16 CWMP 2013-2014 Winter Field Season Report
Table 7: Summary of volunteer participation for snow tracking transects 2014.
Number of Volunteer Team Leaders 9
Number of Other Transect Volunteers 45
Number of Transect Field Days 34
Transect Team Leadership Hours (Training and Field Days) 392
Project Leadership Volunteer Hours 69
Transect Volunteer Hours 1681
Remote Cameras
Our 2013-2014 winter field season began in December and ran through April. Over the
season, 12 camera sites were monitored in the Cascades. The following results only
include species of interest to this program and species falling within our three priority
levels (Appendix C), thus excluding photographs of birds, hares, small rodents,
domestic dogs and cats (and people). Due to increasing interest in the interaction of
wolves and livestock in Washington, we include domestic livestock captured at our sites
as a Level 3 species in our analyses.
Our program expands knowledge of wildlife presence in Washington; however,
limitations to the breadth of our data do exist. Our data cannot ascertain species
diversity, population size, or species absence. Rather, it focuses on species richness,
which has invaluable application to the conservation and management of rare and
sensitive species in Washington. Species richness is defined as the number of different
species present within a defined area. For the purposes of the Citizen Wildlife
Monitoring Project, we assess species richness by site, which we can then extrapolate
out into our larger, defined study areas. In addition to appraising species richness, we
also assess the number of identified priority level species per site. Thus the more
species recorded from each level (with a particular emphasis on Level 1 species), the
greater the importance to our project.
Though we separate our study into three distinct regions (Central Cascades; I-90
Corridor; and South Cascades), for the purposes of data analysis we will present the
results from regions for the 2013-2014 winter monitoring season altogether. Note that
each site represents combined data from two separately situated motion-triggered
cameras set up within the same close vicinity.
