home     help     resources   Your Ecology IQ | Choose Your Critters Choose Your Critters Your Guide discusses Landscape species. How many vertebrate species (animals with backbones) live in the Adirondacks? Download field notebook questions.   A colleague is impressed with your new knowledge and invites you along on a hike in the Adirondacks. Ready for a well-deserved break?   Can we study all the species that live in the Adirondacks? Monitor their health? Imagine how many biologists it would take to study them all. Time and resources are limited, so landscape ecologists need to pick a subset. Should it be beetles or bobcats? Mudpuppies or moles? It’s not easy to choose, as you’ll find out. If you could focus on only five wildlife species to help understand and protect the Adirondacks, which ones would you choose and why? Pick from the list below:   • List the 5 species you would choose to help understand and protect the Adirondacks. Explain your reasoning. • Did you have enough information to make good decisions? What else do you need to know? • NOTE: Keep your list for future use.   © 2004 Wildlife Conservation Society.