Cascade Wildlife Monitoring Project

Wilderness Awareness School and Conservation Northwest have partnered to run the Cascade Wildlife Monitoring Project which is an ongoing study of wildlife in the mountains east of Snoqualmie Pass.

In this environmental stewardship project, teams of volunteers carry out snow tracking surveys throughout the Winter to search for and document the presence of wildlife in key areas along Interstate 90, including rare and sensitive forest carnivores such Marten, Lynx, and Wolverines. Along with snow tracking surveys, motion sensing cameras are also being maintained by volunteers to capture photos of wildlife in the area.

Information gained from these surveys may be invaluable in helping protect wildlands from imminent development and direct the future construction of wildlife crossings of the interstate.

The project has been running sucessfully for the past two years. We will soon begin looking for committed people who would like to join the project for the 2008-2009 field season. Trainings will be held in November and December 2008 for the winter field season. Volunteers must commit to attending a full day field training along with joining a survey team which will carry out three days of survey work in the mountains over the course of the winter.

Tracking surveys have been used successfully by citizen groups in numerous places in the country to help protect wildlands, identify wildlife corridors, and even discover species not previously before believed to inhabit an area. Not only this, but tracking surveys give you a chance to put your naturalist skills to use gathering practical information on wildlife in our region!

Volunteers must provide their own personal equipment for winter travel including clothing and snowshoes as well as be comfortable taking care of themselves in the mountains in the winter. Survey materials and team coordination will be provided by Wilderness Awareness School.

Tracking Team Leaders: Along with survey team volunteers, we are also seeking several experienced trackers who will act as volunteer team leaders for individual survey teams. Experience with track and sign identification, past training through Wilderness Awareness School such as our Tracking Intensive Course or comparable training is required, as is comfort acting in a leadership role in the outdoors.

If you are interested in volunteering for this project contact David Moskowitz and include day and evening phone contact information. If you are interested in a tracking team leader position please mention this in your email.

We also encourage you to check out our on-going tracking courses, which provide valuable skills and experience for potential team volunteers and team leaders, in the company of other local naturalists and trackers.

Current Wilderness Awareness School tracking courses include the monthly Tracking Club, our annual weeklong Summer Wolf Tracking Expedition in backcountry Idaho, the Tracking Intensive which meets during 10 weekends throughout the Northwest from Sept. to June, and more. Visit our Adult Courses Calendar for additional course information, or call our office: 425-788-1301.

Winter 2007-2008 Field Season Report
(Note: The complete report is available as a PDF download here).

Abstract: The winter program of the Cascade Citizen Wildlife Monitoring Project (CCWMP, formerly Cascade Wildlife Monitoring Project) uses trained volunteers to record the presence and movement of wildlife, through snow tracking surveys and remote camera instillations, in the vicinity of proposed wildlife crossing structures along Interstate-90 in the Washington Cascades between Snoqualmie Pass and Easton.

The second field season of the project continued to meet the project's several goals including: training volunteers in wildlife tracking and road ecology, and adding a second season of data on wildlife along Interstate 90. Data collected from this year mirrors findings from the previous season fairly closely. Exceptionally heavy snowfall in the middle of the field season significantly hampered data collection efforts, however a larger number of volunteers resulted in an increased number of transects completed compared to the prior season. Use of handheld computers for data collection was piloted successfully. Remote Cameras were added to the winter efforts with limited success.

Recommendations for next season include: continue implementation of data collection through snow tracking; focus programmatic use of remote cameras during the non-snow seasons to complement winter data and reserve use of cameras to respond to specific sightings in the field; make minor revisions to hand-held computer system to further streamline data collection and management. Download the full report in PDF format

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