CASCADE CITIZEN WILDLIFE MONITORING PROJECT
2012‐2013 WINTER FIELD SEASON REPORT
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The Citizen Wildlife Monitoring Project uses trained volunteers to record the presence
and movement of wildlife, through snow tracking surveys and remote camera
installations, in the Washington Cascades and other wildlands across the state.
This winter marks the seventh season of data collected at fixed transects along
Interstate 90, in the vicinity of proposed and recently constructed wildlife crossing
structures between Snoqualmie Pass and Easton in the I‐90 Snoqualmie Pass East
Project, and the second winter season following the start of significant highway
construction, including completion of two wildlife underpasses at one of the project's
field sites. It also marks the fourth season of observer reliability assessment carried out
to determine the reliability of snow tracking data collected on track transects.
The season's results included our highest number of annual tracking observations to
date. Volunteers documented evidence of a cougar trail associated with the remains of
a deer dragged from roadway off of our Easton transect.
Combined with informal tracking surveys and on‐site hair snag devices, our remote
camera stations added even better coverage of local wildlife. We set cameras within
the new Gold Creek underpasses under Interstate 90 just east of Snoqualmie Pass and
in more remote habitats of the Cascades and in northeast Washington.
Results from our remote camera sites continued to build our knowledge of wolverine
presence in the Highway 2 corridor of the Cascades: there are now 11 wolverines
documented in the state. We also documented the first image of a small mammal
swimming through the wildlife underpass at Gold Creek, and we documented a range
of more common species throughout this priority wildlife corridor.
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CWMP 2012-2013 Winter Field Season Report
