Bullsnakes were opportunistically observed at a site on Alberta’s Red Deer River at the northern extreme of their range near the town of Drumheller. This site is significant for its importance to the local nesting ecology of this snake. Data were collected from captured snakes, and individuals were marked and photographed to enable identification upon subsequent recapture. A minimum of 39 adult Bullsnakes were known to utilize a single bluff over a period spanning five years from 1998 to 2002. Fifteen gravid females were found over this span nesting in a single burrow complex. Bullsnakes were found to excavate their own nesting burrows at the site, and to show nest site fidelity. The congregation of numbers of these snakes at localized sites of importance to nesting biology renders them potentially vulnerable, and may present conservation challenges.

Wolverine (Gulo gulo luscus) caches and resting sites were examined in a study area in the boreal upland forests of northwestern Alberta and northeastern British Columbia (approximately 57°N). Cache sites were in climax, or "overmature" stands of Black Spruce (Picea mariana) or mixed-wood of high complexity, dominated by conifers, and in which the Trembling Aspen (Populus tremuloides) and Balsam Poplar (Populus balsamifera) component consisted of mostly dead or dying trees characteristic of such old growth in the boreal uplands. Sites offered relatively good visibility of the surrounding stand. Sites were never located in the dense to extremely dense homogenous spruce stands documented as being favored for travel by Wolverines in the study area. The better used cache complexes were accessed by numerous well-used trails made by the Wolverines themselves. Caches consisted of the bones, hide and hair of Moose (Alces alces) believed to have been killed by Grey Wolves (Canis lupus). Caches were classified as "simple caches" composed of a single feeding site and/or excavation and "cache complexes" involving one or more feeding "stations", latrines, resting sites, and climbing trees that may have been used as avenues of escape from competitors/predators. Resting sites were located atop the snow in relatively open locations that offered good visibility of the surroundings. Climax stands were implicated as being of importance to Wolverine caching behavior. Conservation implications include the detrimental effect on Wolverine populations likely to result from current timber harvesting practices in the boreal forest.

A practical method for detecting and removing anomalous velocity spikes in ultrasonic Doppler velocity-profiling (UDVP) data is presented. UDVP applies the pulsed ultrasonic Doppler effect to measure instantaneous flow velocities, using the rate of movement of suspended particles within the flow as a proxy. This technique has become popular in laboratory studies of sediment erosion, transport, and deposition, because of its ability to acquire high-resolution velocimetric data at a wide range of suspended-sediment concentrations in, for example, hyperconcentrated river flows, transient turbulent mudflows, and turbidity currents. Velocity data recorded by UDVP transducers that are not part of the genuine velocity signal are collectively known as velocity spikes. The new technique to detect velocity spikes proposed here is based on a simple, combined acceleration and magnitude threshold method, with a piecewise Hermite cubic interpolation of four adjacent velocity measurements used to remove the detected velocity spikes. 110 datasets covering different combinations of velocity and suspended-sediment concentration were used to test the MatLab-coded despiking algorithm, and to make recommendations for best practice in future UDVP-based studies.

. 2004. Effects of mid-winter snow depth on stand selection by Wolverines, Gulo gulo luscus, in the boreal forest. Canadian Field-Naturalist 118(1): 56-60.

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