Don't Bother With The Posted
Coordinates. It is only the entrance to the Wetland Area. You
will need to solve the formula below to find the
coordinates!
13 times a day! Yup, the
average white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginiana) goes to
the bathroom 13 times a day! For wildlife biologists, one way to
estimate deer population while on a tight budget is to walk in the
woods and count deer poop!
You can estimate how many deer there are in
your own woods by counting poopies too! Deer poop (scat, pellets,
dung, doo doo, droppings, turds, feces, etc...!) is easily
identifiable, and is a common sight in an Indiana wood
lot.
To estimate population you use this:
D=d/rt
Where "D" is the population in a plot. "d" is the number of pellet
piles found.
"r" is the rate of poop laying by a single deer.
"t" is the ammount of time in days that the scat could of been
laying there. For "t" we assume that any poop found on the ground
can not of been there before last fall, because the leaves would
cover them up. So for "t" we calculate how many days it has been
since November 1st (a good date that the leaves were down by).
One problem here... how big is the plot size? For most biologist
studying deer scat, we use 1/100 acre plots. That is a center
point, with a 11.778 foot radius. We then calculate that into
acres. But, we don't give deer population in deer/acre. Mainly,
deer don't stay in one acre. So... we need to know deer per square
mile.
To revise the formula lets use:
D=d(i)(640)/rt
"i" is your conversion. If you only check one 1/100 acre plot,
then you would multiply by 100 to get how many pellets would be in
one acre. If you tested 10 1/100 acre plots, you would need to
multiply that total by 10 to get how many pellets are in one
acre.
Lastly, the 640 is how many acres are in a square mile.
To find this cache you will need to calculate how many deer
live in the woods here at Marsh Lake. Below are 10 1/100 acre plots
sampled and the number of pellets found. plug those into the
formula and multiply through to calculate deer per square mile. For
"r" use 13 times a day (though it's technically 12.7). For "t",
assume that the data was collected on Jan 21st.
Plug the number you get into these coordinates to find the
cache:
N 41 43.(XXX-285)
W 084 59.(XXX-112)
If you get an answer such as 21.4547 deer/square mile. You will use
214 for the coordinate plug in (XXX) above (12.8597 deer/square
mile=128 and so on...). Most deer biologist agree that a healthy
deer population is one that is between 5 and 20 deer per square
mile. Beyond that and you see damage to the habitat and cleared
vegetation, called deer browse.
| 1/100 Acre Plot Number |
Number of Deer Scat Pellet Piles Found |
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10 |
2 pellet piles
0 pellet piles
1 pellet piles
1 pellet piles
0 pellet piles
0 pellet piles
1 pellet piles
1 pellet piles
0 pellet piles
0 pellet piles |
Have fun, and don't get too lost. You are looking for an ammo can.
If you are having problems, feel free to email me for help! I won't
buck you around!
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