UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. -- It's safe to say that during the mid-90s -- when Justin Compton was hanging out on the beach in sun-baked central California, surfing virtually every day -- he never pictured himself doing rabies research at night in rural Pennsylvania.

Now, the laid-back, soft-spoken 26-year-old pursuing his doctoral degree in wildlife and fisheries science in Penn State's College of Agricultural Sciences is every raccoon's best friend. "You never know where life is going to take you," he says. But the native of San Luis Obispo, Calif., appears unfazed by the continent-wide change of pace, seeming as at-home in rural western Pennsylvania as he was growing up midway between San Francisco and Los Angeles.

"It's not that big a deal, really," he says, laughing. "I've worked in the Tongass National Forest in Alaska doing telemetry work with red squirrels, trying to figure out how different timber harvesting techniques affected their movements and behaviors. I got my master's degree in ecology from Michigan Technology University at Houghton in the Upper Peninsula, studying how invasive species are spread by fish and waterfowl, and I worked for the University of Georgia at the Savannah River Ecology Laboratory, determining how wild pigs impact oak tree regeneration. I have always loved working with wildlife and being outdoors. This is not that different. I think it's a natural progression."

Scientists are concerned about the spread of rabies westward from central Pennsylvania, and raccoons are the primary carrier of the disease, which can kill wild animals, livestock and humans. During a four-year study, funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS), Compton will study the population densities, home ranges, movement patterns and dispersal of raccoons in the western portion of Pennsylvania, near the Ohio border. "For the most part, rabies is absent from the Midwest, even though the raccoon population there appears to be dense enough to support the disease," Compton explains. "It costs a lot to prevent the spread of rabies, and it threatens pets, livestock and people. There is really no baseline data for raccoons in Pennsylvania."

He will work with an APHIS crew that will place 150 live traps around three sites and anesthetize captured animals so some can be fitted with radio transmitter collars. Compton then will track radio-collared animals to determine their movements and behaviors at night. "We will put radio collars on at least 20 raccoons at each site. APHIS workers will measure, age and put ear tags on the animals. The anesthesia will knock the raccoons out for about an hour."

Compton, who enjoys hiking, mountain climbing and whitewater kayaking, recalls that he was always interested in wildlife. "I think the way I grew up -- always being outdoors -- led to that," he says. "I pretty much grew up on the beach, every single day. When I got into the field of ecology, I wanted to see and experience new things, and I guess I have, all over the country. I've been blessed with some great experiences."

Compton, under the direction of Penn State wildlife resources professors Gary San Julian and Rich Yahner, will spend much of the summer tracking the animals by radio signal. Each collar will emit a signal with a different frequency, so Compton will know which animal he is tracking. He'll note the distances traveled by each raccoon each night, paying particular attention to how far juveniles move in forests, farmland and urban areas. "I'll be working in a rugged area carrying a receiver the size of a radio and a hand-held antenna about 3 feet long and about 2 feet wide," he says.

You'd think he would be worried about stumbling around the woods in the dark with an armload of electronic gear, or a grumpy raccoon waking up in the middle of getting a radio collar, but he says he isn't. "I'm more concerned about whether we can tell how big an area a raccoon uses, how far juveniles are dispersing and whether their home ranges change over the course of a year," he says. "This should be interesting, and a lot of fun."

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EDITORS: Contact Justin Compton at 814-234-0511 or jac43@psu.edu.

Contact:

Gary Abdullah gxa2@psu.edu Jeff Mulhollem jjm29@psu.edu 814-863-2719 814-863-9877 fax #191