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Post by trappermike220 on Jul 29, 2006 0:43:37 GMT -6
This post is going great
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Post by seldom on Jul 29, 2006 6:03:51 GMT -6
Hello Fishadict, Yes, you’re absolutley correct. The whole project has to do with determining the amount of a specific dioxin found in ALL of the wildlife (with a few exceptions) that inhabit these river and their floodplains. I'm told that this is the first such study of this magnitude ever attemped.
We used what is commonly known or perceived to be generally known about the mink’s range (project used the term territory) to facilitate a gradient-type move down the length of the rivers so in our case we choose 1 km. This couldn’t be held fast to the SOP (standard operating procedure) because of lack of BE set locations or lack of property owner permission. Generally it was the lack of suitable set locations and I’d continue to search until I found one and then, skip the 1 km and resume my search. This is why I mentioned that sometimes there was as much as 3 km between BE set locations.
Of foremost importance was that we needed to ascertain and quantify by tissue samples the amount of dioxin and if there was a decreasing or increasing trend of the concentrations throughout the breadth of the system. All of the wildlife studies in this project, and probably any similar project have a linier gradient basis (set order) by which sampling locations are established. In other words, you wouldn’t learn much if you were studying 30 miles of river and you took all of your samples from the first two miles.
There was talk that we were going to live trap mink and surgically implant satellite transmitters so that we could track the mink to ascertain how much of the time and how far they ranged outside of the floodplain. After doing lab and mink farm testing they deemed the procedures to accomplish this too risky on the mink. In general terms, they found we would have about a 1-hour window of opportunity by which to complete the implantation by a vet and release without having the animal expire. This was judged logistically impractical and way too high of a risk for the project. This project cannot afford the perceived killing and/or wasting of any of the animals we’re sampling. Way, way, too high of an exposure risk that revolves around our project.
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Post by musher on Jul 29, 2006 8:39:18 GMT -6
There was a dioxin study on water creatures around here a few years back. The goal, I believe, was to check the pollution generated by a pulp mill.
All animals were killed, including mink, and their body tissue examined. they were all polluted. it started with the fish and went through the mink and meganzers.
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Post by Steve Gappa on Jul 29, 2006 16:13:51 GMT -6
lumberjack- I don't live in the lake country of MN- quite the opposite.
Here- its hills and streams. Lake Pepin- but thats just the River, otherwise, I need to drive to get to a lake- and drive at least 50 or more miles- probably more like 75.
Our area is like the parts of PA I've been through- mostly 80. Streams and hills, but the hills are on a smaller scale and called bluffs.
By linear- I mean as the crow flies. I've caught mink in canine/coon sets in areas where there aren't even stockponds closeby. Everything is connected by those dry waterways.
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Post by BK on Jul 29, 2006 17:59:34 GMT -6
I would be real interested in any studies Seldom might know about on muskrats in the area. Well hell any studies on muskrat in any state,............. I've read the crap they publish about their populations here,
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Post by seldom on Jul 29, 2006 22:13:17 GMT -6
I'm with you on that BK but I don't know of any rat studies either. We only needed tissue samples from them for our study and nothing more.
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