As you may already know, Shauna Weyrauch and I from the Ohio State Newark, Department of Evolution, Ecology, and Organismal Biology, have been tracking the recovery of bobcat populations in Eastern Ohio for much of the last eight years, and were recently joined by EEOB PhD student, Xinzhu Zhang. Project Wild Coshocton (u.osu.edu/wildcoshocton) is embarking on a new venture in January 2022 – scavenger competition! No, no, not the kind where you run around taking photos of weird things for prizes… This is something else entirely.
Admittedly, we will be taking pictures of some weird things, but we are interested in how small to medium sized carnivores like bobcats, coyotes, possums, and raccoons (all known to scavenge) will interact and compete over valuable food resources. One of the most valuable resources available to scavengers in our area are deer carcasses! The Ohio State University and the Ohio Division of Wildlife have approved our team to place deer carcasses at several forest locations in Licking and Coshocton Counties and then film the resulting interactions among the mammals and birds that discover and scavenge for food at those sites.
This is where you come in! We have the sites and the cameras, but we need your help to locate recently killed deer along the roads in Licking and Coshocton Counties (and only within those counties). If you happen to see a new carcass appear along the road, or you have the misfortune of hitting and killing a deer, please contact us as soon as it is safe to do so. We will be happy to put that unfortunate animal to good use, and have the equipment to collect and transport the remains to one of our remote sites for use in our research.
(Not all carcasses may be used, it will depend if a fresh carcass is already present)
Contact information:
Andy Roberts
- Phone 740-366-9178
- Email roberts.762@osu.edu.
Shauna Weyrauch
- Phone 740-366-9163
- Email weyrauch.2@osu.edu
Thanks in advance for any help you can give us! For project updates, photos, and video, check out our blog at (u.osu.edu/wildcoshocton), or you can follow us on Twitter (@WildCoshocton).