Remotely-activated game trail cameras provide the opportunity to witness animals one would rarely ever see in person. Popular among hunters, conservationists and wildlife managers, data from these cameras shed light on the abundance of mammal species in an area. In the Arb, a remote camera project undertaken by Matthew Zappa…
Reed Ebbinghaus
This past December, while most of us were off campus, the naturalist community of Northfield convened for a decades-old tradition—the region’s Christmas Bird Count. Originating in the early 1900s in order to census local bird species for conservation purposes, the practice of holding winter bird counts eventually spread across the…
If you’ve ever walked along the Cannon River in the Lower Arb, you will certainly have seen at least one group of fishermen stationed along the beach. You might also see students fishing the portion of Spring Creek across Highway 19, or at nearby Lyman Lakes. The popularity of fishing…
As the weather gets warmer in southern Minnesota, reptiles are beginning to emerge from hibernation en masse. Three species of snake—the Common Gartersnake, Dekay’s Brownsnake, and Redbelly Snake—are frequently recorded in the Arb. Though rattlesnakes can be found along the Mississippi River near the border with Wisconsin, all the snakes…
When you glance outside your dorm at the bleakness of Minnesota winter, your intuition will lead you to consider this a land utterly devoid of life. And yet, 35 native mammal species are inhabiting the frozen depths of the Arb as we speak. How do they do it? The smallest…
Among the top priorities of land management in the Cowling Arboretum is preventing the spread of harmful species which threaten the integrity of the Arb’s ecosystems. This is a difficult process, given that some invasives are more harmful than others and the removal process requires extensive resources. Ninety-nine non-native species…