Cedar Creek Wildlife Survey: June 14

Saturday, June 14

9:00 AM - 4:30 PM

Cedar Creek Ecosystem Science Reserve

2660 Fawn Lake Dr NE, East Bethel, MN 55005 

The Spring 2025 Cedar Creek Wildlife Survey is coming up on Saturday, June 14. We hope you can join us.

The Cedar Creek Wildlife Survey is a joint venture between the Minnesota Wildlife Tracking Project and the University of Minnesota's Cedar Creek Ecosystem Science Reserve. We help to gather information about species of interest to wildlife researchers working at Cedar Creek. Our focus this year is on coyotes and weasels. The survey is a unique opportunity to improve your tracking skills, connect with nature, and help Cedar Creek scientists. You can read about our Spring 2024 survey here, and our Winter 2025 survey here.

The program is free, but space is limited and registration is required

Use This Form to Register

Our Spring Survey will be an all day affair. We will head out in teams to survey for animal tracks and sign, then come back in to share our discoveries with one another. Each team will be led by an experienced wildlife tracker who holds a Level III or higher in Track & Sign identification. We will focus our attention on the tracks and sign of canids and mustelids. In past surveys, our teams have identified the tracks of coyotes, red fox, gray fox, and wolves on the property. You can see some of those observations here. With the bison enclosure vacant for the season, we have a broader range of places we can roam. Who knows what we will find. Here is the schedule for the day:

8:30am    Doors open at Lindeman Center

9:00am    Program begins: Tracking teams organize to leave for the field

~3:00pm  Return from the field for sharing, mapping and debriefing

4:30pm    Complete

We look forward to getting out in the field with you.

Registration is required

Use This Form to Register

About Cedar Creek

Cedar Creek Ecosystem Science Reserve is a 5,400 acre experimental ecological reserve operated by the University of Minnesota. It is located about 35 miles north of Minneapolis and St. Paul, just east of Bethel.

Cedar Creek lies at the boundary between prairie and forest. It is a mosaic of uplands dominated by oak savanna, prairie, hardwood forest, pine forests, and abandoned agricultural fields and of lowlands comprised of ash and cedar swamps, acid bogs, marshes, and sedge meadows. The area was first set aside in the early 1940s to be kept in its natural condition for scientific and educational purposes. Much of the land remains pristine, and has never been developed for agriculture. You can learn more at cbs.umn.edu/cedarcreek

The diverse, pristine habitat supports a wide variety of mammals. Species seen on the property over the Reserve's 75 year history include white-tailed jackrabbits, badger, fisher, fox squirrels, porcupine & spotted skunks. Reserve staff and scientists are looking for our help to update their index of mammals. If you are a beginner, the surveys will offer an overview of the diversity of Minnesota Mammals. For the advanced tracker, you might get to try your hand at distinguishing fisher from otter; fox squirrel from grey squirrel; and a variety of tiny mammal tracks. You can take a look at some of what our tracking teams have found on our iNaturalist Project Page, or look read about our past surveys on our blog.

Public access to the Reserve is limited. The Cedar Creek Wildlife Survey program offers you the rare opportunity to explore this exceptional landscape.