Service Learning:Wildlife Monitoring in Big Gulch

Service Learning: Wildlife Monitoring in Big Gulch

By: Greyson Hamilton

In our trip to Big Gulch we located wildlife cameras that monitor wildlife behavior and activity. Our guide forgot the keys that day so we were unable to view the footage. The goal of the project was to monitor the wildlife health of Mukilteo, as the town had a history with logging industry. Many of the landslides in the Pacific Northwest, as well as declining salmon spawning is related to human impact on the ecosystem. Our guide for the event was Grace Coale, her email is  grace.coale@email.edcc.edu. The event took place on Friday February 17^th and we were in the field for approximately three hours.

Figure 1: Grace shows us a wildlife camera located at a otter slide.

We next looked at woodpecker activity and identifying the differentiation of two types of woodpecker based off the location of where they make incisions into the tree for food. The Pileated Woodpecker digs into the upper portion of trees and is identified by the red markings on its head and relatively large size compared to other woodpeckers in the area. The shape of its beak makes a much cleaner cut into the tree, the other smaller Downy Woodpecker digs into the bottom portion of the tree and, due to the shape of its beak, it produces notable amounts of sawdust in its wake. At a nearby wildlife camera that monitors coyote and fox, we sprayed red fox and coyote urine on a tree to attract local coyotes and fox to the site of the camera.

Figure 2: Holes in the tree made by a Downy Woodpecker.

Figure 3: A student applies coyote urine to a tree to attract local coyotes to the wildlife camera. 

The guide went on to explain the impact that the human logging industry has had on the local ecosystem causing a lack of old-growth trees that maintain the structural integrity of the forest floor, but also the artificial straightening of streams, which eased the access to their logging routes. The straightening of streams makes it difficult for salmon to spawn in their native streams, as the water flows more quickly than in a healthy stream that has more debris and therefore more resistance, slowing down the overall flow of the stream.

Figure 4A: A artificially straightened stream. 

Figure 4B: A Stream with curves, debris, and a nurse log(a dead tree that saplings grow off for nutrients) .

We then went on to search for animal tracks.  We found coyote tracks which follow a general trend that domestic dog tracks lack. Coyotes choose the path of least resistance and generally avoid well treed trails. Their locomotion pattern differs to dogs in that they take much lighter steps and seem to almost glide over terrain as to maintain the most energy efficient mode of transportation available to them, where domestic dogs make deeper tracks and put a lot more force into every step.  Because locomotion efficiency is different for every animal, not every quadruped is going to have the same gait for a given speed, nor will they have the same energy output per step.

Figure 5: A coyote track found near a lightly traveled path.

The spawning patterns of the salmon, the behavioral patterns of the woodpeckers, and the locomotion techniques of the coyotes are heavily related to what we covered this quarter. The salmon, that had their birth streams straightened, faced increased difficulty spreading their genes to the next generation and had their mating patterns artificially disrupted. The locomotion techniques of the coyote are energy efficient, as observed in chapter 45 animals will use the most energy efficient gait available to them.

This experience has taught me the importance of considering the impact we humans leave on the ecosystem, as well as the much-needed efforts of wildlife conservation done by anthropologists. This opportunity has given me a lot of information and education on the current state of conservation efforts. The part science plays in the community is vital, for without this monitoring we as a society would have no evidence toward the health of our ecosystem. The actions the science community take today in conservation efforts and collection of data will ultimately decide what sort of future our ecosystems have.
The questions this experience has brought to my attention are: Why we, as a society, are just now making an effort to repair our environments? There’s a general rule that hikers abide by: what you pack in, you pack out; why are our industries not being held legally to this same rule? This might not be exactly the same in logging, but why do they not repair their impact?  Their impact shouldn’t be identifiable a hundred years later. Are other community colleges as active in this area of community research?