Wildlife Monitoring

Wildlife Monitoring at Big Gulch in Mukilteo

Jason Hall

This wildlife monitoring event was sponsored by the EDCC Anthropology department
and the city of Mukilteo; the event was lead by Grace Coal.
The event ran from 9:00 am - 11:30 am (2.5 hours) on 02/14/2018,
happy Valentine’s Day to the environment!

The goal of this service learning was to go out to Upper Big Gulch and retrieve
camera footage of wildlife that had been previously monitored and to set up a
new camera for further research (see image below).
This is important to the environment because the city of Mukilteo is going
to be doing construction on the nearby airport and they want data as to how
it affects the local wildlife so they can minimize things such as habitat destruction,
that would be detrimental to the wildlife that lives there. Another responsibility bestowed
upon the two of us there was to learn how to identify potential trails used by animals
to access things like the stream that runs parallel to the trail and potential food sources.

After going to Big Gulch and trekking down the stairs I was able to see that this place
is actually much larger than I had previously thought. However, even though it is large,
that does not mean that the environment and wildlife it houses is any less fragile.
This ecosystem is especially fragile because, one, it is neighbored by apartments, a
road and an airport; and two, this is a public park so there are people constantly walking
the trails, bringing their animals and at times vandalizing the property. So, being able
to monitor the wildlife that lives there is extremely important, because this ensures
that the animals that live there now can be tracked and we can make sure they are
still living there and have not been driven away. Just recently, Grace told us, that
mountain beavers had been spotted in the area and have only been spotted in the
past couple of years. Then sure enough when we returned to the lab we saw
photographic evidence of a mountain beaver living there as well as typical squirrels
and coyotes.

The effects on the environment and the surrounding society are directly related
in this area because they are neighboring “ecosystems” in a sense and so both
will be directly related if something happens to the other. With the airport construction,
people will be affected by the noise, the traffic and the possible detours but the
same thing goes for the wildlife. The animals may wander up onto the rad and
with traffic possibly being diverted or construction vehicles going by, they have a
much higher chance of being hit and killed. Also the chance that their environment
will be polluted is much higher because of the possible increase of foot traffic through
the park. Biology is interdisciplinary because you not only have to think of the physical
biology of the animals but you also need ecological knowledge, mathematical
knowledge to know how much habitat can be interfered with to avoid major change.
Also economic knowledge to know how much it will cost to protect the animals and
keep the people happy.

1. How often are the animals known to explore outside of the park and onto the roads, possibly putting them in danger?
2. How do you determine, with certainty, where to set up cameras or are they always just judgement calls by the field worker?
3. Who do you report to if you have a notable change in animal behavior/habitat?
4. How does the wildlife interact with the neighboring apartments and library?

Photo taken by Caleb Smith