Conservation Northwest

2016-2017 CWMP Winter Snow Tracking Report FINAL

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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CWMP 2016-2017 Winter Report 10 Summary of 2017 Trailing Data Citizen scientists trailed animals 14 times over the course of the monitoring period, and trailed five separate species (Table 2). Of these trailing events, three recorded an animal crossing or entering the highway: a pair of coyotes crossed Eastbound I- 90 at Easton, a single coyote entering the Easton tree island (along the Easton South transect) from Westbound I-90, and a coyote crossing from the Snoqualmie Pass Underpass. Three trailing events followed elk at Denny Creek and Price Noble. At both transects, elk were foraging along the highway, with no effort to cross I-90 detected. Foraging and marking sign suggests elk are wintering along the highway. Please refer to Appendix III for maps displaying the distribution of trailing events across the five transects. Table 2. The number of species trailed across the five transects. * denotes trailing events documenting an animal crossing I-90. Transect Denny Creek Easton Gold Creek Price Noble Snoqualmie Pass Species n trailing events N S N N S N S Bobcat 4 1 1 1 1 Coyote 4 3* 1* Elk 3 1 2 Marten 2 2 Mule Deer 1 1 American Marten Surveys For the 2015-2016 Annual Winter Report, we reviewed all of the American marten detection data collected over the duration of this project as well as the results of other recent survey efforts for this species in the study area carried out by others. Based on this review, we suggested that recent land use changes, specifically ski resort expansion at Snoqualmie Pass, may have decreased the permeability of the landscape for American marten. Additionally, while we documented the species just off of Interstate 90 north of the roadway at our SnoPass transect, we have no documentation of the species close to the roadway anywhere to the south, though we do have repeated observations from well off the highway from the now terminated Hyak-Silver Fir transect. In total, our findings and review further suggest that currently the Interstate and associated human development adjacent to it may be acting as a complete separation for American marten populations north and south of the road.

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