Our first week together in the field! You can be as prepared as you want for field season, but there are some things that you just cannot plan for. We learned that the hard way on day one! Standing in the middle of a swale that was three feet deep after finding two turtles with [...]
Surprise! Today's blog we're taking a sneak peak at the box turtle team. Why might you ask? Well, while Kirsten is moving her personal belongings to Lake County, Sam is diving into a mini adventure with the box turtle team! "I know I'm cheating on the Blanding's just a little bit, but they are still [...]
The time of year we have all been waiting for is here... FIELD SEASON! Months of preparation have gone into this weekend, and we are so excited to finally move all of our supplies up to Lake County, Illinois for the summer. We were all coming off of our post-finals stress, so the Dunkin' Donuts [...]
Interested to see how a week of turtle team works? Watch our first vlog to see the process!
3 days, 3 people, 1 very successful trip to Indiana. Only a couple days after the school year had finally ended, three members of Team Snake (Kennymac Durante, Dr. Ellen Haynes, and Seth LaGrange) hit the ground running in order to survey the prevalence of Ophidiomyces ophiodiicola (Snake fungal disease) in wild snake populations in [...]
The Wildlife Epidemiology Lab (WEL) houses a variety of reptile colonies for both research and teaching purposes including box turtles, alligator snapping turtles, prairie rattlesnakes, and a variety of other venomous and non-venomous snakes. One of the newest additions is the colony of ten bearded dragons, identified as A-J, who became members of the lab [...]
Hello from Team Snake!! Welcome to Katie and Kennymac's summer journey in the Wildlife Epidemiology Lab! Katie is a second year veterinary student and is interested in public health, and Kennymac is a first year veterinary student interested in zoological medicine. This summer, we are both working on projects related to Ophidiomyces, a snake fungal [...]
Blog 1: “The Big Pack” Welcome to the Summer 2019 Blanding’s Blog! Our names are Sam and Kirsten and we are veterinary students at the University of Illinois. We also are student researchers in the Wildlife Epidemiology Lab here at U of I. ( Kirsten- Second Year Student) (Sam - First [...]
I CANNOT BELIEVE THE SUMMER IS OVER!! It flew by too fast. Words cannot express how much I have enjoyed my time in Oak Ridge, TN. The information I have learned from the students, John Byrd, and about John Byrd and I giving a presentation to a summer camp! snakes have exceeded my [...]
AKA The Best Week of the Summer When we thought spending our summer outside every day in the field finding turtles couldn’t get any better, it did. We participated in the annual turtle games -- BBV (Blanding’s Bowl V). The games have been occurring for five years and it is one week out of the [...]
