Service Learning at Japanese Gulch

By Tara Pegasus

For my service learning activity, I participated in a three-hour wildlife monitoring project at Japanese Gulch on Feb 24. Our object was to replace the batteries and retrieve SD cards from two motion- and thermal-sensitive cameras in a wilderness area close to the Tails and Trails dog park in Mukilteo. This area, bristling with towering red alder trees and blackberries growing around a winding stream and flooded pools, provides a window into the local ecosystem’s health. Our guide, Grace Coale (grace.coale@email.edcc.edu), explained that this is a second-growth forest. Rapid-growing deciduous trees and invasive Himalayan blackberries had overtaken the niche left after humans heavily logged the conifers. The consequence? The slow-growing conifers didn’t have enough sunlight to regrow, and the habitat of the forest and streams changed drastically.

Although the forest wasn’t exactly healthy, the wildlife seemed to be thriving. Listening to the melodious calls of song sparrows, we spotted bufflehead ducks, a belted kingfisher, and raccoon and coyote tracks. Grace explained how to tell the difference between coyote and dog prints. Dog prints are circular, deep, often with mud scrape on the edges, and usually chart an aimless path from tree to tree. Coyote prints, on the other hand, are more oval, shallow, and tend to move in a straight, purposeful line. This is because coyotes need to conserve energy as they move. They don’t know when their next meal will be. This reminded me of the importance of efficiency in evolutionary adaptations, a major theme in animal biology.

Grace indicates deep dog tracks in the mud.

Shallow coyote prints are barely visible in the sand.

Our guide said that an increasing coyote population was leading to individuals that were malnourished, although the coyotes here under surveillance appear to be healthy. She dispelled the myth about coyote or wolf packs being composed of unrelated, competitive males. Usually packs are led by the parent couple, who keep their progeny in line. When hunters pick off coyotes to cull the population, it’s usually the matriarch and patriarch in the rifle’s crosshairs, and once they are removed, their offspring begin new packs. This is a perfect example of the law of unintended consequences in a complex biological ecosystem.



The City of Mukilteo faces flooding partially due to the destruction of coniferous trees like Douglas Fir, which have a deep taproot that helps maintain a river’s position and firms the riparian zone around it. Unfortunately, the abundant deciduous trees have shallow roots that lead to erosion. As the city expands, small wildernesses like Japanese Gulch are threatened. The wildlife monitoring project provides crucial information about the impact of human activities and educates people about the importance of preserving and restoring natural areas. One positive change that the project implemented was clearing the stream of human-made barriers so that salmon could spawn.

Members of the group look on as Grace points downriver to the camera's sweet spot.

Grace encouraged all participants to look for tracks and wildlife. Early on, I spotted coyote scat, which reminded me of the pet cats I had lost to coyotes when I lived in the countryside (I found orange cat fur in their scat). I handed fresh batteries to her as she showed us how to set up the cameras. At the end of the morning, we reflected on what we'd learned. I pondered questions such as, what is the geological history of the area? How has soil composition changed due to human involvement (that is, logging evergreens and introducing foreign plant species)? If wildlife monitoring shows that urban expansion compromises the health of animals and the environment, will we stop development? So far, it seems that even though science has enlarged our knowledge about the world around us, that information isn’t reaching decision-makers enough to change our habits. I also wondered about the barred owls Grace mentioned that heard the clicking shutters of the cameras and flew down to investigate. How are raptors affected by changing coyote populations? And what the heck was in the putrid-smelling Red Fox spray Grace spritzed on the trees right before we left?