Winter is a critical yet understudied season for the population dynamics of small mammals. Effectively sampling small mammals that reside in the subnivium in seasonally snow-covered landscapes is logistically challenging and has limited rigorous and cross-seasonal studies of their populations. Herein, we developed a method for live trapping the small-mammal community within the subnivium. Our trapping structures, or “snow culverts,” were easy to build and deploy, and provided protection from extreme ambient temperatures. Summer trapping mortality rates in our study were low. Trapping mortality in the winter using snow culverts was higher than in summer, but comparable to mortality rates observed in other summer small-mammal trapping studies. The snow culverts can be used to trap small mammals effectively and efficiently in any seasonally snow-covered environment.
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