Even if you spend a lot of time outdoors in Georgia, spotting a weasel is still rare. And that can make studying them a challenge for researchers. But now scientists at the University of Georgia have a new way to document the elusive mammal.
Last year, Georgia’s Department of Natural Resources listed two types of weasels on a list of species of greatest conservation need.
Now, a team of researchers at the University of Georgia have developed a new method to study them using scent-detecting dogs to help them place trail cameras.
Lexie Dingerson is a graduate research assistant and co-author of this study. She said it’s been decades since there have been good records of weasel sightings.
“So a lot of these records are from 25-plus years, almost 30 years in certain parts of the state,” she said. “So South Georgia specifically, we know that they used to exist there, but we don’t have any updated records.”
Dingerson and her team hope this new method will help researchers study weasels in a cheaper, more efficient way.
This story comes to The Current GA through a reporting partnership with GPB News, a non-profit newsroom covering the state of Georgia.
