Marcella J. Kelly

To determine habitat selection of selected carnivores, we set up 15 remotely-triggered infrared camera stations across a 30-km2 section of the Mountain Lake Biological Station in Southwest Virginia. To maintain independence, a distance of 1 km was kept between each station. We monitored the camera stations for 942 trap nights. Raccoons (Procyon lotor) had the greatest trap success (3.03%) followed by black bear (Ursus americanus; 2.23%), coyote (Canis latrans; 1.09%), bobcat (Lynx rufus; 0.67%), and gray fox (Urocyon cinereoargenteus; 0.00%). We determined percentage cover of habitat...

Capture of white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) is vital for telemetric studies of the species. A variety of methods such as drop nets, clover traps and rocket nets have been employed to capture deer. However, most methods require direct observation of trap sites, which has the obvious limitation of controlling human scent around trap sites. We describe a new technique for capturing deer using rocket nets coupled with wireless remote video. Capture rates for two periods in 2005 using remote video were higher (0.10 and 0.17 deer/h) than the traditional on-site observation method used...