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British Columbia.
With the assistance of Conservation Northwest program staff, contractors and our Advisory Council (listed in
Acknowledgements), survey areas were established for each of our project objectives. Program volunteers
managed two grizzly bear survey areas, 13 wolf, 15 wolverine and three multi-species areas in the I-90 corridor.
There were also three survey areas in northeast Washington's Kettle River Mountain Range for lynx monitoring,
with our partners at Selkirk College in British Columbia also maintaining one lynx survey area in southern British
Columbia's Rossland Range.
Highlights from this field season include:
● The continued documentation of wolverines in the Cascades. Our citizen science teams documented
wolverines in the North Cascades in five survey areas on multiple separate occasions. One team observed two
individuals in close proximity to a monitoring installation.
● Although our teams recorded no Canada lynx on the Washington side of the border this year, the efforts of
our volunteers have contributed to a larger study by our partners at Washington State University. Dr. Dan
Thornton's Mammal Spatial Ecology and Conservation Lab has been able to add our data to their larger study
focused on distributions and population density of the Canada lynx in the Kettle Range and Columbia
Highlands of northeast Washington. They have developed a methodology for large-scale, long-term
monitoring of lynx in Washington state (Appendix VI). Dr. Lui Marinelli's students at Selkirk College, working in
southern British Columbia's Rossland Range, were successful in documenting Canada lynx. These efforts
contribute to furthering our collective knowledge and conservation efforts to protect this rare and sensitive
species.
● Our volunteer teams documented fishers at two survey areas in the South Cascades, both locations are in
close proximity to where reintroduction efforts have taken place in Washington state, led by the Washington
Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW), National Park Service and Conservation Northwest. The photo
documentation provides our partners with visual evidence of the health of the animal at the date the photo
was taken. Reintroduced individuals have internal radio transmitters providing location information via
overhead telemetry flights, however, these devices will not provide information on the following generation
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.
In the coming years, we plan to expand our fisher monitoring in the Cascade Mountains and expect our efforts
to play a role in documenting the presence of offspring and provide further evidence of an expanding
population.
● American martens were recorded at 14 different survey areas in the Cascades. While not a target species for
our project, data collected on martens is shared with our Advisory Council members carrying out research on
these animals.
● Animals documented at Interstate 90 survey areas for the 2018 season were of particular interest due to the
completion of 11 wildlife crossing structures of varying sizes and functions between Gold Creek and the
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Lewis, Jeff. Restoring fishers in Washington State. Wildlife Seminar at UW Jan 22, 2018.
