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Washington's Kettle River Mountain Range for lynx monitoring, with our partners at Selkirk College in British
Columbia also maintaining one lynx survey area in southern British Columbia's Rossland Range.
Over the course of the 2017 season, we detected nineteen species that fall into our priority listing for this project.
Highlights from this field season include:
● The continued documentation of wolverines in Washington's Cascade Mountains. Our citizen science teams
documented wolverines in the southern portion of the North Cascades on eight separate occasions, including
two individuals visiting a site together. We continue to work on improving our coverage for difficult to access
locations, so that bait and hair snares can be checked on a frequent interval when target species have been
detected.
● Although our teams recorded no Canada lynx on the Washington side of the border this year, the efforts of
our volunteers have contributed to a larger study by our partners at Washington State University. Dr. Dan
Thornton's Mammal Spatial Ecology and Conservation Lab has been able to add our data to their larger study
focused on distributions and population density of the Canada Lynx in the Kettle Range and Columbia
Highlands of northeast Washington, and has developed a methodology for large-scale, long-term monitoring
of lynx in Washington state (Appendix VI). Through the CWMP, Dr. Lui Marinelli's students at Selkirk College
were successful in documenting Canada lynx in southern B.C.'s Rossland Range. These efforts contribute to
furthering our collective knowledge and conservation efforts to protect this rare and sensitive species.
● Our volunteer teams documented fishers at two survey areas in the South Cascades. Both locations are in
close proximity to where fisher reintroduction efforts have taken place in Washington led by the Washington
Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW), National Park Service and Conservation Northwest. Fisher photo
documentation provides visual evidence of the health of the animal at the date the photo was taken.
Reintroduced individuals have internal radio transmitters providing location information via overhead
telemetry flights; however, the lifespan of these devices will not provide information on the following
generation
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. In the coming years, we plan to expand our fisher monitoring and expect our efforts to play a
role in documenting the presence of offspring and provide further evidence of an expanding population.
● American martens were recorded at ten different survey areas in the Cascades. While not a target species for
our project, data collected on martens is shared with our Advisory Council members carrying out research on
these animals.
● Animals documented at I-90 Corridor survey areas for the 2017 season were of particular interest due to the
completion of two large wildlife underpasses at Gold Creek in 2014, recent completion of several smaller
undercrossings nearby, and the increased opportunity for movement of wildlife. CWMP's survey areas are
located within close proximity to these new highway-crossing structures. Easton sites recorded presence of
seven different species in habitat adjacent to the highway. The presence of this high number of species serves
as an example of the crossing structures' utility for wildlife to travel safely under I-90. Since the underpass
areas have transitioned to a restoration phase, we expect to see wildlife making more use of them and
adjacent areas. As construction continues on the first wildlife overpass, we will continue to pay especially
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Lewis, Jeff. Restoring fishers in Washington State. Wildlife Seminar at UW Jan 22, 2018.
