We are very pleased to announce the project’s first published peer-reviewed scientific article just published! The paper was built on a wonderful collaboration between various organizations including Cascades Wolverine Project, Home Range Wildlife Research, Swan Valley Connections, and Wildlife Conservation Society Canada.
The article titled “Evaluating the accuracy of wolverine identification from photographs of snow tracks by expert observers in North America” was published last week in Wildlife Biology. It’s available to read with open access at https://nsojournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/wlb3.01466
The paper documents our work to test the community science methods used by Cascades Wolverine Project and demonstrates that CWP and all of our contributing community scientists are creating a very accurate data set of wolverine observations across the Washington Cascades. Snow track evidence combined with community science data collection methods can substantially increase the power of monitoring efforts, with numerous other benefits including community engagement, transparency in research methods, long-term monitoring, and exploring the relationship between wolverine land use and recreational human land use. Replication of this track identification method for other species besides wolverine could expand the use of this inexpensive and accessible monitoring method for a variety of other wide-ranging species of conservation concern.
Written by: David Moskowitz, Anna Machowicz, Matt Scrafford, Philippe Naveau, Jeff Rose, and Steph Williams.