Candid critters, 2011.
As I prepared to leave the office for a short holiday break, I found myself delayed as I sorted through thousands of photos of the amazing critters that walk our state's lands and what they are up to when no one is looking. [VIDEO]
Here's looking at wildlife! Our remote camera volunteers bring home some fun and important photos of wildlife across the region. You can adopt a camera team to help track wildlife to protect their habitats.
As I prepared to leave the office for a short holiday break, I found myself delayed as I sorted through thousands of photos of the amazing critters that walk our state's lands and what they are up to when no one is looking.
All of the photos were collectedas part of our 2011 remote camera program. Intrepid volunteers placed remote cameras in 20 locations of Washington's Cascades and Olympic mountains.
Volunteers installed and maintained remote camera stations from the Manastash area just south of Interstate 90 by Ellensburg all the way to the Iron Gate entrance to the Paysaten wilderness near the Canadian border. A highlight of the season was when we captured a series of photographs of one of the pups from the newly confirmed Teanaway wolf pack.
But capturing videos and photos of much more common species still amazes me. These images speak to why Conservation Northwest exists: to connect and protect wildlife and wild places from the BC Cascades to the Washington coast.
Some of my favorites that I have viewed more than once this week include a deer and her fawn on video in the Central Cascades, four cougars visiting a scented station in the Teanaway, and a black bear taking a seat in front of our camera just south of Table Mountain.
Highlights from the whole season have been posted individually to our Flickr page, and in a video on YouTube. (See both below!)
Want to be a part of this great effort, but not up for a long hike? Adopt a monitoring team. Your gift will fund equipment and mileage to bring in the next great photo!
Over the holiday break, we have volunteers in the field conducting our winter wildlife monitoring. This winter we are in the Cascades, continuing to coordinate with Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife to monitor for grey wolves, assisting the Carnivore Connectivity Project to monitor pine martens in the I-90 corridor, and searching for the elusive wolverine in higher elevation remote habitats in the North Cascades.
Plans are already being laid for where we'll go in 2012 with our cameras in the spring as the search to document the presence of rare species in our state continues. Along the way enjoy the images and videos that are placing a face to the well known landscapes of our state.
