Starting Our 2022 Season on Wasatch Wildlife Watch
A group of cougars on a trail at night. Image captured on a 2021 Wasatch Wildlife Watch camera.
Our Wasatch Wildlife Watch 2022 season is off to a great start! A dedicated group of volunteers has already hiked many miles this year to set up and check on wildlife cameras.
With sites in urban centers, deep in the Wasatch mountains, and everywhere in between, these volunteers are working across the landscape to support our local wildlife and the lands they depend on.
Why is this project important?
Elk cross a trail in front of a well-placed 2021 Wasatch Wildlife Watch camera.
As the Wasatch faces rapid urban growth, it becomes increasingly important to understand the wild-urban interface, or places where development and wildlife habitats overlap. Wildlife cameras are set up across the Wasatch and take photos when wildlife pass by.
Monitoring activity at these various sites reveals things like:
Where wildlife species are on the landscape and how they’re moving
How different types of development, such as roads or wildlife bridges, might impact wildlife activity and migration
Where conservation efforts should be focused for the most impact
With this information, conservation and development planning can be more precise, incorporating a deeper understanding of wildlife and habitats in the region.
What do Wasatch Wildlife Watch Volunteers do?
Our Wasatch Wildlife Watch community scientists take on a large responsibility each summer, “adopting” three sites where they set up, check, and take down wildlife cameras. These cameras capture images of wildlife in their natural habitats, which our Image Analysis volunteers then sort to determine species and build a powerful dataset.
These volunteers collectively (and sometimes individually) hike hundreds of miles each year in pursuit of this purpose. Many of our volunteers have been back for second, third, and fourth years on the project and share many insights from their work.
Meet a veteran Volunteer: Peter Mimmack
Peter at one of his Wasatch Wildlife Watch sites (with snow!). Credit: Peter Mimmack
One of our volunteers, Peter Mimmack, has established the same sites for four years and seen all kinds of activity. In addition, since Peter uses the same sites every year and has a rough idea of the number of photos his camera will take, we have been able to use these sites for gathering videos of wildlife in addition to still images.
Peter originally learned of the project through his wife, who works at the Natural History Museum of Utah (one of the partners on the project). “She thought it was the kind of volunteer activity that I'd enjoy,” he reflects. “She was right.”
Last year, Pete was excited when his camera captured a mountain lion on video. He says, “It's the only one I've seen in three years of work up there.”
“But on top of that,” he continues, “a close look at the timestamps shows that just over a minute before this, a deer walked through the site, looking rather wary. Clearly, she knew she was being hunted, as indeed she was. We really captured nature in action that day.”
Another video showed “a bull moose walking right up to the camera and staring into it as water drips from his mouth, having just drunk from the stream.”
When peering into the “behind-the-scenes” of nature, moments of wonder are inescapable. One video Peter caught showed “a doe walking through the scene, followed by her tiny, still-spotted fawn.”
Exciting moments from the field
In addition to these camera captures, Peter has personally experienced some amazing things during his years on the project.
He shares a story of a close encounter with a moose. “At the end of the 2020 summer season, I was moving my camera from my third site to the second site in order to capture more data for the fall season. I was 50 feet from the site when I saw a moose just 100 feet away. We then had a staring contest for at least five minutes until he went back to browsing. As I prepped the camera to set it on the tree, the moose reappeared for a second staring contest. This time, when he gave up, he decided to lie down in the shade, next to the stream, just 50 feet from the tree I wanted to place the camera on. That got my heart racing, as this is a great location, and I really didn't want to look for another. And while I can be slow and quiet, those camera boxes can be rather noisy. But I decided to go for it, hoping the heat of the day would keep him drowsy and the stream would mask any noise I made. Indeed, the camera was installed without a hitch, and I even snapped a couple close-ups of the moose.”
A mother and juvenile moose walk an old road. Image from Wasatch Wildlife Watch, 2021.
“But,” he says, “there is more to the story. I walked down Cardiff road thrilled with my close encounter, when suddenly around a bend, I saw another bull moose sleeping on the road. In a place where the road has a very steep dropoff on one side, with thick vegetation on the other. I opted for the vegetation and was getting around him just fine when I heard a lot of noise in the woods just above me, and sure enough a third moose had been snoozing up there, just 100 feet away. I paused to make sure he wasn't coming my way, snapped a picture of the moose on the road, and quietly moved along to put some distance between us. Three bull moose in one hour was definitely a highlight of the season.”
What conservation means to Peter
With multiple years under his belt, Peter has a strong dedication to wildlife conservation.
“We are not the only ones who live in Utah, and our four legged friends have been here much longer than we have,” he says. “It's great to be documenting their domain and how they're dealing with the new neighbors. And it's producing some incredible experiences that I wouldn't have otherwise.”
Thank you for all your work on this project, Peter, and for sharing your stories!
Why is community science important to this work?
A “blonde” black bear from a 2021 Wasatch Wildlife Watch camera.
To successfully map wildlife on a landscape, many sites are needed to ensure strong, precise data. Unfortunately, it would be impossible for our scientists to manage so many sites each year on their own.
Community scientists are trained by our scientists to expand what they can do on the landscape. Their involvement in our projects allows us to analyze a wide range of activity and information, pulling patterns and answering questions that are only possible because of their work.
Recent findings
One exciting outcome of this project is a recent publication in Conservation Science and Practice including project leads Mary Pendergast and Austin Green as authors. Information from Wasatch Wildlife Watch was crucial to this work.
UPR describes the paper this way: “Wildlife are under continuous pressure to adapt to new environments as more land is converted for human use. Studies have found, for example, that mammals increase their nocturnal activity within urbanized environments to avoid overlap with humans. University of Utah doctoral student Austin Green was part of a team that recently studied how human influence is altering the behavior of several species in northern Utah.”
Thank you
We cannot thank our community scientists and donors enough for making this work possible. Next time you notice a camera on the trails, think about the volunteers behind the scenes and what that camera is supporting.
A 2021 Wasatch Wildlife Watch camera captured this amazing image of a heron!
Get involved
Want to join this project? Our field season is currently full, but we still need volunteers to go through wildlife images from last year. Sign up on our project page.
This project relies on donations from supporters like you. Please donate to support this project and our other conservation work.