A University of Rhode Island graduate student will be scouring lakes, ponds and wetlands throughout Rhode Island over the next three years to search for signs of three semi-aquatic mammals to document their distribution in the state.

Traveling via kayak, John Crockett will search for evidence of muskrats, beavers and river otters in waterways of southwestern Rhode Island this winter before expanding his search to other areas of the state in the coming years.

“The main goal of the study is to get a good sense of the distribution of each species across the state,” said Crockett, a native of Fort Collins, Colorado, who is collaborating on the study with URI Assistant Professor Brian Gerber. “To do that, we’re conducting an occupancy analysis, which means we’re going out looking for signs of tracks, scat, chewed sticks, lodges and sightings of the animals.”

All three species have been the target of trappers in Rhode Island for many years – though the state legislature banned the trapping of river otters in the 1970s – and most of what state wildlife officials know about the animals is derived from trapping data. But since trapping has been decreasing in popularity in recent years, less and less data about the animals is being collected.

“We want to make sure we have a good assessment of where these mammals are found,” said Gerber. “It’s been 10 or 15 years since anyone has spent much time looking for them, and we want to see if we find any changes in their distribution since those earlier surveys.”

Muskrats are in decline across much of their range in the United States, according to Crockett, and now they are difficult to find. The decrease in trapping activity has made it difficult to tell whether the animals are in decline in Rhode Island or if the lack of trapping just makes it appear to be so…[Read more]