CWMP 2017-2018 Winter Report
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professionals by providing supplemental monitoring efforts in areas identified as either
potential core habitat or vital connectivity corridors between core habitats for some of our
region's rarest wildlife. Our main project objectives are:
1. To engage and educate citizens about the detection and monitoring of sensitive
wildlife species and in critical habitat areas;
2. To record wildlife presence in the I-90 corridor and along the I-90 Snoqualmie Pass
East Project in strategic locations and in core habitat through remote cameras and
snow tracking;
3. To record the presence of rare and sensitive species that regional and national
conservation efforts aim to recover including fisher, gray wolf, grizzly bear, lynx,
and wolverine;
4. To facilitate the exchange of information about wildlife, including data from
monitoring efforts, between public agencies, organizations, and interested
individuals.
CWMP is designed to support the conservation of our region's wildlife and wildlands by
enhancing our knowledge of wildlife-habitat connections in our region, supporting the
monitoring and management efforts of transportation and wildlife agencies, and providing
engaging educational field experiences for volunteers.
The winter portion of CWMP is focused on snow-tracking along a 15-mile corridor on I-90
and providing data for the I-90 Snoqualmie Pass East Project. The I-90 Snoqualmie Pass
East Project is a 15-mile highway improvement project that includes measures for
connecting wildlife habitat, such as the construction of wildlife crossings. Construction on
the Phase 1 of the I-90 Snoqualmie Pass East Project has been started with funding from
the Washington State Legislature and completion is projected for the end of 2018. Near the
Gold Creek transect, an underpass in this first phase section is now being used by wildlife.
Construction in phase two has begun and includes an overpass near the Price Nobel
transect. Construction activities were not active during the snow-tracking season.
In the past two years, CWMP has expanded its winter survey effort in the vicinity of
Snoqualmie Pass. Track surveys for American marten north and south of Interstate 90 are
an effort to better understand the range of this species and impact of the highway and
human development on the connectivity of their population. The establishment of a new
transect west of Snoqualmie Pass along the interstate, in conjunction with WSDOT is
designed to begin to understand the current status and needs for improvement of
landscape permeability along this stretch of the interstate.
A complete description of the Citizen Wildlife Monitoring Project's goals and methods, as
well as a record of previous season reports, is available online at
http://www.conservationnw.org/our-work/wildlife/wildlife-monitoring/.
