environmental scientists predicted that its glaciers would completely recede by 2015.  Scientists now believe the ice has another 10-50 more years until it vanishes.

Despite the uncertainty of these predictions, one fact remains clear – and precarious – “Of the ice cover present [on Kilimanjaro] in 1912, 85% has disappeared and 26% of that present in 2000 is now gone…The combination of processes driving the current shrinking and thinning of Kilimanjaro's ice fields is unique within an 11,700-year perspective.”

Dr. Hardy, who has been studying Kilimanjaro’s glaciers and weather since 2000, considers ASC a “fascinating opportunity to involve citizen science.” 

He continued, “There are already so many climbers on the mountain.  If we can get them to make simple observations, we can gain a better understanding of the relative abundance of the animals up there, where they hang out, and how the climate has changed over time.”

- P.J. Hoffman

ASC is proud to be involved with John Davis, TrekWest, and the Wildlands Network to bring awareness to the importance of protecting wildlife corridors.  John will travel 5,000 miles from Mexico to Canada on foot, bike, horse, and many other forms of transportation to inspire others to protect these important wildlife thoroughfares.  Along John's journey he will be collecting data for several ASC projects including Roadkill Observations, Wildlife Observations, observing ptarmigan, and the Pika Project.   This post was retrieved from http://trekwest.org/blog/blog-11-a-case-for-good-dams/ on March 14th, 2013.


Rancho San Bernadino, Sonora, Mexico, along US border

Eventually, these check dams will disappear beneath the soil and plant communities, as all good dams should…”

Until recently, I thought only beavers could build beneficial dams.  Valer Austin convinced me, as well as Oprah, otherwise.  On many formerly eroded and degraded hillsides on Cuenca Los Ojos lands, Valer and Josiah Austin and their restoration teams have built gabions, small check dams,to slow water run-off and allow soil to rebuild.  At their showpiece restoration site, San Bernadino Ranch, on the south side of the Arizona/Sonora border, they have also built larger earthen dams, to accrete soil and vegetation layers back up to near their original levels.

The biggest dam is more than a hundred yards wide and, including the spillway, more than 20 feet high – to match the arroyo down-cutting resulting from decades of heavy grazing by cows.  The dams are not pretty, being essentially caged rocks, but they do their jobs well.  Layers of sediment accumulate behind the check dams, more caged rocks are piled atop, and gradually the ground returns to its natural levels.  Eventually, these check dams will disappear beneath the soil and plant communities, as all good dams should.

Soon, some of this work may be done for CLO by beavers themselves.  Castor, as the ecosystem-enhancing rodent is known in Spanish (matching the scientific name for the North American beaver, Castor canadensis) was eradicated from most of the Madrean Archipelago region decades ago, but has returned to a few streams; and if all goes as hoped, will be reintroduced on CLO lands this year.

Here in the San Bernadino Valley, part of the Sonoran Desert, in the midst of a decadal drought, water and grass and riparian forests seem everywhere. Look past CLO lands to other private lands, however, and you see the barren grounds and deeply incised arroyos typical of much of the overgrazed Southwest.  Across much of their 200,000+ acres of lands, CLO has not only removed livestock and built small check dams, they have also restored native grasses and trees, removed exotic species, assisted imperiled fish and frogs, and augmented deer numbers so native predator populations can rebound. With their backs against the wall, literally, they’ve asked Homeland Security to use only vehicle barricades (which animals can get through), not the massive metal walls being erected many places, where the border runs along their lands.  The results are green and lush.  

As a foundation, Cuenca Los Ojos has already invested about as much money in direct land conservation and restoration it can.  The Austins have given their wealth to the land.  So Valer and Josiah are not so much looking to acquire new lands to restore as they are to finish the restoration work on the extensive core areas they’ve already assembled, ensure that those lands have perpetual protection (difficult to arrange in Mexico, where public lands are scarce and conservation agreements generally expire with the owners’ passing), raise an endowment for CLO lands, and pass on the information they’ve gained from nearly three decades of restoration work.  David Hodges, former director of Sky Islands Alliance, now works for CLO and is helping arrange talks and visits on restoration of Southwestern watersheds, and managing university research programs on CLO lands – whose wildness and recovery make them ideal places for research.

Big dams are usually bad, but the Austins’ use of many small check dams and a few larger earthen dams on their lands in Arizona and Sonora has proved that active restoration can work and watersheds can be brought back to health.  The countless native fish we saw in Silver Creek and the numerous birds flitting about the gallery forests were testament to the power of a few determined individuals to do great good and to the resilience of Nature, if we give natural processes and native species ample space and occasionally lend a helping hand.

As I bid Valer and Josiah and David grateful farewells, I urged them to get out and talk in public as much as possible and share their inspiring places with as many young people as they can.

For the Wild,

John