Dye Creek
November 2001 Charger and I moved to Los Molinos in California. Actually, Charger moved to Dye Creek Ranch, which is a preserve run by The Nature Conservancy, and the place where I worked.
Charger lived in a 30 acre pasture with a whole herd of geldings, this is a picture of the ranch from the first climb into the Sierra's, looking into Central Valley.
The study was on coyotes. A lot of recent work has shown that it is primarily alpha coyotes that predate sheep, especially when feeding young. When an upset rancher goes out to shoot coyotes, he most often kills solitary coyotes or beta's, and with a reduced population, the alpha's breed more. (I'm sure you can see the problem in this)
So the study I was working on involved tracking radio collared coyotes during the wee hours of the morning to see how they respond to different sounds (do they draw coyotes in, drive them off, have no effect, does this differ between alpha/beta's??). During the day light hours we tracked the coyotes in order to establish their individual home ranges. Dye Creek Preserve covers part of the central valley, and the first rise and plateau's into the Sierras.
I had only been working a few weeks when I was trying to locate a test collar in the back country. Just as I took my last bearing on the signal and turned back,. . .my ATV started to sputter. After it cut twice,. . .it stopped. I was the last one out, with no radio transmission, and 4-5 miles into the back country with no gas.
Fortunately, after hiking for a half hour, I was able to contact my supervisor who came to rescue me,. . . .but during my time out there I was able to catch the sunset.
From the plateaus there were incredible views to Mt Lassen and the Sierras. Also,. . . no one ever understood what I meant when I said that this place was incredibly rocky,. . .but as you can see it really was!!
Just to the east of the ranch was what we refered to as the grand canyon. Dye creek canyon cut straight down into the plateau, but,. . .if you had a good traveling companion
then you could start at the mouth of the canyon and climb your way up and around throughout the whole preserve.
Charger and I did a lot of exploring, but of course, the day we ran into the herd of over 50 black tailed deer, or the rust colored coyote who gave us a nice stare down,. . .I forgot my camera. That was because we often chased cows when they were in our way.
I was there until March, when I moved back to the Olympic Peninsula, and as of yet I don't know the results of the study, but I learned a lot (for example, that there is a reserve tank on ATV's, how fun driving across a river at 3 am is, and what the sunrise looks like when you've geese on the pond behind you, and the shimmering rocks before you melt in and out of coyote form.
Site Created December 26, 2002.
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