Western Gray Squirrel Volunteer Field Trip
On March 20, Pacific Biodiversity Institute hosted our second successful western gray squirrel volunteer workshop of 2010. About 27 citizen science volunteers attended a day long field trip to learn more about this species that is threatened in Washington. Volunteers learned how to set up squirrel hair-sampling tubes to determine where western gray squirrels are present in the Methow Valley. This project is partly funded by a grant from the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife.
This workshop got volunteers familiar with hands-on field sampling techniques that can be used in their own back yards. Volunteers were instructed on how to recognize the difference between the rare western gray squirrel and the common red squirrel, determine good habitat for the species, and set and check non-invasive hair-sampling tubes. Volunteers also learned more about their crucial role in Pacific Biodiversity Institute's project and the conservation status of western gray squirrel populations in our region.
You can read about this event in the Wenatchee World, 3/22/2010. The Methow Valley News featured a picture of workshop instructor Asako Yamamuro leading the workshop volunteers in an identification session). There is also a web page describing our March 5, 2010 hair-sampling tube construction workshop, and a news story about volunteering for the project (Methow Valley News, November, 2010).
More information about the western gray squirrel project is available on our western gray squirrel volunteer web page and on the western gray squirrel background information web page.
Images from the March 20 workshop
Instructors showing volunteers how to set up hair-sampling tubes during the workshop.
Click here to view a gallery of pictures from the workshop.
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Winthrop, WA 98862 509-996-2490