-
on October 5, 2011
David Moskowitz
Posted project update #20Conservation Northwest Quarterly Newsletter
Post CommentThe October Conservation Northwest Newsletter is available online and features a number of photos of mine from this project. It can be downloaded at:
http://www.conservationnw.org/library/newsletter/newsletter-pdfs/Fall2011-CNWQuarterly.pdf
The September newsletter also featured a number of my images from this project as well. Check out all their newsletters at http://www.conservationnw.org/library/newsletter. Great articles which do a great job of highlighting the importance of apex carnivores and the need for maintaining connected landscapes across the Pacific Northwest.
D
-
-
on August 29, 2011
David Moskowitz
Posted project update #19A few more puppy shots that won't show up on my public blog
Post CommentDoug Brown and I walked in on a rendezvous site while scouting for salmon in a nearby stream. We spent all morning listening to wolves howl before stalking out to avoid the incoming tide.
1083 A wolf pup splashes across a shallow stream
1128 Pups playing in high grass
1277 Adult wolf (mom?) with pups milling about.
-
-
on August 27, 2011
David Moskowitz
Posted project update #18Great Bear Rainforest
Post CommentI arrived yesterday in Bella Bella where I am being hosted by the Raincoast Conservation Foundation. The salmon are massing at the mouths of rivers and streams and on our first day out we found the remains of one salmon that had been consumed by a bear. We also found lots of other grizzly bear sign and spotted two wolves patrolling the shores of seperate islands this morning.
I will be posting regular updates to my blog. Check it out at: http://davidmoskowitz.blogspot.com/. You can subscribe to the blog if you want regular updates over the next three weeks I will be up here.
-
-
on June 22, 2011
David Moskowitz
Posted project update #17And some more photos!
Post CommentJust wrapped up a week and a half on Vancouver Island. Awesome. Now off to the Cascades to hunt for what will likely be slightly more elusive wolves.
http://www.davidmoskowitz.net/Other/Clayoquot-Sound/17686327_fng2RN#1349148826_zXvCG9J
-
on June 18, 2011
David Moskowitz
Posted project update #16Clayoquot Sound
For backers only
Post Comment
If you’re a backer of this project, please
log in
to read this post.
-
on May 21, 2011
David Moskowitz
Posted project update #15Roosevelt Elk and the Health of Olympic Rainforests
In April I visited the Hoh River Valley on the western slope of the Olympic Mountains. This valley has been the location for numerous studies on the impacts of elk feeding habits on plant communities in temperate rainforests. It was also a location for one study which sought to link the disappearance of wolves with changes in elk population density, habitat use and associated changes in plant communities and stream courses. Such shifts caused by a change in the populations of a predator affecting multiple lower trophic levels (their prey and the plants that they feed on in this case) are reffed to as "trophic cascades".
Because elk use riparian areas heavily, their impacts are strongest and most apparent in these locations. Many riparian forests in the Hoh show no recruitment of young trees because seedlings are browsed to death. Further, many shrub species are absent or deformed from heavy browsing pressure. As several studies have suggested, heavy browsing by elk in such areas can cause places that would be thick with underbrush otherwise to have a predominately grass understory.
Discussions and studies of the feasibility of reintroducing wolves to the Olympics have gone on for decades. If and when they do return to this landscape, wolves could initiate another trophic cascade which would lead to lower browsing pressure in these riparian forests and an increase in shrub density and tree recruitment.
7769: A female Roosevelt elk peers out of the rainforest.
9336: A small herd of elk graze in a open alder forest adjacent to the Hoh river.
9312: Sun streams down through red alders which have not yet leafed out. Note the lack of small trees in the forest and almost complete lack of shrubs in the understory, two characteristics typical of heavily grazed forests.
9202: This fence marks a research study plot. Elk cannot get behind this fence to forage and the area is covered with dense shrub cover. Outside, the forest is characterized by grasses and an open understory. When the exclosure was constructed, the inside was similarly open.
9383: The banks of much of the Hoh river are denuded of shrubs from heavy browsing pressure. Some researchers believe that high elk densities have contributed to greater amounts of bank erosion which have impacted river morphology.
Post Comment -
-
on May 17, 2011
David Moskowitz
Posted project update #14Den Season
Post CommentIts denning season for Pacific Northwest wolves and I have been out in the field in the Selkirks in northeastern Washington spending time with the Diamond Peak Pack. Many many adventures including accidentally trailing one of the pack members to its den and stalking another to within 30 meters to photograph it. Unfortunately, the forests and brush is so thick, despite being so close I wasn't able to get clear photographs of the wolf as it howled behind a bush and cashed what I believe was part of a deer carcass nearby.
The Diamond Peak pack is using a landscape that includes both public Forest Service lands and private timber lands. The private lands are extensively roaded and logged and because of the high road densities, many models of potential wolf habitat in the region do not include this area. However, almost all of these roads are gated and inaccessible to the public via motor vehicle for Grizzly Bear recovery. These gates create a sort of roaded wilderness. The clearcuts create excellent habitat for moose, white-tailed deer, and elk. Good thing the wolves don't read the scientific journals or review GIS models!
9507: This years den site for the Diamond Peak pack. The burrow is dug under the right side of this large boulder in dense forest. The tracks of pups were apparent in the surrounding area but I didn't linger long enough to photograph them. The pups themselves were likely safe inside the den at the time.
9595: The light shape behind the bush is the head of a wolf howling. After hearing howling from the location, I approached downwind from the area and used a nearby stream as cover for my sent and sound which aloud me to approach and observe the animal undetected for about 30 minutes before it moved on.
9488: A black bear scent marks on a fence post in a grass field. Bears eat lots of grass this time of year. Their eye site is poor and I was able to approach this bear undetected by crawling across the field from downwind in plain sight as long as I froze whenever it looked up from feeding.
-
-
on March 24, 2011
David Moskowitz
Posted project update #13Who's hungry?!
Post CommentCurrently working on the diet chapter of the book. The mandible of a bull elk that I collected from a wolf killed carcass sitting on the table I work at as inspiration. Thought you guys might enjoy a list of items that have made their way through the digestive tracts of Pacific Northwest wolves....enjoy and bon appetite!
Black-tailed deer Mule deer White-tailed deer Rocky mountain elk Roosevelt elk Moose Mountain Goat Domestic livestock Small rodents Meadow vole Red squirrel Porcupine Beaver Ermine Marten Mink Fisher Striped Skunk River Otter Coyote Mountain lion Black bear Grizzly bear Harbor seal Humpback whale Ruffed grouse Wild turkey Canada goose Golden eagle Humboldt squid Salmon (various species) Huckleberries Salal berries Apples Squash
-
on January 22, 2011
David Moskowitz
Posted project update #12Writting, writting, writting
I am just wrapping up a week and half writing and a couple of days in the field poking around for wolves in Okanogan County. Here is a draft of a story that will likely start out the chapter on tracking wolves in the book. Hope the winter is going well for all!
“How do they find these places?!” I thought to myself as a friend of mine, Brandon Sheely, and I picked our way along the trail of a large wolf on a roadless ridgeline on the east slope of the North Cascades. After nearly two decades of following the tracks of wild animals through landscapes from Mexico to Alaska and the Atlantic shores of Maine to the west coast of Vancouver Island I have become accustomed to wild creatures leading me to some of the most amazing hidden parts of the mountains, desert, and forest. A caribou trail leading to a secret emerald meadow hidden in boreal forest, cougar tracks descending slickrock to a hidden cache of water in a sandstone pothole, the wandering path of a wolverine traversing under massive glacier carved mountain faces to a small notch on a ragged ridge, or the trail of a group of deer descending off of a ridge of burned timber to a hidden ravine with towering Douglas firs and ponderosa pines and tiny spring bubbling up out of the ground. Even so, each new discovery like this is a mystery unfolding and perhaps the most engaging parts of studying the lives of wild creatures in wild places for me.
I had lived, worked, and played in this part of Washington on and off for over ten years at that point and probably new the backcountry there as well or better than any other range of mountains in the Northwest. Yet, following the trail of this wolf brought me into a landscape I didn’t think existed anymore. The steep sides of the ridge had protected it from road building, marauding cattle and timber harvesting. While the higher elevations of these mountains are protected in Wilderness areas and a National Park, the lower elevations are generally awash in a convoluted road system, cuts blocks, overgrazed by cattle from an archaic and broken permitting system. A landscape I love, but a landscape generally defined by its scares as much as its primal state. Yet, as we picked out the scuff marks and occasional clear tracks the wolf had left the night before I took in the stately ancient ponderosa pines and Douglas firs, blooming balsam root, healthy clumps of bunchgrasses, and the notable lack of invasive plant species. Before us stretched a interconnected series of road less and trailless ridges stretching for several miles, steep sides dropping and defending the pristine ridgetops from the roads, cattle, logging, and a history of failed homesteads that have left their marks across every such landscape in our region.
It is mid May, overcast and breezy. Mist hangs in the valley bottoms. The high peaks of the Sawtooth range and Cascade Crest beyond are blanketed in snow. After a strenuous forested ascent we had crested the ridge and shortly cut the trail of a single large wolf along the ridgeline game trail. From the size of its tracks, Brandon, who had tracked the wolves in this area numerous times, surmised that it might be the dominant male from the Lookout Pack, whose territory we were traversing. We moved slowly but steadily along the trail, noting the shifting wind and, crossing fresh tracks of deer and bear, pausing to scan the hillsides bellow for grazing animals, stopping when we came to blind spots on the ridge attempting not to spook anything that might be just out of sight.
Picking out scuffs and tracks amongst the pine/fir patches and between the bitterbrush, bunchgrass and balsam root, we carried on following the wolf who had passed this part of the ridge after the rain stopped in the middle of the night. In places the tracks would disappear, and reading the landscape we would predict the animals likely route of travel and carry on in that direction until we picked up scuffs and disturbances again and eventually a clearer track would confirm we were still on its trail. The wolf’s trail cut under a knoll on the ridgeline towards a pass that drops into the next canyon. As we traverse towards the pass ourselves, from across the valley, a long low mournful howl ascends out of the mist below. We pause, transfixed, listening. The hair stands up on the back of my neck.
Where did these wolves come from? These mountains have been devoid of their kind for over a century by some accounts from this area. When was the last time wolves ran this ridgeline? Could these wolves pick out traces of their ancestors here? Brandon and I continue along the trail. At a prominent large pine along the ridge, the wolf had deposited some urine on the tree and scraped the duff just beyond it, a common scent marking behavior and a sign of a resident and dominant animal. We carry on along the ridge. Scats and scent marking spots become common, about every 20 yards or less. I note to Brandon this is a common pattern I have seen in proximity to rendezvous or den sites. After another half mile along the ridge, the tracks drop off the ridge to the north into the timber. We do not follow.photo: Wolf tracks along a ridgeline in Okanogan County Washington.
-
-
Carolyn Temes on January 23, 2011
Thanks for the update Dave. Keep going..... great work! I can hear the wolves howling!!! Carolyn Temes
-
Post Comment -
-
on November 9, 2010
David Moskowitz
Posted project update #11Let the writting begin
I am currently holding up at Skalitude Retreat Center (http://www.skalitude.com/) in the Methow Valley reading and writing. Skalitude is located within the range of Washington's Lookout Pack, though they haven't returned from the high country to this part of their territory quite yet. As I write the snow is falling, the first at this elevation for the winter and it will likely drive both the mule deer and wolves back down to lower elevations shortly.
Washington's Lookout Pack suffered the loss of its alpha female at the very beginning of the denning season, quite likely from poaching though no evidence of her whereabouts at all has as of yet been discovered. Because of the time of her disappearance this pack didn't have a successful litter of pups this year. The alpha male, who is radio collared, is still traveling his usual haunts however and it remains to be seen if he will find a new mate and breed in this area again this winter.
My literature research recently has taken me to exploring patterns of dispersal and establishment in areas where their range is expanding as it is here in the Pacific Northwest. Studies of similar situations have been carried out in the Rocky mountains, the Upper Great Lakes, and in Finland and Sweden where wolves returned, traveling from Russia. The initial stages of reestablishment are the most tenuous. Packs will be established far from any other population and dispersing wolves from that pack may establish new packs in adjacent areas or disperse hundreds of miles into as yet unoccupied territory or back into the areas where the parent wolves came from.
What will happen here next remains to be seen. Once the snow stops and I get sick of reading and writing I hope to get out and see if I can't discover some of what the wolves around here are up to. I'll keep you posted!
Photo caption:
Darcy Ottey points out the outline of where a deer bedded. Tracks of a wolf trotted right through the bed from an evening hunting foray. Northwest Montana.-
-
Johanna Goldfarb on November 10, 2010
Hi! Looks good. Give Darcy a hug for me. See you soon. Counting the days.
-
Post Comment -
David Moskowitz
David Moskowitz , a professional wildlife tracker, photographer, and outdoor educator, has been studying wildlife and tracking in the Pacific Northwest since 1995. His first book, PACIFIC NORTHWEST WILDLIFE is due on bookshelves across the region ... view more
These are beautiful!