Telemetry: The Sound of Science in Yellowstone
"Telemetry" refers to the wireless transmission of information, often via radio waves, from one location to another. Our public radio-style audio series helps transmit some of Yellowstone's scientific investigations to listeners, wherever they are. Telemetry is supported by Yellowstone Forever and by a generous grant through the Eyes on Yellowstone program, made possible by Canon U.S.A., Inc. Thanks also to the Acoustic Atlas at the Montana State University Library.
Wed, April 22, 2020
Episode 10: Home on the Range
Bison have lived on the Yellowstone landscape for millennia, but the history of bison conservation has been fraught with challenges. In 2019, federal, state, and tribal partners came together to make history: charting a new path for this American icon and assuring a place for wild bison on the broader landscape. --- TRANSCRIPT: --- (Sounds of Stephens Creek Facility fade up) Stephens Creek Worker: “OK. We’re ready for the first one” Narrator: It’s not yet dawn when someone gives the signal. Dark figures in puffy jackets are up on a scaffold. They move into place against the pale sky. It’s quiet. Weirdly quiet for the number of people here and what’s about to happen. Everyone braces. It’s like there’s this giant, collective inhale. (sounds of pulleys) Narrator: At the Stephens Creek facility inside Yellowstone National Park, the staff works a system of ropes and pulleys. (sounds of gate opening) Narrator: A corral gate opens. And then a single bison rushes through a curved passage toward what’s called the “squeeze chute.” (sounds of gate closing) Narrator: The gate closes behind. (sounds of squeeze chute) Narrator: Inside the squeeze chute, mechanical walls close in on the animal’s flanks. (sounds of scientists logging the animal’s I.D. number) Narrator: His ID number is quickly logged. (sounds of chute door opening) Narrator: Then the chute opens. And this 3-year-old bison—a wild, American plains bison—escapes down a constricted alley in the only direction he can… (sounds of bison running past and into the trailer) Narrator: …and into a livestock trailer. (sounds of loading fade) Narrator: Many winters, hundreds of Yellowstone bison are loaded on trailers—trailers just like this one—to be slaughtered. They’re shipped to slaughter facilities to reduce the number of bison migrating outside the park and into the State of Montana. Because in the state of Montana, there is limited tolerance for wild bison on the landscape. (sounds of truck starting) Narrator: But these bison are not being shipped to slaughter. (music, then sounds of truck driving away) Narrator: These bison are going to a wide prairie on the Fort Peck Indian Reservation. (music with sounds of truck fading out) Narrator: Today on Telemetry, we’re talking about the rehoming of wild bison from Yellowstone National Park to the Assiniboine and Sioux Tribes of the Fort Peck Indian Reservation. That rehoming is part of a program called “Quarantine.” The program is one of the only alternatives to shipping wild bison to slaughter. And it’s history in the making. (music fades out, field sounds fade up: Chris Geremia talking about the biting flies at Stephens Creek ) Chris Geremia: Let’s go down to the facility. Narrator: Doctor Chris Geremia is a wildlife biologist at Yellowstone National Park. He manages Yellowstone’s bison progra
Wed, April 03, 2019
Episode 9: Pivot Point
One family's dramatic encounter with a grizzly bear. Listener discretion is advised. --- TRANSCRIPT: --- Telemetry Episode 09: Pivot Point Narrator: Hi there, this is Jennifer Jerrett. I’m the host and a producer for Telemetry, the science and issues podcast for Yellowstone National Park. Thanks for joining us. A couple of notes on the story you’re about to hear: it describes an event when a family of four encountered a grizzly bear and it contains details that some people could find disturbing. If you have little ones, you might want to preview this episode before sharing it with them. Also, the family members who are generously sharing their story with us request that we all respect their privacy, so we will only be using first names and we won’t share any additional information about the family or the incident. Eric: It’s not the kind of experience you expect to have in life… Eric: ...but I can remember in that moment thinking, “This is a pivot point. And this could change our lives forever.” Narrator: In the summer of 2018, Eric, his wife Emily, and their two sons Owen and Lincoln—both under the age of 16—visited Yellowstone National Park. It was their first time. And while planning for their trip, they learned about bear spray. Bear spray is an aerosol canister containing highly-concentrated hot pepper spray. It’s used to stop aggressive or charging bears. The idea is that if a bear is charging you—coming at you—you blast a big cloud of pepper spray toward the bear’s face. When bears go into that cloud, they typically make a beeline to get out of there. Narrator: Eric says that his family isn’t super outdoorsy, but he describes themselves as “serious dabblers.” They love to get out and hike. The family decided to rent bear spray, but Eric says that honestly, he thought it was a little silly. None of them expected to use it. When you rent bear spray in Yellowstone, there’s a video that you watch. Eric says that—again—he was a little nonchalant about it. I mean, the idea of actually running into a bear just seems so unreal, right? But he watched anyway and went through the practice scenarios in his mind. He clipped and unclipped the safety a few times. The rest of the family waited in the car. Narrator: Eric and his family headed out to a popular trailhead. And what happened next, well, we’ll let Eric tell you that in his own words. Here’s Eric. Eric: It just seemed like a normal hike, right? We were just having fun… Eric: We were talking. We definitely weren’t making any effort to be quiet and I don’t think we were very quiet. My younger son had gotten the new Pokemon game, so I’m sure it could very well have been like, “Oh, I’ve managed to get this Pokemon and he has these powers.” That kind of thing could easily have been what we were talking about. There was a good bit of that on the trip. Eric: And so we went maybe a half-mile. And that’s r
Tue, February 05, 2019
Episode 8: Tigers of Yellowstone
Did you know there are tigers in Yellowstone? It just takes a keen eye to observe them. These creatures--and countless others like them--live in a world that's not always obvious, but the role they play in Yellowstone is huge. --- TRANSCRIPT: --- Telemetry: Episode 8 Narrator: Kelly Willemssens is leaning forward. Scanning with her binoculars. She lands her sights on an animal covered with spots and undulating stripes. KW: A lot of people like photographing them because they’re pretty charismatic. Narrator: Kelly records her field notes into a digital recorder. She doesn’t take her eyes of the creature. It’s an ambush predator. It crouches, stock-still. Then explodes into a run. Narrator: It’s one of the fastest land animals on earth… Narrator: …but it would fit on your thumbnail with room to spare. Narrator: This is Cicindela haemorrhagica. That’s the Latin name for one of Yellowstone’s resident species of tiger beetle. The wetsalts tiger beetle. Kelly is studying these insects as part of her PhD project with the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Kelly: So the first thing we do is observational work. KW: It’s kind of repetitive as you may have heard. It’s “Run. Stop. Run. Stop. Run. Stop.” KW: Continuous focal sampling is what it’s called. Jen (off mic): What do you guys call it? KW: Watching one beetle for 10 minutes (laughs). Narrator: Several rounds of watching one beetle for 10 minutes marks the first step toward understanding the behavior of Cicindela haemorrhagica. Not much is known about this wee, little beetle. KW: So we want to know: where do they go? What do they eat? Do they drink? What temperatures are they at? Do they use different behaviors to cope with heat? Narrator: How tiger beetles respond to heat is actually a big focus of Kelly’s project. Tiger beetles have a cosmopolitan distribution. They’re found all over the world. And the wetsalts tiger beetle, as its name implies, is almost always found near water… KW: …But we’ve never ever documented a beetle before near the thermal springs. Narrator: And this is the thing that sets these tiger beetles apart. Here in Yellowstone, the wetsalts species is associated—exclusively—with thermal springs. KW: So we’re talking about water that’s 65 degrees Celsius. Some of the water we’ve seen here is 2.2 pH, which is extremely acidic. Narrator: Basically, that’s like lemon juice. 150 degree lemon juice. KW: …it has arsenic, it has heavy metals, it’s full of toxins. So the fact that these beetles are here and are thriving is absolutely unique and kind of a mystery. Narrator: So in addition to studying the different behaviors of Yellowstone’s tiger beetles, Kelly will be analyzing their physiology, too. KW: These beetles live at extreme temperatures, extreme environments, I want to figure out how they do it. What kind of mechanisms do they use and can we use those mechanisms for other purposes? KW: For instance there’s something called a heat-shock p
Mon, October 22, 2018
Episode 7: Vital Signs
"Vital signs," like blood pressure and pulse rate, are used in medicine to track human health. Paying attention to the little things can often help us better understand what's going on in the big picture. Scientists can monitor ecological "vital signs," too. In this episode, biologist Andrew Ray shows us that a little creature can tell us a lot about the Yellowstone ecosystem. --- TRANSCRIPT: --- FIELD SOUNDS FADING IN, CREW TALKING TO EACH OTHER ANDREW RAY: So you’re brand new so I'll just, lets. KACI FITZGIBBON: I do have one. ANDREW RAY: Oh you do have one? KACI FITZGIBBON: Yeah. ANDREW RAY: Okay well I'll take an extra, we'll have an extra. KACI FITZGIBBON: Okay. Awesome. ANDREW RAY: So you've used it before? FIELD SOUNDS FADING UNDER SCOTT CHRISTY: I'm standing on the side of the Loop Road in Northern Yellowstone with biologist Andrew Ray and his intern Kaci Fitzgibbon Before we hike away from the road Andrew is explaining how to deploy bear spray in case we have a close encounter with a bear. He holds the eight-inch canister of pepper spray in one hand and puts his thumb on the plastic safety. ANDREW RAY: But if somethings coming, we're all gonna sort of stand abreast, we're gonna face it, we're gonna talk to it, but we're gonna have this at the ready and part of having this at the ready is having your safety off. 'cause otherwise you're just pushing down on the safety. KACI FITZGIBBON: Yeah. ANDREW RAY: Sound good. KACI FITZGIBBON: Yeah. SCOTT CHRISTY: Andrew spreads out a map across the tailgate of his truck and points to a spot in the mountains above us. ANDREW RAY: So just to give you guys a quick orientation. So we're here on loop road and you know big Blacktail Ponds. Anyway we're over here, we're gonna hike up and our goal is to hit site number two, there. ANDREW RAY: So it's a nice little pond sitting on the top of the hill—fantastic views. And it's a great spot for of chorus frogs and tiger salamanders. SCOTT CHRISTY: Andrew is a biologist with the National Park Service’s Inventory and Monitoring Division. ANDREW RAY: Yeah, I get to spend my summer knee-deep in these habitats that most people don't take time to wade into. And I get to explore them. SCOTT CHRISTY: It’s May and snow is still melting off the higher elevations in the park. Hiking up the hill far above the road we bump into seven or eight elk moving off into the trees. We start talking about how the haunting sounds of elk bugling in the fall are one of the signature sounds of the Rocky Mountains. ANDREW RAY: Yeah, so just as much of that leaves an impression that rich, real, authentic sound of wildlife, that's what chorus frogs are. That's the sound of a marsh. If marshes make sound, that's the sound of a marsh. SCOTT CHRISTY: And Andrew says we’ll know the frogs when we hear them. They sing, sometimes a few at a time and sometimes a full chorus of many frogs. Moving over the hill, we see a s
Tue, January 30, 2018
Episode 6: What Lies Below
People travel from all over the world to see Yellowstone's famous geysers, colorful hot springs, burbling mud pots, and hissing fumaroles. The force that drives these amazing thermal features—a giant volcano—lies below much of the park. In this episode, we talk with scientists who monitor the volcano about misconceptions surrounding Yellowstone's volcanic past, present, and future. --- TRANSCRIPT: --- SCOTT CHRISTY: Imagine that you’re standing on a boardwalk in Yellowstone National Park. It is a sunny day in the height of summer. (SOUND OF CROWD) People around you look at their watches, and then back up, waiting for something to happen. And right then this starts… (SOUND OF OLD FAITHFUL WITH CROWDS) SCOTT CHRISTY: A stream of water shoots four or five feet out of a hole in the ground. It pulses up and down a few times and then jets over a hundred feet into the air. (SOUND OF CLOSE OLD FAITHFUL) SCOTT CHRISTY: And it continues to do this for a few minutes. This would be Old Faithful erupting next to you. The most famous of Yellowstone’s features. It does that all the time, with similar blasts coming from the ground at least every two hours. MIKE POLAND – I don't know, I get caught up just like anyone else. When I am vising Old Faithful, I stop and I watch the eruptions. SCOTT CHRISTY: That’s Mike Poland, the Scientist-in Charge at the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory. MIKE POLAND - Doesn't matter how many times you see it. It's no less spectacular to me than the first time I saw it. And the more you know about what's driving this, I think the more spectacular it becomes. It's this heat engine that's beneath our feet that's made this possible. You're seeing the upper expression of this heat engine right at the surface. And I think it's a magical sort of thought to have as you're watching these geysers go off. SCOTT CHRISTY: While there are geysers all over the world, Mike says that Yellowstone is famous for holding the greatest concentration of geysers anywhere. MIKE POLAND: in order to get a geyser to really go, you need heat, you need water and heat. And of course we have plenty of water around here. The heat is supplied by a magma body that's underneath Yellowstone. SCOTT CHRISTY: Which is basically a bunch of molten rock from the earth’s mantle rising up into the earth’s crust. MIKE POLAND: The magma body is sometimes referred to as a supervolcano, or the Yellowstone system is called a supervolcano. It gets that name because it can be the source of some truly humongous eruptions. JAKE LOWENSTERN: Yeah, this is kind of a funny jargon sorts of stuff. SCOTT CHRISTY: That's Jake Lowenstern. He was Mike’s predecessor as the head of the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory. Jake says that what defines a volcano as a super volcano is a past super eruption. And that such eruptions are really, really big. JAKE LOWENSTERN: Super eruption is a meaningful term and that's wh
Fri, August 11, 2017
Episode 5: The Value of One Wolf
Wolf researcher Kira Cassidy likes to say that when Rudyard Kipling wrote The Jungle Book in 1894 and included the famous line “For the strength of the Wolf is the Pack and the strength of the Pack is the Wolf,” he would have had no idea that over a century later, scientific research would back up his poetic phrase. In this episode, Kira takes us inside the world of the wolf and pulls back the curtain on what it means to be the leader of the pack. --- TRANSCRIPT: --- For Yellowstone National Park and the Acoustic Atlas at Montana State University, this is "Telemetry." (sounds of spring bird calls) Narrator: There’s nothing like this time of year in Yellowstone. (sounds of spring birds) Narrator: And while most creatures in Yellowstone are busily singing their hearts out this time of year, there’s one animal that actually gets a little quieter in the spring and summer. (sounds of wolf howls) Narrator: And that’s the wolf. You see, there’s a seasonal cycle to wolf howling. Howling ramps up through the fall and peaks in late winter as wolves enter the breeding season. Then, come springtime, (wolf howls out) Kira: Howling abruptly drops off. This is caused by the female choosing a place to den that they really want to keep secret if at all possible. Narrator: That’s Kira Cassidy, research associate with the Yellowstone Wolf Project. Kira: Choosing a den site is extremely important for a wolf pack. It's going to be their hub for the entire summer. It's the house of the entire next generation ... and it has to be protected of course because the tiny helpless pups are going to be there for several months. We've had cases where a pack has attacked another wolves' den and even killed the pups in some cases. They don't really want to let other packs know where they are and what they're doing…and in order to avoid that they keep quiet. Narrator: It’s not only the frequency of howling that changes throughout the year, but the type of howling shifts, too. Kira: Wolves howl for a couple of different reasons. Some of that would be within the pack so to keep track of each other, say if they’ve been separated. Narrator: Even though they’re doing a lot less of it, this is the kind of howling that tends to dominate in the spring and summer: Wolves communicating with their own packmates. Kira: They also howl to let other packs know where they are and to establish a territory. Narrator: Wolves will often have these howling bouts with other packs. The two packs will howl back and forth as if to say this is our turf—our territory. And it’s that howling for territoriality—--that grows in the months leading up to the winter breeding season. Kira: Howling really tracks the hormones as the wolves are getting ready for the breeding season. (wolf howls) The testosterone will start to spike and howling starts to increase. It's a stressful time in some ways. They do a
Wed, June 07, 2017
Episode 4: Reburn: The Maple Fire Story
On August 8, 2016, a lightning strike ignited a small fire on the edge of Yellowstone National Park near the community of West Yellowstone. Most fires in the park never burn more than about a quarter-acre, but the Maple Fire would go on to burn over 45,000. It was the largest fire in the park since the historic fires of 1988. --- TRANSCRIPT: --- JOHN CATALDO – Is there anything as wild, beautiful, and important as fire in Yellowstone?I’m not sure. Narrator - This is John Cataldo, the Fire Management Officer for Yellowstone National Park. Which means it’s his job to manage everything having to do with fire in the Park. JOHN CATALDO - It seems like we're always at work in the summer and somehow at least my impression is that 80% of the fires we get are when I'm at home eating dinner. So, fires and telemarketers are who finds me a seven o'clock at night, at my home. Narrator - And on the night of August 8th, 2016, John got that kind of call. An aircraft full of smokejumpers flying over Yellowstone National Park spotted a new fire. The jumper aircraft circled the fire, collected a GPS location, and then they texted John’s crew. JOHN CATALDO - Yeah, sent us a photo. I mean, that's the information age, right? So we had a report we had a photo from the aircraft of the fire. It gave us a basic idea of the fuels that were in the immediate vicinity of it. It was about ¼-acre and that’s generally speaking, what I have to work with in a remote environment . Narrator - The fire was located on the far western side of the Park, just about six miles east of the town of West Yellowstone. So John did what he often does. He notified the Deputy Superintendent and the Chief Ranger, and then he called Yellowstone’s fire ecologist to run the nearest weather station for wind data. And then very early the next morning John poured over maps of the area and all the collected data on the new fire, and he had this really big decision to make. To put the fire out or to let it burn. JOHN CATALDO - Essentially it comes down to do we think this is a good fire or a bad fire? Narrator - And with this fire, the Maple Fire, being so close to the town of West Yellowstone was a huge consideration. JOHN CATALDO - A lot goes into it, but at the end of the day it's a real estate game, and it's location, location, location. Narrator - But the fire had two things going for it being a good fire. First, 95% of the winds in recorded history at the closest weather station had blown from the west or southwest. Directions that would push the flames farther away from the community of West Yellowstone and deeper into the park backcountry. So while winds were likely to push the fire in the other direction, John knew that the proximity to West Yellowstone would have a lot of people interested in this fire. JOHN CATALDO - Well, you want to provide insurance, so 95%'s pretty high number, right? If I gave you 95% odds on a black
Fri, March 17, 2017
Episode 3: Cougar M198
Last January, one of Yellowstone's marked mountain lions went missing. Scientists traveled deep into the park to investigate. And that journey? It wasn't as straightforward as they thought it would be. --- TRANSCRIPT: --- Dan Stahler: Test Test 1-2-3…OK we are live Narrator: This is Dan Stahler. And—I swear—Dan Stahler practically has fur in his blood. He studies wolves and elk…He’s the endangered species coordinator for Yellowstone National Park. And he’s the project lead for Yellowstone’s research on mountain lions—also called pumas or cougars—And last year, Dan and his team had a cougar mystery to solve. Dan Stahler: All right, Good Morning. It’s January 28th. Dan Stahler, Colby Anton, Nathan Varley heading on in to the Black Canyon of the Yellowstone to go investigate on our only cougar collared right now, M198. He’s a 3-year-old male. We’re gonna go check it out and see what we see. Narrator: First, a little background here on M198. The M stands for male and 198 is his identifying number. M198’s collar that Dan was talking about is very high tech. Dan Stahler: sort of FitBits if you will for cougars One of the things those collars can do is communicate with a satellite system to record the cat’s location on the landscape every 3 hours. Dan could log in on a computer, look at all those location points and see where M198 had been. Dan Stahler: We used those points to identify clusters on the landscape where he spent time. Then usually about a week after he was in that area we would go investigate. Narrator: Investigating the places where cougars have spent time turns out to be incredibly valuable. And it’s a little like a crime scene investigation that you see on TV. Dan and his team can comb the area for DNA, like hair and scat, to help identify individual cats … like how many are out there and who’s who. This non-invasive technique of getting at the demographics of a cougar population is a powerful tool for studying such secretive animals. Or, let’s say a cougar made a kill in that spot. And if so, was it a deer or an elk or a marmot… how old was the animal… was it healthy…how many animals did the cougar kill over a given period of time… these things tell scientists a lot about the food habits of cougars like M198 AND what their impacts might be on populations of prey species like deer or elk. Dan Stahler: We found where he’d killed an adult cow elk. It was the only animal he fed on for 20-some odd days. And that’s kinda typical of a male cougar. They can go a long time without feeding. They’ll make a kill, feed on it, then do their other cougar things and roam around. If the cat stops roaming around – if it stops moving altogether, then the collar sends Dan an alert. For M198, that alert meant that either the collar came off somehow, or it stopped moving because M198 was probably dead. And Dan and Colby and Nathan needed to figure that out. The problem was that the collar suddenly stopped transmitti
Fri, February 10, 2017
Episode 2: One Fish, Two Fish: Saving the Yellowstone Cutthroat Trout
Back in 1870, a member of the Washburn Expedition wrote in his diary about the Yellowstone cutthroat trout: "Two men could catch them faster than half a dozen could clean and get them ready for the frying pan.” Since then, things have become a lot more complicated. --- TRANSCRIPT: --- One Fish, Two Fish: Saving the Yellowstone Cutthroat Trout [Lake water lapping sound] Narrator: It’s a cold October morning on Yellowstone Lake. Heavy frost covers the dock the last few boats in the marina while fresh snow blankets the Absaroka mountains in the distance. [BOAT STARTING SOUND] Yellowstone National Park Fisheries Supervisor Todd Koel starts up a cold aluminum boat and scrapes frost off the windshield. [BOAT STARTING SOUND] We’re heading out to join fisheries crews working on the lake. Along the way Todd is thinking about the native Yellowstone Cutthroat Trout. TODD - Really, the park and especially Yellowstone Lake, lies right at the core of the distribution, the range-wide distribution, of the Yellowstone Cutthroat Trout subspecies. Narrator: Yellowstone Lake is huge, roughly twice the area of Washington DC. It the largest high-altitude lake in North America. And, it is thought to have held the single biggest population of Yellowstone Cutthroat trout in the world. TODD - estimates were in the range of about four million or so catchable Cutthroat Trout in Yellowstone Lake. That's a lot of Cutthroat in the system. Narrator: This was in the early 1990s. And in those days, people used to say there were so many fish that you could walk on their backs across the Yellowstone River when they spawned. Tourists and anglers gathered by the thousands just to see the Narrator: fish moving up the spawning streams. One year over 300,000 people visited La Hardy Rapids and Fishing Bridge to see the brightly colored cutthroat trout. BOB - Fishing Bridge got its name because there used to be so many people fishing from it when I worked there in 1969, you had to roll your windows up as you drove across there to keep from getting a lure in your ear. Narrator: That's Bob Gresswell, Research Scientist with the U.S. Geological Survey in Bozeman, MT. Bob has studied Yellowstone Cutthroat trout in the park for over 40 years. BOB - there would be thousands of cutthroat trout at the mouth of Yellowstone Lake that could be observed during the peak of the migration. Narrator: Lots of fish everywhere. [Sounds of fishing reel spinning] Narrator: But then, over one decade, everything changed dramatically. By the mid 2000s cutthroat had practically disappeared from Yellowstone Lake. Biologists estimate the Yellowstone Cutthroat population plummeted from over 3 million fish to less than 300,000. Some big new factor had to be causing the decline. Again, Todd Koel. TODD - For probably 10 to 15 years we really saw very little recruitment of small Cutthroat Trout. Why? Because they were getting eaten by the Lak
Mon, February 08, 2016
Episode 1: To Catch a Loon
What do scientists do when they're racing to understand what's happening to one of the smallest and most isolated common loon populations in North America? Whatever it takes. Get ready because this story might change the way you think about birders forever. --- TRANSCRIPT: --- Host Intro: For Yellowstone National Park and the Acoustic Atlas at Montana State University, this is Telemetry. I’m Jennifer Jerrett. NARRATOR: When I say ‘top predator of Yellowstone,’ what’s the first thing that pops into your mind? NARRATOR: Well, Vincent Spagnuolo has another idea. VINCENT: They’re basically the wolves of the aquatic ecosystem here. NARRATOR: Vincent is a loon biologist with BRI, the Biodiversity Research Institute. He heads up BRI’s common loon project in Yellowstone National Park. VINCENT: They are top predators and they own that lake. NARRATOR: But in spite of their top-predator status, Yellowstone’s loons are in trouble. There are only about a dozen breeding pairs left in the park. And they’re really isolated: The closest other loons are over 200 miles away. This is Vincent Spagnuolo again, along with Dave Evers, the founder and executive director of BRI. VINCENT: And so, these are the only loons here and they’re basically on an island… VINCENT: We don’t believe that there’s any immigration or emigration with this population…and that can be an issue when you have a small population with no chance of rescue from the rest of the species range. DAVE: And it could blink out…and it blinks out, we know it’s not going to be recolonized for a long, long time. and NARRATOR: If you want to keep a population from blinking out, if you want to preserve it, first you have to understand what’s going on with it. Scientists are investigating what might be happening with the Yellowstone loons and capture and banding is one way they’re gathering those data. But catching a loon is not easy. VINCENT: They are powerful, powerful birds…And yeah, when we get them in hand we feel that as we get beat up pretty good. NARRATOR: In fact, getting a loon in hand is so tricky that in the early days of loon research just the thought of a reliable capture technique was pretty inconceivable. Biologists basically surrendered to the idea that they’d be outmaneuvered by the birds. JEFF: 35 yrs ago…all of the working loon biologists in North America that I knew—and there weren’t many then--KNEW KNEW that you couldn’t capture a loon and band it. NARRATOR: Jeff Fair has been on the leading edge of loon science for more than 40 years and he’s worked with Dave Evers since the beginning. JEFF: And a few years later this ignorant grad student, by the name of Dave Evers, developed a way to capture and band loons. NARRATOR: And the trick was to go after breeding pairs at night. DAVE: The night capture is a method that really works with the birds. So we’re not chasing the birds. If we tried to chase the loons anyways, we’d never catch the
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