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/122778
Conservation Northwest updates Wildlife Monitoring Jen Watkins Conservation associate, jen@conservationnw.org Leaving our own tracks this winter Bobcat, Cascades. CNW remote camera Each winter, through our Citizen Wildlife Monitoring Program, we deploy volunteers on snowshoes or skis into the snowy mountains around our state to help track and detect wildlife. For the fifth winter season, we worked with Wilderness Awareness School and I-90 Wildlife Bridges Coalition to train nearly 50 volunteers to conduct snowtracking surveys in key habitats adjacent to proposed wildlife crossing structures in the I-90 Snoqualmie Pass East Project. Volunteers spent full days in the field walking transects in habitat on both sides of I-90 at Gold Creek (where a wildlife underpass is currently being constructed), Price/Noble Creek (where the Rock Knob overpass is proposed), Hyak (the highest elevation habitat on the west edge of the project), and Easton Hill (near where a wildlife overpass is proposed). Volunteers clocked hundreds of hours and recorded tracks in the snow of beaver, coyote, deer, elk, river otter, marten, and bobcat. Farther into the backcountry of the Cascades, three volunteer teams were led by our intern Adam Martin to install and maintain baited remote camera stations to detect the presence of wolverines. Although no wolverines were detected at our stations, we did record thousands of images of pine marten that spent hours at our stations along with coyote and this bobcat that took a nap in front of our cameras. All of our winter work will be presented in a report to be available by the end of May on our website: www. conservationnw.org/monitoring As the snow seems to keep coming across the state, we are already underway with plans for our spring-fall remote camera season. Stay tuned! On the trail of wolverines: A winter's tale Adam Martin reports on fieldwork this winter as team leader with the Cascades Citizen Wildlife Monitoring Project. tracks of three people will tell the story of weather and waiting. Field days, having their share Looking into the white wall where nearby Jim Hill should be, I thought of some wolverine in the high country, its coat impervious to wind or weather. Pushing through snow drifts, sniffing for old bones or, now in the spring, for a marmot slowly waking. of tedium, let downs, and dead ends, can be filled with moments of intimacy and immediacy. On our last day of the 2010-2011 winter wolverine remote camera season, a few hundred yards from our cameras we became stuck in a white out that had come over Jim Hill. A sunny day had turned harsh and cold, and two new volunteers, Kim and Zach, and I hid in a tree well, with our backs to the weather, quietly snacking. I was distracting myself from the cold, thinking about a bobcat I had tracked along a transect near Hyak Lake in the I-90 corridor. The bobcat had moved in a straight path from tree well to tree well. In each, the bobcat had lain, looking outward through the conifer needles. Sometimes these tracks were atop other animals: grouse, or snowshoe hare. But often the bobcat was alone, tracks not fully melted in, hinting a brief wait between the bobcat's daily rounds. Pine marten, Lanham Lake. CNW remote camera Tree wells are a refuge of sorts, a refuge for animals, and for their story. Winter obliterates the stories in the snow, but here, the thin veneer of conifer needles preserves the story throughout the season. Around me are tracks of a chickadee, searching for seeds, amid the old tracks of a coyote that had sniffed the trunk and walked off. Now, the 18 Spring/Summer 2011 The musing reminded me of why we were here, after all. The main objective of this wildlife monitoring adventure was to find evidence of wolverines. This rare predator is almost constantly on the move. They range far to find enough prey to feed the engine of their movement. Their presence and wide range demands connected habitats. We know they visit here, yet we understand little about their habits and where they go, when they go. Just as quickly as the storm came, it left. Even as snow was falling, the sun turned the valley into a snow globe, each flake reflecting light, behind www.conservationnw.org