Bobcat Stories

Summer 2024 meant time on the river for the Bosque School Field Science program. There were two river trips during which field science teacher Kim Fike and seniors Sophie and Ada gathered data for their ongoing North American river otter diet and food web study, and junior Jakob collected fin clips for his study titled "Isotopic Signatures of Individual Fish Species in Rio Grande del Norte National Monument.”

On their first trip in July, the goal was to find evidence of river otter activity by identifying slides and latrines. The Bosque School participants joined the Taos Bureau of Land Management biologists who were conducting a fish population survey on the Ute Mountain section of the Rio Grande River within the Rio Grande del Norte National Monument. An arduous endeavor that needs very specific water flows and to be timed so that it doesn’t disrupt the raptors who nest along this stretch of waterway, the survey required a 25-mile, three-day float and ended with the scientists and participants hiking all boats and gear up 300 feet to the rim of the Rio Grande Gorge in New Mexico. 

During the second trip, supervised by field science director and wildlife teacher Dan Shaw and with the support of sophomore Grant, Sophie deployed novel hair snares fitted with wire brushes developed by the Bosque Field Science Program, previously used to gather beaver, javelina, coyote, badger and other species’ hair in both riparian and upland habitats. The group has returned several times hoping to find hair samples in the snares, with no success so far, which is inspiring plans to modify their strategies. On that same trip, Jakob, the lead student for the fish data, used a hook and line to catch fish, gather fin clips (less than one centimeter square), and then release them. The students also used macroinvertebrate kick nets to collect other potential otter food sources, such as crayfish.

As in previous projects, tissue samples were collected and preserved following standard procedures of the University of New Mexico, where the students are working in cooperation with the UNM Center for Stable Isotopes in an essential and ongoing partnership with Dr. Seth Newsome and Dr. Emma Eliot Smith.  

The entire project, including findings and stable isotope analysis, will be presented by Bosque School students at the February 2025 Joint Annual Meeting of the New Mexico and Arizona chapters of the American Fisheries Society and The Wildlife Society. Sophie’s and Ada’s findings will also be presented in poster format in the spring of 2025 as part of the Senior Thesis Symposium. 

The goal of the summer 2024 field science research project was to gain a better understanding of otter placement in the aquatic food web in the monument. But there’s another web at play, which is the development of our student-scientists. Sophie’s, Ada’s, and Jakob’s research built upon that of previous Bosque School students, who, in 2010 and 2014, conducted studies related to the reintroduction of the otters to New Mexico. An additional web connects our students to the valuable knowledge and experience of the professionals at the BLM and UNM. The mentorship of the field science faculty Dan Shaw, Kim Fike, and Donny Kelley-Currens ensures that every step of the students’ research meets professional standards. It’s so much more than a boat ride.