18
though we are hopeful that retrieval missions this spring or summer will be successful as Green Lakes was this
past year. These survey areas are in remote, relatively high elevation locations in the North Cascades, most
requiring hours of off-trail navigation and bush-whacking to reach. The challenge that these locations have posed
to our volunteers in the past have led to more careful thought on placement and team commitment prior to some
camera installations. For 2017, limited effort of four installations, 280 trap nights and 3 percent or our total effort
was focused on camera traps set to detect Grizzly bears in the North Cascades Complex (Table 2, Figure 2).
Table 2. Grizzly bear survey area information, including duration of monitoring and number of installations.
Grizzly Bear Camera Survey Areas 2017
Survey Area General Region
# of
Installations
Installation
Date Removal Date
Total Trap
Nights Lure
Baker River NCNP 2 2017/09/03 2017/09/16* 13 Grizzly Bear
Green Lakes NCNP 1^ 2015/07/18 2016/06/23** 267 Grizzly Bear
^One camera still on the landscape, no data received, *last revisit date, cameras still active, **retrieved in 2017
Four species were detected at Green Lake and during the short interval at Baker River: black bear, bobcat, coyote,
spotted skunk, and many detections of snowshoe hare and smaller mammals (Table 3). Our cameras at Blum Lake,
Thornton Lake and a 2
nd
at Green Lake set prior to the 2017 season have not yet been retrieved. Retrieval is
expected during summer 2018.
Table 3. Number of detection events by species at grizzly bear survey areas.
Species Detection Events at Grizzly Bear Camera Survey Areas 2017
Species Priority Level 3
Survey Area Black Bear Bobcat Coyote
Spotted
Skunk
Snowshoe hare and
smaller mammals
Baker River
2
Green Lakes
5 8 1 1 54
GRAY WOLF
There were eight survey areas that followed our species specific protocols for detecting gray wolves, all were
located south of I-90 (Figure 4). Our monitoring efforts dedicated to detecting wolves consisted of twenty-nine
installations and a total of 2,775 trap nights making up for 29 percent of the 2017 monitoring season (Table 4,
Figure 2).
While no wolves were detected in this region, a fisher was captured on camera at Blue Lake Ridge and images
have been shared with our project partners involved in recent fisher reintroduction efforts. Mountain lions were
seen at seven of the eight survey areas. Twelve level three species, including black bear, bobcat, coyote, elk, mule
deer, both striped and spotted skunks, porcupine, raccoon, snowshoe hare and smaller mammals, livestock and
