Creating a table for each area was easy, but combining them was challenging. I initially tried using a line graph and a bar graph, but the results were confusing, so I decided to use a scatter plot instead. I expected the number of squirrels in the Trail of Hope to be as high as, or even higher than, in the picnic area, but this wasn’t the case. The area had lower squirrel numbers overall compared to the picnic area, with consistent observations of around 6-8 squirrels in both the morning and afternoon sessions. This consistency was unexpected and suggests that some high-traffic zones may not always correspond with higher squirrel abundance.
I conducted this study in the fall, and I wonder if similar results would appear in other seasons. This is worth exploring further, as food availability and human activity tend to fluctuate throughout the year. Additionally, after reading other studies, I’m interested in using other methods to obtain a more accurate count of squirrel abundance in Central Park, Burnaby. Some methods I would like to explore include camera trapping and mark-recapture