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Christopher H. Wood (CV)

Contact Info:
Conte Anadromous Fish Research Center, USGS/BRD
PO Box 796
Turners Falls, MA 01376

email: cwood1@antioch.edu
cell phone: (978)-473-2417

Title: Research Assistant

Education:
2000 - Associates Degree, Arboriculture and Park Management, Stockbridge School of Agriculture, Amherst, MA
2003 - B.S., Forestry Conservation.  Minor: Wildlife Conservation, University of Massachusetts at Amherst
2008-present - M.S., Conservation Biology at Antioch University in New England in Keene, NH

Research Interests:
My background has been in plant ecology research with an interest in wildlife habitat management.  After a couple years of land management experience I decided to go back to school focusing on wildlife conservation.  I started working with Ben Letcher, Todd Fuller from UMass Amherst and the fish ecology lab in the spring of 2008.  At that time I started developing the methods and layout of my masters thesis study.  During the numerous fish sampling efforts along the West Brook study area, the fish ecology lab started to find American mink (Neovison vison) scat with PIT tags in them.  Having a large prey base individually marked, makes for a unique opportunity to look at predational influences on a fish population.

My thesis study is looking at mink predational preferences on brook and brown trout populations of West Brook.  For the project I will be live-trapping the mink of the stream system.  Each mink will have a radio transmitter surgically implanted in the intraperitoneal cavity; in addition each mink will also have a PIT tag inserted into the scruff of its neck.  With the PIT tag in the scruff of the neck, as the mink hunts the stream system within the West Brook study area, it will trigger the PIT tag antennas along the brook.  If it had recently eaten a PIT tagged fish, that will also trigger the antenna.  This offers an automatic way to determine prey selection by mink in the brook.  With the implanted radio transmitter I will be able to locate den sites along the brook, as well as define mink home range.  Mink form what are called latrine sites at the entrance to their dens, with all dens in the study area located I will be able to periodically survey dens and recover scat for analysis.  The winter of 2008 has been the start of live trapping.  Den and scat surveys have been going on since the summer of 2008.  I anticipate field work for this project to be wrapped up by fall of 2008.