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Kaitlyn Strickfaden

Knowledge of snow cover distribution and disappearance dates over a wide range of scales is imperative for understanding hydrological dynamics and for habitat management of wildlife species that rely on snow cover. Identification of snow refugia, or places with relatively late snow disappearance dates (SDDs) compared to surrounding areas, is especially important as climate change alters snow cover timing and duration. The purpose of this study was to increase understanding of snow refugia in complex terrain spanning the rain-snow transition zone at fine spatial and temporal scales. To accomplish this objective, we used remote cameras to provide relatively high temporal and spatial resolution measurements on snowpack...
Categories: Publication; Types: Citation
Remote cameras are used to study demographics, ecological processes, and behavior of wildlife populations. Cameras have also been used to measure snow depth with physical snow stakes. However, concerns that physical instruments at camera sites may influence animal behavior limit installation of instruments to facilitate collecting such data. Given that snow depth data are inherently contained within images, potential insights that could be made using these data are lost. To facilitate camera‐based snow depth observations without additional equipment installation, we developed a method implemented in an R package called edger to superimpose virtual measurement devices onto images. The virtual snow stakes can be used...
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Snow conditions are changing dramatically in the mountains of the interior Pacific Northwest, including eastern Washington, northern Idaho, and western Montana. These changes can both benefit and hinder a variety of wildlife species. The timing and extent of seasonal snowpacks, in addition to snow depth, density, and hardness, can impact the ability of wildlife to access forage, their ability to move across the landscape, and their vulnerability to predators, to name a few. In order to respond effectively to changes in snow conditions, wildlife managers need tools to identify areas and promote conditions that maintain late spring and early summer snowpack for some sensitive species. Managers also require an index...
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Snow conditions are changing dramatically in the mountains of the interior Pacific Northwest, including eastern Washington, northern Idaho, and western Montana. These changes can both benefit and hinder a variety of wildlife species. The timing and extent of seasonal snowpacks, in addition to snow depth, density, and hardness, can impact the ability of wildlife to access forage, their ability to move across the landscape, and their vulnerability to predators, to name a few. In order to respond effectively to changes in snow conditions, wildlife managers need tools to identify areas and promote conditions that maintain late spring and early summer snowpack for some sensitive species. Managers also require an index...
This repository contains a package in Program R which allows for snow depth measurements using a "virtual" snow stake. The package detected the edges of a snow stake in a reference image and superimposes the edges of the snow stake onto other images. The R package is also available on GitHub at https://github.com/kaitlynstrickfaden/edger.
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