Conservation Northwest protects and connects old-growth forests and other wild areas from the Washington Coast to the British Columbia Rockies, vital to a healthy future for us, our children, and wildlife. Since 1989, Conservation Northwest has worke
Issue link: http://conservationnw.uberflip.com/i/122699
Inside Conservation Northwest OR Department of Fish & Wildlife Barbara Christensen IT and social media, barbara@conservationnw.org Year of the bat Wonders of chiroptera Summertime is a great time to see and study bats in the Northwest. Step outside at twilight, especially near water, look toward the fading light in the West, and you will most likely be treated to the flitting flight path of the world's only flying mammal. Summertime 2012 is an even better time, because this is the Year of the Bat. Hosted by the United Nations, this international celebration highlights how bats help people and the environment, all over the world. Learn more at YearoftheBat.org. Here in Washington, you can learn the wonders of echolocation, figure out why bats are in the order named chiroptera, and even use the wildlife Monitoring Seward Park Bat Walk, Seattle sewardpark.audubon.org Weds, June 13, July 11, Aug 8, Sept 12 Events not to miss May 17. Online. BatsLive! Free webcast for students 10-11 am July 14. Spokane. Bats of the Inland Northwest. 7:00-11:00 pm July 27. Bellevue. Kelsey Creek Farms Bat Detector Walk. 7:30-9:30 pm Oct 11. Online. Web seminar for educators: Caves and bats. 4:00-5:30 pm Batty fun without leaving home Bats in your backyard. Want to control insects, enhance wildlife habitat, and enjoy watching bats in the twilight every night? Build a bat house! Email me, Barbara@conservationnw.org, and I will send you an easy plan for a Northwest bat-friendly bat house. Bats online. A host of agencies and organizations have created BatsLive, a fun online resource for teachers, students, and you! Videos, lesson plans, links, and more at batslive.pwnet.org Regular bat walks. Green Lake Bat Walk, Seattle batsnorthwest.org June 1, 13, 28; July 9, 23; Aug 9, 22; Sept 5 Citizen science Wild critters can't protect themselves from the march of modern civilization. That's fundamentally why we here at Conservation Northwest got into this whole advocacy business from the get go: to provide a voice that fights to keep the native species of the Pacific Northwest on the landscape, critters large and small, rare and common, aquatic and terrestrial, pretty and well…ugly, too. We don't discriminate. In 20-plus years advocating for native wildlife, the biggest lesson we've learned is that it's all about people. All the work we do in the field or in the meeting room comes down to the choices people make. It comes down to the decisions we collectively agree upon to either ensure we protect and respect our natural resources and wildlife, or not. If people are the key to wildlife survival, what are we here at Conservation Northwest doing to protect wildlife and ensure connections between wild places, wildlife, and people? 22 Spring-Summer 2012 tools researchers use to study bats in the dark. Find details for fun bat events on our web calendar at conservationnw.org. Our Citizen Wildlife Monitoring program embodies our core philosophy of connecting people to our local landscapes and to wildlife. Each year close to 100 volunteers head out into the hills and vales, setting up remote camera stations to capture various images of Northwest wildlife. Sometimes these amazing volunteer citizen scientists get photos of rare creatures such as wolverine and wolves, and other times they document more common animals such as deer, elk, American marten, black bear, and cougar. But with every image captured there is an additional brush stroke to the overall Northwest wildlife canvas. Despite rarely seeing these critters in the wild, they are there, keeping the land alive and vibrant. "To find new things, take the path you took yesterday" said American naturalist John Burroughs. That's the essence of the citizen wildlife monitoring program. With each trip volunteers take back to their camera sites, they are developing Kit McGurn Outreach associate, kit@conservationnw.org Caught on camera by a volunteer wildlife monitoring team in April 2012, this wolverine is the first to be documented in decades south of Highway 2 in the Cascades. Conservation Northwest remote camera a deeper connection and ecological understanding of the landscape they travel through, uncovering another deeper, layer along the same landscape and route. And that human connection is exactly what wildlife need. www.conservationnw.org