15
Moose
Porcupine
Raccoon
Striped Skunk/ Spotted Skunk
Snowshoe hare and smaller mammals (squirrels, rodents, American pika)
Livestock (cow and sheep)
Human (non-volunteer) includes: domestic dog with human, horse and rider, bicycle, and vehicles
Of note: while not one of our priority species, the Virginia opossum is a non-native mammal which we have
detected over the years at various locations, and we have included it where detected.
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
During the 2017 monitoring season, volunteers collected data year-round with the majority of the cameras
deployed from May through October. Over the course of the season, CWMP project volunteers established and
maintained 30 survey areas with 72 sites. These survey areas were defined through communications with
Conservation Northwest program staff and scientists, our Advisory Council and distributed throughout the
Cascade Mountain Range, northeastern Washington, and into the southern regions of British Columbia. The
following results cover all of the mammal species detected on our camera traps, including all events involving
priority species for the project as outlined above. Only species falling within the three priority levels are included.
Due to increasing interest in the interaction of wolves and livestock in Washington, any observed domestic
livestock and human activity has also been included in this analysis.
Though our program expands knowledge of wildlife presence in Washington, limitations to the breadth of our
data do exist. Our data cannot ascertain species diversity—a measure of evenness of distribution of different
species, population size—or species absence. Rather, our data focuses on species richness, the number of
different species counted within an ecosystem or area, which has invaluable applications to the conservation and
management of rare and sensitive species in Washington. In addition to assessing species richness, we assess the
number of observed events of identified priority-level species per study area. For the purposes of this project, an
event is defined as any visit of a single animal (or group of animals belonging to the same species) to a camera
installation with no gap greater than five minutes between images.
Results for this year are organized by target
species, as in 2015 and 2016. The number of
discrete remote camera installations at each
survey area and the total number of trap nights,
or 24-hour monitoring periods, is presented
below as an index of relative survey effort in
each area, this year we have added an overview
of our program effort and percent of the total
for the entire project (Table 1, Figure 2).
Figure 2: Total trap nights for CWMP by target species and percent of
overall effort.
