Dalton: Capturing wildlife on camera

DALTON, Ga. — A cougar may be Dalton Middle School’s official mascot, but a group of seventh-graders have adopted another fierce feline champion they’ve photographed prowling the campus.

With help from teacher Chris Manis, the science students set up body-heat triggered trail cameras on the edge of the campus, expecting to get photos of possums, raccoons, rabbits and other small mammals.

So far they’ve photographed two bobcats, a coyote, deer and plenty of smaller animals.

“I really didn’t think there was anything out here,” said Dalton seventh-grader Erik Loredo, standing in a narrow, wooded area behind the school. “To think there’s a cat of that kind around here is kind of shocking.”

“It’s really going to give us a good idea of how these animals are using our campus,” said Mr. Manis, who purchased the cameras for the school in January.

He and his students agree getting out of the classroom to study the animals around campus is teaching them about ecosystems in ways textbooks can’t.

“I think you get a more personal view of it,” said David Jewell, 12.

And for some, a first-time view.

“It’s a first-time experience for me,” Ben Southerland said. “I’d never seen a bobcat before.”

The two cameras, funded by the PTO and Dalton Education Foundation, are attached to trees along game trails about 150 yards from the school. A group of gifted-program students check the cameras to collect the memory cards every two weeks.

Mr. Manis, an Ooltewah resident, started the students’ outdoor education last fall by going out with them to search for scat, droppings the animals leave behind. The subject, as expected, drew plenty of giggles from the middle school audience, he said.

“First of all it was funny, like, ‘Come on!’” Erik said. “After seeing something, it’s like, ‘What could have made that?’”

It is all part of a larger effort called the Mill Creek project, aimed at monitoring the environment around the school, Mr. Manis said.

He and fellow teacher John Patrick have been working with students to take water samples from adjacent wetlands and to capture, check and release small invertebrates, turtles, snakes and small mammals in the woods.

“John and I just try to blow it out and give (students) every opportunity, so we can turn a few of these into biology guys and gals,” he said.