<\/p>\n
As a first-year graduate student in Evergreen State College\u2019s Masters of Environmental Studies program, I have been focusing most of my research on treponeme-associated\u00a0hoof disease<\/a>\u00a0(TAHD) on local Roosevelt Elk. And since September 2020, I have been an intern with Conservation Northwest\u2019s Cascades to Olympics connectivity program working on a very special piece of land, with a conservation and sustainability minded landowner.<\/p>\n To document wildlife presence in this area, I was given the opportunity to participate in Conservation Northwest\u2019s\u00a0Community Wildlife Monitoring Project<\/a>\u00a0(CWMP), joining a statewide community science effort focused on capturing wildlife images through volunteer camera monitoring. Through this program I learned how to capture wildlife images and sort data so that I was able to place motion-triggered cameras on the VETC property and record information including location, sex, age, time and species for the CWMP\u2019s database.<\/p>\n I found much more wildlife than I was expecting to see using the land so close to I-5. A local herd of elk passes through the property regularly and a healthy population of black-tailed deer can be observed. I\u2019ve also captured coyotes, raccoons, rabbit, ring-necked pheasants, and in one instance\u00a0<\/strong>of substantial flooding, a mallard duck was able to swim by one of my cameras I had mounted on a tree. Neighbors of the property captured a photo of a black bear with cubs the previous spring, and I remain hopeful that we will pick one of them up this coming spring.<\/strong><\/p>\n In December 2020, I taught a trail camera and tracking class to an audience of veterans on the property. Despite the class being limited in size due to COVID-19 restrictions, we had a safe and fun time hiking the property and learning together.<\/p>\n There is currently not a single wildlife overpass across all of I-5, but the presence of elk, deer and other species so close to I-5 shows that building one in the area would be\u00a0greatly beneficial<\/a>. A bull elk was hit on I-5 last year near the VETC property when the herd was trying to cross I-5 through heavy traffic. In addition, there are many game trails leading directly to the Interstate that black-tailed deer have been known to use. If the possibility of a wildlife overpass ever becomes feasible, the data collected from our project will be helpful in identifying the best location to install it.<\/strong><\/p>\n Although my internship is now over, this experience was quite impactful for me and I will continue to volunteer as a Community Wildlife Monitoring Project lead. In this role, I will still check cameras and record data, but I will also help shape the project and answer bigger questions about the nature of wildlife and habitat connectivity in the Cascades to Olympics landscape, while contributing to the\u00a0partnership between<\/a>\u00a0Conservation Northwest and the Veterans Ecological Trades Collective.<\/p>\n
\nIn this landscape the I-5 corridor produces, at a minimum, a four-lane barrier disrupting free migration between the Cascades and Olympic Mountains. <\/span>Scatter Creek Wildlife Area<\/a>\u00a0and Capitol State Forest lie to the west of the property, with private timberlands, undeveloped parts of Joint Base Lewis-McCord and Washington State Department of Natural Resources\u00a0<\/span>lands to the east<\/a>. Satellite imagery of the area shows a structurally connected \u201cnatural\u201d corridor through the landscape, fragmented only by I-5.<\/span>Veterans Ecological Trades Collective<\/a>\u00a0(VETC) is a nonprofit organization that exists to support veterans and allies in acquiring skills that launch or refine careers in conservation, agriculture, forestry and ecological design.<\/strong>\u00a0VETC property occupies about 120 acres bordering I-5, within a known wildlife corridor that is one of our priority linkages in the\u00a0Cascades to Olympics<\/a>\u00a0program. It is home to an abundance of wildlife while also providing several different types of habitat such as wetlands, ponds, coniferous and deciduous forest, native Garry Oak savannah, and South Salish prairie.<\/p>\nREAD MORE ABOUT THIS PARTNERSHIP\u00a0IN THIS BLOG<\/a>\u00a0FROM OUR CASCADES TO OLYMPICS COORDINATOR BRIAN STEWART, OR VISIT OUR\u00a0CASCADES TO OLYMPICS<\/a>\u00a0WEBPAGE TO LEARN MORE.<\/strong><\/h5>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":8699,"featured_media":34099,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_s2mail":"yes"},"categories":[1],"tags":[4,19,21,7,12,61,13,8,9],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/mesweekly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37364"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/mesweekly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/mesweekly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/mesweekly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8699"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/mesweekly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37364"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/mesweekly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37364\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37365,"href":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/mesweekly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37364\/revisions\/37365"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/mesweekly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34099"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/mesweekly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37364"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/mesweekly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37364"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/mesweekly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37364"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}