Information from digitized maps...
The various maps that we have--topographic, political--can be digitized into layers and then put into what's called a Geographic Information System, which you heard a little bit earlier. These are digitized rivers of the area where we're working. Again, the mountain range is going to go north-south like this. So this is where we know where we can get water.
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These are selected contours at different elevations and this is where we can figure out how high up we can go in order to identify fauna that might change from a lowland elevation to the higher elevations. Here are the trails that we have. There are no roads but at least there's some trails that may help us to carry our gear and find our way in. We combine results over the top of the image, the satellite image, showing you where the better forest is, to come up with a composite that basically you can use to say we want to work in this area here, which means that we need to take this trail up as far as it will go and then bushwack in to find some site here that's in the nicest forest, that's near a stream, that's at the right elevation.
Again, I can't tell you how pleased I am to have this map because it's going to save me several months of slogging around this area looking for the right place and also, again, it's going to be very useful in helping us understand connectivity and corridors between these different natural areas.
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