Where the Big Horn At?

We're doing some research on Big Horn Sheep this summer; and part of that work is to put up motion activated cameras at our water catchments. But before we jump into the wilderness we wanted to decide which locations would provide us with images we are looking for.

I present,

'Water Catchments, Cameras, Sheep!'

What I really like about this map is there is very few layers that are used. Layers needed include selected and and buffered slopes greater that 60% (sheep escape terrain), find the Federal 'Wilderness' data layer for the region, and waters for the survey area. Easy! Now were going to sit down and figure out the best place to put up our cameras. I wanted to get this map out quickly, so the legend does lack those finishing touches of a production grade map--but my layouts are getting cleaner!

Data Management via Maps

Government data can get pretty messy. I know, Its hard to believe; with all the projects, novice GIS users, and employment turn-over putting all the messy data to use can be hard. Yet, a good way to get my feet wet with the data is make maps--and do some cleaning house as I go.

First up,

'Juniper Tree Management on Ranch Lands'.

Alright, I'll admit it, this topographic map doesn't show juniper tree management; what happened was while I was cleaning house, improving our data collection of ranches and juniper thinning, I was asked to produce a map for a rancher (as a good gesture for him allowing us access to his property). At the very moment I was done being a good citizen and compiling 10+ layers of random ranch layer, I was asked to produce this map, my first for the department.

The key to quickly producing this topo was spending the time to clean up the data! For me, the most important part of this story is the journey.

'Ranch Topology'

In addition to spatially joining the ranch layers, and the consequent deleting of the unnecessary fields, I then performed a topological check to be sure their was no overlapping polygons nor any gaps. I do, however, have a lot to learn with topology--but a lot less after making this map.

Lets get cartographic

When people think of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) they think 'Maps'. Mostly, I think of geographic data management, development, and analysis. But 'what the people wants people gets'.

Now, working at Arizona Department of Game and Fish it is more important than ever to produce quality maps that our Game Wardens can bring with them in their trucks and our policy makers can use to make those all important connections from the data.

So, in the next few posts I will be bringing you the maps I've produced (well, at least the quality pieces).

Espee Ranch Prairie Dog Transects

With a GPS device, Prairie Dog Transects are performed by walking a line and taking waypoints on a GPS. Each waypoint is associated with a count of how many active and inactive prairie dog burrows where seen within 5' (i think it was 5 feet) of each side of the line you walk. You stay on the line by keeping an eye on your GPS device; I walked in a North and South direction at 500 meter intervals (this would be called your Easting?). So I would walk North at 12S 0365000 (Thats a UTM measurement for easting), then I would walk over 500 meters, and the walk south at 0365500--taking a waypoing every 250 meters and trying not to deviate from that line(not even by a meter). Walking a straight line in the Prairie is tough because there are very few things on the horizon to give you an idea of which direction you are walking (no i didnt have a compass--next time, but you do get good at it.)

I camped for 4 days, 3 nights, walked 40+ miles, saw 6 Prong Horn Antelope, took 210 waypoints, saw 2 Horned Lizard (one had a body as long a 6 inches), 1 1.5 foot Diamond Back rattle snake, 1,000,000 head of cattle (1,000,000,000 cow patties HA!), and met 9 new and interesting people.

The horny toad was awesome, he didn't run. And when I touched him he puffed up, pushing all of his scales out, and stood up tall. His horns on his head WERE sharp! but his ones on his sides weren't. He was really squishy like a toad.

The Pronghorn were'nt too bright...They saw me on the horizon and I saw them..Then they started running and made a great circle...which ended up less than 30 yard from me. So that was awesome.

I was really moving out there, we had a PVC pipe as a measure of whether to include a burrow or not--I also used it as a walking stick. As I was hiking along, at a quick pace, I got a thorn in my shoe, and because I was almost to the truck i didnt take the thorn out, but I did walk slower--and at that moment is when I saw the Rattler--right in front of me, slowly moving out of my way, not giving a damn as I came near...

Glad to be back at my bunkhouse, home for the summer.

First Entry 6/10/2011

I'm finishing my 3rd week with my internship at Arizona Game and Fish. My post is up here in Kingman, Arizona. Just a couple of hours from Las Vegas, and 45 minutes from the West Rim of the Grand Canyon--no I haven't gone to either. My positions is a Geographic Information System Tech.

So far my duties are:
1) The Big Horn Sheep habitat evaluation for the Game and Fish Region 3
2) Derive Polyline geometry from Pronghorn Antelope GPS waypoints
3) Perform transects in the Espee Ranch grasslands (need to determine what type of Biome this is) while counting active and inactive Prairie Dog Burrows.
4) Produce a couple of maps for recreation OHV use and Pinyon Juniper Tree management.

I surprised my supervisor by producing a GIS layer of all the land that has slopes that are greater than 60% in just a few hours--my schooling is finally paying off!

Though I am struggling at writing some Python programming scripts that derive the Polyline geometry. Most programmers know the feeling-- I feel like I'm on the cusp of getting it!