Matches Made in the Wilderness, in the Name of Science

HELENA NATIONAL FOREST, Mont. — On most beautiful winter Saturdays, Erika Nunlist, a college freshman, can usually be found backcountry skiing in the Rockies. But Ms. Nunlist chose to spend a recent sparkling day searching for greenish lumps of wolverine excrement.

“Oh, yeah, I love collecting scat,” Ms. Nunlist, 19, deadpanned as she bagged a sample. “You wouldn’t have heard me say that when I had to do that for our dog around the house.”

Gregg Treinish, an experienced outdoorsman, organized the outing to track the elusive wolverine, the largest member of the weasel family, across this rugged landscape. A dozen volunteers had come to learn how to track the animal’s prints and collect scat and hair samples as a part of an effort called Adventurers and Scientists for Conservation.

The program, which Mr. Treinish founded, enlists outdoor athletes as hardy field assistants to scientists in need of data from far-flung places. Some expeditions are group efforts, but much of the data is collected by the lone hiker who pauses on the trail to inspect a plant, or the rower who stops to observe a pod of whales.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/12/us/matching-adventurers-with-scientists.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20120312