Week 5:


Raystown Wildlife 



Northern Box Turtle: Currently In Nesting Season, super active on roads and in nesting areas
Black Rat Snake: Super Chill, Eats Dead animals, keeps copperheads away
Walleye: lots of eggs found in the project that Autumn and Andrew Garman did on fish structures recently put in by the Corps


Due to the drought that lasted about 2 weeks long, there has been an increase in snake sightings as well as other wildlife being spotted around campsites. There have been a lot of campers and visitors that call in saying that there is a copperhead at their site and they try to kill it. All of the snake calls we have responded to have been black rat snakes, and Northern water snakes. Both are harmless and non venomous. I want to take a second to educate those on the difference between copperheads and Northern water snakes. 




Water snakes light patches have a slight Hershey kiss shaped skin. Fully grown water snakes are bigger/thicker than a fully grown copperhead.


Pictured Above: This is a young Black Rat snake, that sometimes on a quick glance can resemble a copperhead. 

It is really important to note: The killing of venomous snakes without a VENOMOUS SNAKE TAG is PROHIBITED and will result in the contact of a WCO. 
ALL non venomous snakes are protected and it is prohibited to kill/trap/keep any of them. This will result in the contact of a WCO as well. 


Chlorophyll a Resampling 


I got Dr. Muth, a Biology Professor at Juniata College to come out with his daughter and her friend. I showed them my process of collecting at different depths and gave them a tour of the North area of Raystown. I was able to run my concentrations the next day and finally got some good concentrations down and was able to really finish off the first round of sampling on the lake. I am excited to see what my next round of concentrations will be once the water finishes stratifying. 




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