Conservation Northwest

Conservation Northwest updates Kit McGurn Outreach associate, kit@conservationnw.org volunteer monitoring reports What they tell us about wildlife Volunteers with Conservation Northwest's Citizen Wildlife Monitoring Project have a reputation for getting results. Every year since 2001, our volunteers have wielded remote cameras to capture images of rare and sensitive species, ranging from wolverine to wolves. Volunteers at our camera sites have also recorded thousands of images of more commonly occurring species, such as cougar, bobcat, elk, and mule deer. Together the images tell the story of when, where, and how various species move across our landscape. But are we telling that story more broadly, you ask? Being good citizen scientists, we produce not one but two comprehensive reports, of course! But don't let the word "report" make you yawn. Woven throughout these accounts is a rich story of Northwest wildlife and all the varied techniques employed to better our understanding of the presence and movement of wild critters across the state. Help out Monitor wildlife. Sign up to join a field team in eastern or western Washington. Adopt a team! Don't want to hike miles with cameras on your back? You can help equip this season's volunteers in the field as they document Washington's rare wildlife. Sponsor a citizen Wildlife Monitoring Team; donate at conservationnw.org/ monitoring Get involved. Learn more—contact Kit, kit@conservationnw.org 16 16 Spring-Summer 2013 Spring-Summer 2013 Creature features 2012-13 In addition to documenting a new wolverine, our Chiwaukum Mountains site in the central Cascades recorded wildlife including black bear, coyote, and a rare sighting of a hoary marmot. Fun fact: Hoary marmots are a prey species of wolverine. (Well, not fun for the marmot!) In the southern Alpine Lakes Wilderness, while they didn't capture wolverines, cameras at all four of our wolverine sites documented American martens. That's not surprising given that our wolverine sites are located in good-quality marten habitat, with a lot of older forest and downed, decaying large wood, good for denning and cover. Knowing the presence of American martens in these areas is useful to the Cascades Carnivore Connectivity Project (cascadesconnectivity.org), which is studying the barrier effects of highways on genetic diversity among populations of black bears and martens. For species richness and diversity on camera this season at our northeastern Washington monitoring sites, our cameras in the Selkirk Mountains took the cake. Volunteers in the Salmo-Priest Wilderness sites documented seven different species: wolf, cougar, moose, black bear, bobcat, coyote, and deer. Although they are rare in most parts of the Cascades, moose are on the upswing in northeast Washington and were recorded at five of our six remote camera sites: Alligator Ridge, Boulder Creek, Buck Creek, Hunter-Springdale, and Salmo-Priest. Our volunteers in northeast Washington have also kept busy looking for lynx and wolverines in northeast Washington and across the BC border. See next page. A male wolverine at Bootjack Mountain in the Cascades. Citizen Wildlife Monitoring Project See it online From lynx scratch pads to remote camera monitoring to winter snow tracking, learn more about how we do the work we do, as we share the wealth of wildlife data with agencies like Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife and the US Forest Service. You'll find juicy tidbits in our past reports. Read them here, conservationnw. org/flipbooks conservationnw.org conservationnw.org

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