PORT ANGELES — A new citizen scientist program will recruit volunteers to hike, camp and observe marmots in Olympic National Park next year.
The program, funded with $26,300 from Washington’s National Park fund, will help scientists know why the animals are seeing a population decline, Eleanor B. Kittelson, the fund’s executive director, told the Port Angeles Regional Chamber of Commerce at its Monday luncheon.
“It will be a great experience for people who want to go up into the mountains, hike a little, camp a little and hang out with the cute marmots,” Kittelson said.
The park will begin recruiting helpers next year, she said.
The funds are among a host of others that the group gives to the park on an annual basis.
In 2009, a total of $32,000 was given to the park to study and protect Roosevelt elk.
“The elk were collared, and this will allow the biologists to learn more about the populations,” Kittelson said.
About $40,000 was granted to help restore fishers to Olympic National Park, and another $40,000 is being raised to study the freshwater mussels in Lake Crescent, she said.
Nonprofit partner
The fund is a nonprofit fundraising partner of the national parks in Washington, Kittelson said.
“Because the parks are a government entity, they cannot ask for money from the public,” she said.
“But through our fundraising efforts, they are able to accomplish much more than they would have on just the money given from the government.”
Park Superintendent Karen Gustin was also at the meeting.
Current projects
She reviewed several current projects at the park.
The fisher reintroduction program has been successful so far, she said.
“We have been tracking them, and at first, we were a little worried because all the male fishers were on one side, and all the females were on the other,” she said.
“But now it looks like they are more distributed.”
The first kits — or baby fishers — were spotted in May on some cameras set up to film the dens of the fishers.
Fishers are native to Washington state. They vanished from the state in the late 1800s and early 1930s because of over-trapping, habitat loss and fragmentation.
Each fisher is fitted with a tiny radio transmitter before release so that biologists from the U.S. Geological Survey, state Department of Fish and Wildlife and the park can monitor its movements and survival.
Elwha dam removal
Gustin said the Elwha River dam-removal project is consuming much of her time.
“We are very lucky, because some of the funds from the recovery package allowed us to move up the date,” she said.
“The dam will be removed in 2011 instead of 2012, which was the plan.”
She said that the park will begin seeking needed permits in 2010 for the project.
“We are hoping that this will be a great step in restoring the salmon to the Elwha River,” she said.
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Reporter Paige Dickerson can be reached at 360-417-3535 or at paige.dickerson@peninsuladaily news.com.
