December News

​December News

Winter is coming!

The winter Solstice is right around the corner, but with the storms and snow of the last week it certainly feels as though winter has already arrived here in the Pacific Northwest.  Our winter wildlife surveys are in full swing, volunteers on our tracking and camera crews are busting out their snow shoes and puffy jackets and braving the elements to bring us some amazing wildlife findings! 

This winter Cascadia Wild is partnering with ODFW to take part in the Western States Wolverine Occupancy Survey! This multi-state, multi-agency survey effort aims to determine the current distribution of wolverines in the western United States. Cascadia Wild is honored to be participating in this survey, the results of which will undoubtably have important implications for the future management and conservation of wolverines. Who knows, this could even be the year wolverines return to Oregon! 

Wildlife Findings

With the coming of winter, we expect to see some behavioral changes in many of the wildlife species found on Mount Hood. For example, deer tend to move to lower elevations in search of better foraging opportunities. Often times this results in the movement of larger predators that prey upon deer, such as coyotes and mountain lions, to lower elevations as well. In addition to the movement of deer and some predators, we also typically see less bears at our higher elevation sites, as they hunker down for a deep sleep over the winter. At lower elevations where the winter is not as extreme, bears can be active all winter. 

We are excited to share the best of our winter camera and tracking surveys so far! Without further ado, let's get into it!

Perhaps our most unusual finding over the last month was this owl and deer​ interaction captured on one of our trail cameras!  

An owl crouched on the forest floor is disturbed by a passing buck.

We don't often get trail camera footage of owls, and certainly not ones that are this clear. Trail cameras give us this amazing opportunity to peak into the lives of wildlife living in the forests nearby- we feel extra lucky to have witnessed this interspecies interaction!

We had a lot of other deer detections this month- at sites across the elevation gradient on Mount Hood. This will likely change as snow begins to accumulate at higher elevations! In addition to the changes in deer distribution during the winter months, deers diet will also change. In the summer deer mainly subsist on grasses and forbs (herbaceous flowering plants) but in the winter will begin to rely more heavily on woody plants. 

From the top: A young deer with small budding antlers looks into the camera;Three deer are seen foraging in an open meadow; a buck with a large rack pauses in the middle of the camera site.

We also had a few detections of elk this month. Elk cows and calves move together in large herds through the winter, while bulls are more likely to strike out on their own after the breeding season.  

​An elk herd comes barreling through a camera site!

Elk belong to the same family as deer (Cervidae), they are both hoofed, ruminant mammals.  Ruminants are hoofed herbivores that have four compartments in their stomachs! In one of these compartments -the rumen- plant material is fermented by symbiotic microbes. Plant cell walls are made up of cellulose, which can't be digested without the assistance of these little gut microbes! After being processed in the rumen and reticulum, food is regurgitated as cud and then re-digested. This time it will pass through all 4 compartments and  be excreted as poop! Speaking of elk poop *ahem* scat, as those of us in the tracking field like to call it- check out this picture of elk scat our trackers found on a recent survey! ​

Scat found on a recent tracking survey, likely from an elk.

A recent tracking survey also found what is likely coyote scat!

Coyotes are opportunistic omnivores- they will eat berries, fungi, insects, fish, small mammals and fawns, depending on what is available. Our trackers weren't able to find the plant that produced these berries in the field but did some serious sleuthing back at home and determined that they likely belonged to the Arctostaphylos genus. 
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We also had several coyote detections on our trail cameras over the past month! 

From the top: Two curious coyotes sniff around a baited log at night; a coyote checks out a camera site; a coyote gives a bait box on a tree a quick sniff.

Coyotes weren't the only large carnivores we spotted in the forest this month. We also had bobcat and bear ​detections at several sites. 

Bobcats consume mostly small mammals such a snowshoe hare, rabbits and squirrels. Their diet remains fairly consistent throughout the year. 

A bobcat on the prowl!

Black bears, the only bear found in Oregon, are considered to be the "least carnivorous" of the large carnivores. Black bears eat berries, fruit, herbaceous vegetation, insects and occasionally fawns or carrion. Black bears typically gorge themselves during the fall (eating up to 20,000 calories a day!) and then live off their fat reserves during their winter dormancy.

From the top: A black bear gets groovy rubbing up against a tree; A black bear stares into the camera; Two bears, a mama and her cub, come padding through the forest. 

The smallest of the carnivores we spotted this month was this little weasel! 

A weasel bounds through a camera site.​

We have both short tailed and long tailed weasels in Oregon. Both are carnivorous, but short-tailed weasels dine primarily on mouse-sized prey, while long tailed weasels hunt slightly larger prey, such as ground squirrels or mountain beavers. 

Speaking of squirrels! We saw lots of squirrels at our camera sites this past month. Ground squirrels are most likely snuggled up enjoying a cozy hibernation by now. However we saw plenty of Western gray squirrels, Douglas squirrels and even some Northern flying squirrels, all of which will remain active throughout the winter. 

From the top: A Western gray squirrel sniffing at a bait log; A Douglas squirrel carrying a big cone; A Northern flying squirrel scampering across the forest floor.

One of our camera crews also spotted some beautiful squirrel tracks in the snow!

​Squirrel tracks in the snow.

That's all we have to share with you this month but we will be back in the new year with more wildlife findings! We wish all of you a joyous holiday season and a happy New Year!