The prairie is not made for humans: an idea of what we're doing out here

As I've mentioned before, our job out here on the prairie is to observe wildlife and document their behavior and locations. We work in teams of two and each group hikes one of the eight transects that are mapped on our GPSes. There is one team who is on 'car team' and their job is to check certain cameras and pick the hikers up when they're finished. We have 27 cameras on the Sun Prairie that are motion triggered. Therefore, most of the videos are of the grasses blowing in the wind. And each camera can have up to 250 one-minute grass movies - really exciting stuff...

Because it is a trillion degrees starting at 8am, we get up at 5am to get our hikes started. Don't worry, napping commences around 1 after we've returned from the hikes and have replenished our energy with lunch. 

About once a week we conduct 'Bison Counts' and sunset wildlife scopes. The bison counts require two teams to walk 5ish miles and count only the bison they see. The herds can be up to 200 bison!

The prairie doesn't cater to humans. In the winter it's absolutely freezing with harsh winds, spring still has snow and occasional storms, July and August are f##king hot with mosquitos, late summer and early fall is the wet season with lots of storms and fires due to the lightning, and then it gets freezing again. 

Sounds nice doesn't it? We have had a couple of families stay at Buffalo Camp, and we can't understand why on earth anyone would want to come here when Glacier and Yellowstone are 5 hours away... But then again, why am I here?! Oh yeah, to enjoy the unique landscape and collect data towards this giant conservation project that will (hopefully) obtain nearly 3.5 million acres within 10 years! It is pretty rewarding to be a part of something like this at the end of the day (when the sun is down and it finally cools off) and be around people who share a passion for nature and the earth we live on! 🌎✌️

An idea of what out transects look like

The gear we take in the field, along with a million liters of water and high energy snacks (thank you Clif Bar company for sponsoring us and providing is with a plethora of bars) 

Shannon and myself on a sunset wildlife scope, protecting ourselves from the mosquito swarms. (Photo: Leah Mabee) 

Shannon and myself (photo: Leah Mabee)