SEATTLE - The shots of playful bear cubs, cute coyote pups and curious bobcats may get most of the attention, but remote wildlife cameras are producing some serious information for experts.
"So this is down in the Goat Rocks Wilderness by Mount Adams," said an excited Jen Watkins of Conservation Northwest. "We didn't know we had wolverines down there."
Graduate student Jocelyn Akins placed the remote camera that caught the first images of a wolverine in Washington State south of Interstate 90. It was a big find and just one of several among the photos submitted by a growing network of volunteers who are being trained to place remote cameras in the Washington State Wilderness.
Last year, remote cameras caught the first images a new wolf pack that migrated into the State's Northern Cascades. This year they snapped shots of the packs first litter of pups.
"In basic terms it shows they have what they need to live here and that they can raise their young here," said Watkins who believes remote cameras are giving us a never before seen view of Washington State's wild side.
The cameras show what appear to be offspring of a group of recently re-introduced fishers in the Olympic National Forest. They also reveal heavily traveled wildlife routes that can help transportation officials allow for animal crossings when building or repairing highways. Conservation Northwest will discuss these developments and more in their annual report on The Cascades Citizens Wildlife Monitoring Project due out next week.
On the pure enjoyment side, the cameras let us all see just how goofy, strange and beautiful animals can be when they don't know people are watching.
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