Valley students learn about elk and ecosystems
May 28, 2009
By Laura Geggel
Elk were the name of the game as Snoqualmie Elementary students explored the fields of Meadowbrook Farm under the tutelage of Mount Si High School students and the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife on May 21.
The fifth-grade students rotated between three stations to learn about elk habitat, elk tracking and elk anatomy.
At one of the stations, WDFW outreach educator Kalli Willson and several Mount Si students led a workshop about ecosystems and animal skulls. Holding up each skull, Willson asked the fifth-graders if they could identify it as a carnivore, herbivore or omnivore.
Kalli Willson shows a collection of skulls to Snoqualmie Elementary students Alexa Humphrey, Maddy Jacobs, Samantha Brimberry, Zoie Bel and Christian Diaz.
She tricked them with a beaver skull — it’s an herbivore, but has long incisors to chomp on wood.
Willson showed the children another neat fact. The lower jaws of carnivores lock into the skull, while the jaws of herbivores have no lock-in hinge.
“Uncle Sid is a combination of both,” Willson said, showing the children a human skull.
Herbivores need to grind vegetation, and an unhooked jaw makes it easier for them to mash their teeth in a circular motion. Carnivores only need to chew in an up-and-down motion as they shred meat and crunch bones.
Willson joked that the fifth-graders’ older teenage siblings might look like a cow chewing its cud, but reminded them that humans can chew in all sorts of motions.
The group also reviewed the difference between horns and antlers.
“Horns, aren’t they made of fingernail stuff?” Alexa Humphrey correctly asked.
“Antlers fall off and horns stay on,” Samantha Brimberry said.
Willson pointed to part of an antler that had been nibbled on by a mouse. Antlers are made of calcium and provide an important nutrient for smaller creatures, once the elk sheds them.
Mount Si students peppered the fifth-graders with questions, as well. WDFW Outreach & Education coordinator Rebecca Seyferth had visited Mount Si environmental teacher Nick Kurka’s class four times before the big day. One student, Brianna Kelly, asked the fifth-graders why some antlers were bigger than others.
“They get bigger when the elk are healthy and eat more,” Kaitlin Chomentowski said.
As the lesson ended, the fifth-graders recorded their notes and received a passport stamp, before heading to the next station. They traipsed across the long grassy Meadowbrook Farm field to learn about the signs of elk, examining where elk have browsed, slept and left behind fur and scat and hoof prints.
The leaders of the third workshop taught students about the elk-tracking program. The Upper Snoqualmie Valley Elk Management Group has worked with the Muckleshoot Tribe and the Department of Fish and Wildlife to collar seven elk so far, but one of the collared elk has already met its demise on Interstate 90.
The elk group is tracking the elk to learn more about the elk’s “home range.” Elk group member Tom Kemp told students about their home range.
“Your school is part of your home range, where you live and where you hang out is part of your home range,” Kemp said.
He called an annual trip to Florida a migration, adding that some elk seem to be migrating from the Snoqualmie Valley to the mountains, while other elk appear to stay put in the Valley.
Using a GPS, compass, map and a protractor, the volunteers showed students how they find the collared elk. They measure the collar’s signal three times before they are able to pinpoint the elk’s location.
In one weekend, six elk died in automobile accidents on I-90. The elk management group wants to decrease these incidents.
“If we can keep them off of the interstate, it’s good for the elk and good for the people,” elk group member Harold Erland said. “One of our long-term goals is to increase habitat outside of the Valley.”
Until then, students will be a little bit more knowledgeable about elk and on the lookout.
“I saw about 50 elk up there by the Chinook place,” Joel Van Vrunt said.
“We think it’s important that people know about the animals that live out here in the Valley,” Willson said.
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