Serivce Learning: Monitoring Wildlife at the Big Gulch

1.       Choose the appropriate project. Explain in your blog post what your service learning project is and how it relates to animal biology.

I did the service learning project of Wildlife Monitoring at the Big Gulch in Mukilteo. The title of the project describes it quite accurately: we checked on devices that monitor wildlife at the Big Gulch and also made some observations ourselves based on the animals’ footprints. This relates to animal biology because during the project we learned more about the kinds of animals that are present in response to the changing ecosystem at the Big Gulch.

2. Explain exactly what you did and include photo documentation.

First, we checked the monitoring devices. These are devices that take pictures when they detect animal movement. To check on them, we changed their batteries and switched the SD cards so that the devices could store more pictures. There were two devices that we checked on.

One of the monitoring devices we checked

Then, we traveled further into the gulch to observe footprints so we could understand which species are traveling along that pathway. We found marks that indicated the presence of deer, rats, and worms as well as a domesticated dog.

Left to right: Deer, holes dug up by rats, worm "prints"

3. Include the title of the project or event and the number of hours you volunteered. Include the name and email of the event organizer who can verify your attendance at the event.

Wildlife Monitoring at Big Gulch

Grace Coale

grace.coale@email.edcc.edu

I volunteered for 3 hours

4. What were the goals of the event/organization that organized the event.

The goal of the organization that organized the event was to track animals present in the Big Gulch to better understand how the changing environment is affecting the animals. An invasive tree species has been pushing out native species, and the organization wants to better understand how this affects the animals at the Gulch.

5. Summarize your duties at the event.

I helped identify animal tracks and learned how to update the tracking devices.  

6. Reflect on how this experience affected you and your thoughts on the role of science in society and/or the importance of your service to your community.  This type of reflection can easily be used to strengthen personal statements for academic programs and job or internship applications.

During the event, I learned a lot more about an ecosystem that has been in my backyard for years. I never really bothered to look into what was going on at the Gulch, but thanks to this event, I had a chance to visit the area and learn more about the species at the Big Gulch. The most interesting part of the experience for me was looking at beaver homes for multiple reasons. As basic as it seems, I was not aware that beavers live in the Mukilteo-area! Though we didn’t see any beavers (because they are nocturnal), it was fascinating to see how they build their habitats. I also learned that beavers are considered “pests” because of the damage they cause to the environments they are in because of how they erode the soil. I enjoyed the opportunity to come to the gulch and learn more about what scientists are doing to learn more about the environment so close to where I live such as tracking and monitoring species and also fighting against invasive tree species.

Beaver habitat

Going forward, I will try to find more ways to help projects involving the Big Gulch.

7. Make a connection between what you did for this Service Learning Project and the material we covered in this course.

The habitat is changing for multiple animal species that have lived in the Big Gulch. In response to a change in the environment, we may also see a change in favored traits in the population and over many years, the species will evolve. Perhaps we might start to see change through mechanisms such as gene flow, the bottleneck effect, and natural selection.

8. Provide at least 4 questions that were raised based on your experience.

• Will erosion affect which species visit the Gulch?
• What animals are generally found from the tracker devices?
• Do beavers help the Gulch environment in way? If so, how?
• What other problems (apart from erosion and invasive species) is the Big Gulch facing?
• How does the wastewater plant next to the Gulch affect the ecosystem?