HOME RANGE WILDLIFE RESEARCH

Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) is a lethal neurodegenerative disease affecting wild cervids (e.g., deer, moose, elk, caribou) in North America and Scandinavia. In the US, CWD has been detected in 35 states, and this August, the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) announced the first detection of CWD in our home state, Washington.  CWD is caused by infectious misfolded proteins called prions that aggregate in tissues throughout an animal’s body. Prions are predominantly found in lymph and nervous system tissues, including the brain. These prion clusters (amyloids) essentially "swiss-cheese" the brain, causing the neurodegenerative symptoms indicative of this wasting disease. These clinical signs of disease appear in the last 6-8 weeks of a cervid’s life and include symptoms such as weight loss, lethargy, a splay-legged stance, drooping ears, and loss of fear.  Chronic wasting disease affects cervid species common to Washington, such as mule deer, pictured here. 

For those of you able to attend our Third Anniversary Party on October 6th, 2024, you had the pleasure of hearing board member John Rohrer tell a tall tale about Home Range and the Fellowship of the Lynx. If you weren't able to attend- you can still share in this wondrous story below. Enjoy. A Tall Tale (a story with unbelievable elements, related as if it were true and factual) based loosely on real HRWR people. I borrowed lines liberally from a popular movie Trilogy. By John Rohrer October 2024 The Fellowship of the Lynx Chapter 1. The world has changed. I feel it in the water. I feel it on the earth. I smell it in the air. Much that once was is lost.  Once the mountains here were cloaked in a thick green blanket of lodgepole pine, spruce, and fir. Wildlife was abundant. Chickadees, nuthatches, and flycatchers flitted through the forest canopy. Red squirrels, chipmunks, and snowshoe hares scampered along the forest floor. Black bears, pine martens, and porcupines padded around. A

  "This is fun!" I thought to myself as I slowly, methodically, kicked steps into the loose gravel of the backside of Johnstone Pass. Behind me was a group of six- the 2024 WildGift fellowship cohort - each placing their feet exactly where I'd placed mine, trusting me to guide them safely to the bottom of the pass where the ground would once again feel solid underneath us.  Descending Johnstone Pass.  Photo by Jacinta Gordon. An exercise in "Leader of the Day", this was just one of the activities I'd need to coordinate and guide, culminating in a feedback session over dinner where I'd learn how the cohort felt about my leadership. Other leaders had made time for mindfulness and meditation sessions, stretch breaks, and songs...but on our last backcountry day, my only mission was getting us to the trailhead in time to meet our ride. There would be no stopping to soak in the sun. I restrained my enthusiasm and momentum with each step, only to look behind an

“I’m Margaret Burgess, a Junior Biology major [at Whitman College]. This summer I joined the powerhouse team of women behind Home Range Wildlife Research, a nonprofit based in Winthrop, WA dedicated to wildlife conservation and education. I worked on their Lynx and Wildfire project collecting fuels data and setting wildlife cameras. So what did that look like? Field days were full of excitement and many miles of bushwhacking. My field partner and I would usually meet at the office in town and then drive out to the study area on a heavily washboarded old logging road. During my internship a section of the road washed out due to thunderstorms, but that wasn’t about to stop us, it just added to our eventful daily routine as we slowly bumped over logs, rubble, and downed logs in the work truck. I remember my first day out in the field vividly, following behind my supervisor we hiked up a trail and then suddenly peeled off, shooting up a steep slope and whacking through brush. This set the

Since the inception of Home Range a little over a year ago, we have been working towards a large-scope, interdisciplinary project aimed at providing important information for the conservation of Canada lynx. Now, we are thrilled to announce that with funding support from the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation , our research on lynx and wildfire in the North Cascades begins this winter. These maps paint a clear picture as to why this research is urgently needed. The dark green areas show Washington’s lynx habitat, with the orange areas showing where fires burned between 1970 and 1999 (left map) and 2000 and 2021 (right map). In the past 20 years, North Cascades lynx habitat has flip-flopped from being mostly unburned to mostly burned. Climate change, in conjunction with a legacy of fire suppression, has created a tinder box on our landscape. Anyone that lives or spends time in the Methow Valley knows that wildfires have increased to the point that we regularly experience megafires (fires o

Participants in the inaugural Wildlife Field Techniques course were instructed to arrive prepared for anything, as the course would run rain-or-shine. The course, hosted at Skalitude Retreat in the foothills above Carlton, WA, would teach students the basic skills required to conduct wildlife field work over the course of four days. Students eagerly packed their rain jackets and traveled from across the mountain west to learn with Home Range, where daily lessons covered data collection principles, track and sign interpretation, remote wildlife cameras, telemetry, and field necropsy for wildlife mortality investigations. Little did they know how much they would be needing their rain jackets! The weekend began with an afternoon of introductions, discussion of the skills and attributes necessary to be an effective field biologist, and a lesson in field data collection techniques. The day’s lesson was followed by an evening around the bonfire with guest Kent Woodruff, a retired biologist w

We were excited to host the inaugural Wildlife Cub Club for twenty 4-6th graders at Methow Valley Elementary (MVE) this winter. Students learned about various wildlife species living in the Methow Valley, their habitats, and unique adaptations for survival. Alongside wildlife biology 101, t he students learned about various ways to monitor and research wildlife, including discussion of track, sign, camera trap, and live capture methodologies. Students put their wildlife tracking skills to the test and set up camera traps on campus to monitor wildlife on the MVE campus. Here are some highlights from the club! Looking at an image of a bobcat using a latrine.  One of the many cameras we set up on campus! Drawing tracks.  Students found squirrel sign (the pine cone midden in the background) and captured this gray squirrel! Students found deer scat and bed sites with deer hair in them beneath this large ponderosa - look who we found! Wildlife biologists in the making!