Rural Mail Carriers Rural Mail Carriers Count Wildlife Off the Beaten Path by Melissa Hathaway Rural U.S. mail carriers have supplied the Ohio Division of Wildlife with counts of cottontail rabbits, ring -necked pheasants, and bobwhite quail both spring and summer for the past 30 years.
Most people get a special joy in spotting wildlife from the road.
For rural U.S. mail carriers, however, who slowly traverse county back roads and country lanes on their daily delivery routes, wildlife is not only a pleasant surprise, but a natural part of the workday. For more than 30 years, thousands of Ohio's rural mail carriers have voluntarily put their wildlife observations to use twice a year by supplying the Ohio Division of Wildlife with counts of cottontail rabbits, ring-necked pheasants, and bobwhite quail. Mail carriers, representing nearly 1,900 rural delivery routes and collectively covering more than 600,000 miles across the state, annually provide the Division with valuable data. During survey periods each spring and summer, participating rural mail carriers complete survey cards of their observations of rabbits, pheasants, and quail, as well as provide information about delivery routes such as post office city, route number, county, and route length. The Division then converts this data to species observations per 1,000 survey miles.