Conservation Northwest

2016 CWMP Field Season Report

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

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4 Department of Fish and Wildlife to be a member from the Teanaway pack. ● Although our teams recorded no Canada lynx, this August our partners with WSU were successful in documenting the first Canada lynx in the Kettle River Range in Washington 1 . We are awaiting results from the Rossland Range North of the border, which has been successful in documenting Canada lynx in prior years. These efforts contribute to furthering our collective knowledge and conservation efforts to protect this rare and sensitive species. ● Fishers were documented at two survey areas: Bumping Lake and Lone Butte. While these individuals, as part of the fisher reintroduction efforts in the Cascades of Washington State, have internal radio transmitters providing location information, the photo documentation provides our partners with WDFW visual evidence of the health of the animal at the date the photo was taken. We expect our efforts to play a role documenting the presence of offspring from the reintroduced adults that do not carry locating devices in the coming years. ● American martens were recorded at six different survey areas in the Cascades, a sign of late successional forest habitat nearby where martens often den and hunt. While not a target species for our project, data collected on martens is shared with our Advisory Council members carrying out research on martens. ● Our cameras documented a high diversity of recordable species at twelve survey areas this year. Seven of the survey areas were located in the South Cascades; Blue Lake Ridge and Manastash documented nine species; Bumping Lake, Lookout Mountain, and Taneum recorded eight species; Rimrock Lake and Cliffdell documented seven different species. Our Chiwaukum survey area, in the southern portion of the North Cascades, documented eight different species, including a target species, gray wolf. In the Kettle River Range on the Washington side of the boarder, Colville recorded nine species, Sherman and Kettle range recorded eight different species. High-diversity survey areas documented these species: Gray wolf, fisher, mountain lion, black bear, marten, bobcat, coyote, moose, mule deer, elk, Hoary marmot, striped and spotted skunk, raccoon, porcupine, snowshoe hare and smaller mammals. ● Animals documented at I-90 survey areas for the 2016 season were of particular interest due to the completion of two wildlife underpasses at Gold Creek in 2014 and the increased opportunity for movement of wildlife. Easton recorded presence of seven different species in habitat adjacent to the highway. Highway crossing structures are located within close proximity to these survey areas, the presence of high species diversity serves as an example of crossing structures' utility for wildlife safely travel under I-90. Since the underpasses have transitioned to a restoration phase, we expect to see wildlife making more use of them and areas adjacent to them. As construction continues for the overpass, we will continue to pay especially close attention to wildlife activity nearby. The work of our volunteers through the Citizen Wildlife Monitoring Project increases our understanding of wildlife on the Washington landscape and in the transboundary region between Washington and British Columbia. Not 1 http://www.conservationnw.org/news/updates/lynx-photographed-in-washingtons-kettle-range/

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