Anyone got a spare freezer for some backwoods bits?

[missdiane]

Good grief. I got this request this morning which I just turned down:

Morgan and I have developed a protocol for collecting road killed dead deer for our McStennis project. However, because we have nowhere to store them at Rutgers (need a walk-in freezer) it is very inefficient for us at the moment because we need to drive around to carcasses the day of our scheduled deployment. Walk-in freezers are somewhere between $4000-$10,000. Is this something we could ask for from you? We would need a dedicated one to put in PSARF because I doubt anyone would want us dragging dead deer through their labs.

Seriously? You didn't think of this BEFORE proposing your project. Um, that would be a no. I cited multiple reasons:

• Our funding doesn't allow anything designated as "Facilities and administration" costs and a massive walk-in freezer installed in a designated FACILITIES building is kinda gonna raise red flags with our federal funder
• With installation, it would undoubtedly go over $10K even if Bosslady wanted to ok it and anything of that size needs to be proposed to the feds for their blessing
• This massive non-scientific purchase would only be used for less than two years and then what happens with it?

Hopefully they don't grumble too much but honestly, kind of a ridiculous request.

Comments

[spiffikins]

LOL - that is hilarious.

You didn't think of this BEFORE proposing your project

Common sense, ain't so common :D

[halfmoon_mollie1]

I got a lot of requests for a lot of weird things when I worked at SUCOL, but a walk in freezer for road kill was never one of those requests. I hope you'll forgive me for laughing - heartily! - at this.

With all due respect to academics, I found common sense in short supply,often, when it came to professors.

[missdiane]

I was laughing AND smacking my head at the same time. I mean it didn't OCCUR to you to have made a PLAN as to what you were going to do with the deer carcases once you went on your roadkill-nabbing excursions?

Then again, we aren't in West Virginia where Jim Bob always has a spare beer fridge and a freezer for the "good eatin'"

[bluecatartist]

we aren't in West Virginia where Jim Bob always has a spare beer fridge and a freezer for the "good eatin'"

LOL This is true in my state and I have extended relatives who actually do this. The extra beer fridge in the garage or on the carport - plus one of those big chest freezers for the critters. Deer mostly, maybe a goat.

Their presentation of how they need this and framing it in a way where everyone is supposed to just agree, despite it being bat shit nuts. "I doubt anyone wants us dragging a dead deer through their labes..." I mean, how can you say no? LOL

[missdiane]

She counter offered to ask for chest freezers and in my meeting with Bosslady yesterday, Bosslady didn't think that a full size intact deer carcass was going to fit in a chest freezer. LOL Life is surreal

[spiffikins]

Y'know, my friend P used to do similar things, with mountain goats for *her* research project - they would get notified if people found any goat carcasses in the wilderness and they would head out and do a necropsy on the carcass right then and there, collect their samples and...not have to drag the carcass home and put it in a freezer, LOL

[missdiane]

By the study design, the assumption was that they'd find out about the deer, collect it, put it in the forest, stake it down so bigger game can't make off with it, and set up the cameras for observation so no clue why there's a need to take the deer back and store them.

It sounds like the point of the study is to find out how it would improve the ecosystem that instead of the people that clean up the deer and dispose of them, if they instead were putting the carcasses in the forest instead.

[spiffikins]

That is a really weird research project, on so many levels....

"stake it down so bigger game can't make off with it" - yeah good luck with that :D
I mean - I don't know where this is being done? But if bigger game is like mountain lions - they aren't going to be deterred from a good meal by some stakes?

Also, this seems really weird if the idea is that you take a carcass that was found elsewhere - like hit by a car - and transport it to some other location entirely - and just leave it there?

Like, what if that environment doesn't really have deer there? That isn't really "normal" for that ecosystem to suddenly have a deer carcass plopped down in it - what kind of weird ecosystem manipulation is this?

LOL - researchers get grants for the weirdest shit!

[bluecatartist]

Actually boss lady is correct. The big chest freezer won't hold a whole deer as they're talking about, one not taken apart into pieces. This is surreal!

[missdiane]

Clearly they were thinking like underpants gnomes
https://youtu.be/a5ih_TQWqCA?si=MgrgQ4GzGiwNGA0f

[spiffikins]

LOL - that's hilarious

[threecee]

Ah yes, the "let's invent a project that sounds cool and spend some money on it, then realize it can't be completed without spending more money that we don't have" technique of project management. Always popular.

[missdiane]

They have a whole drawn out, intricate plan which includes:

Within each forest tract, we will select a survey location away from roads, recreational paths, or other signs of human presence. At each survey location, we will deploy a fresh white tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) carcass sourced from partnerships with multiple entities, including the New Jersey Division of Fish and Wildlife, municipal public works departments, and animal control units. Each carcass will be staked to the ground to prevent it from being dragged away by a visiting scavenger. Above each carcass, we will mount a single infrared remote triggered camera (Reconyx HP2X Hyperfire 2, Reconyx, Inc., Holmen, WI, USA) aimed directly downward so that the camera’s field of view includes both the carcass, as well as an ~1.5-m area around it. We will set motion triggers to high sensitivity and program cameras to capture a burst of 3 photos taken at 1-second intervals. To improve the accuracy of species identification, we will follow each photo burst with a single 10-s video.

We will record data with infrared cameras for a period of 30 days. For the first week of carcass deployment, we will also deploy a thermal camera (AXIS Q1951-E, AXIS, Lund, Sweden), The thermal camera will take continuous video to capture scavenging metrics such as duration of feeding, and direct intra- and interspecific interactions. We will compare these metrics across species to determine species-specific scavenging efficiencies and potential scavenger guild hierarchies. These data could give us insights into the overall resource availability of a forest tract, a measure of ecosystem function. Additionally, documenting the dominant scavenger species (both in terms of quantity and their interspecific interactions) can provide additional information about habitat quality and level of disturbance. For example, documenting a preponderance of scavenging by a few cosmopolitan and synanthropic species (e.g., raccoons) could indicate that a forest tract has low biodiversity and is heavily influenced by adjacent urban landscapes. Alternatively, capturing animals known to reside mainly in undisturbed forest tracts, such as bobcats (Matos 2020), can be an indicator of an intact forest that support high ecosystem function and rare and imperiled wildlife.

At weekly intervals for the duration of each deployment period, we will return to the survey location to replace batteries and memory cards to ensure efficient data collection. We will also weigh and visually record the state of each carcass. At the close of the 30-day survey period, we will measure the final biomass of the carcass and remove the monitoring equipment.

Yet they had a moment of COMPLETE stupidity in not thinking about what to do during the time period between securing the roadkill and deploying said roadkill. *facepalm*

They're trying to negotiate for chest freezers instead and I am letting Bosslady make the decision.

[threecee]

If they get really annoying, I'd be tempted to hire someone to dress as Bigfoot and haul some of the carcasses away just to see how they account for that.

[missdiane]

HAHAHAHAHAHA. Oh I love this. They'd be watching the playback and go WHAT THE FUCK?!?!?

[spiffikins]

[spiffikins]

Because bobcats and raccoons (ahem, "synanthropic species" LOL) - are TOTALLY going to come across a staked-out FROZEN deer carcass in the course of their normal routine!

[bluecatartist]

I"m curious as to their project where they need the dead deer carcasses - for what? To do what w. them? And why specific road killed deer carcasses?

[missdiane]

It's a study "to test the effect of urbanization on the species composition and diversity of the vertebrate scavenger guild of eastern temperate forest ecosystems and to quantify the functional responses (e.g., carrion detection and consumption rates) associated with the degree of urbanization surrounding forest ecosystems."

And "Understanding how scavengers and their provided ecosystem services operate along an urbanization gradient can guide management to preserve biodiversity and ecosystem function despite expanding human development."

With community and urban growth, especially in a state like New Jersey, ecosystems are being disturbed and they're trying to determine what sorts of changes they can implement for urban planning as not to destroy an entire possibly thriving ecosystem.