Pacific West

The Wildlife Conservation Society's research in the Pacific West region of North America ranges from Big Sur in California to the Taku River in British Columbia, Canada and the Arctic coastal plain of Alaska. WCS activities in the region are focused on saving wildlife through the conservation of natural ecosystem processes needed to sustain healthy wildlife populations, with special emphasis on large, diverse ecosystems unique to the Pacific West.

Predators and Birds in the Arctic

In 1960, WCS helped create the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, the only protected arctic coastline in the United States. Today WCS is leading a collaborative effort to understand how oil development effects the nest productivity of shorebird and waterfowl populations in arctic Alaska. Additionally, starting in 2005 WCS began collecting novel information on the diversity, abundance, and productivity of shorebirds in the Teshekpuk Lake region of the NPR-A. Along with these ongoing efforts to understand variation in shorebird breeding biology, we are also investigating ways to determine how climate change may be affecting this group of migratory birds.

Pacific Fisher Ecology and Conservation on the Hoopa Valley Reservation

The Hoopa Valley Reservation is the largest reservation in California and one of the most progressive self-governed tribes in the nation. Timber management on the reservation provides natural resources-based employment. However, gaps in scientific information available on wildlife ecology and limited wildlife-related training opportunities for unemployed and younger community members are challenges to the people and its population of Pacific fisher, a small carnivore important to Hoopa culture.

Forest Fires, Wildlife and Forest Management

Although fire is a natural ecosystem process, a policy of suppression has been pursued in most North American forests over the last century, leading to alterations in forest function and structure. WCS is collaborating with forest managers across the nation to restore ecological integrity and conserve wildlife habitat as well as reduce fire risk.

Standing dead trees, or snags, are a critical component of western coniferous forests as numberous wildlife species rely upon them for survival and reproduction.  WCS is engaged in research on the interdependent factors contributing to the supply of snags and nest cavities to better inform forest management policy. 

Salmon Ecosystem Restoration

Few regions remain where salmon are abundant and intact communities of salmon predators exist.  However, the Taku River in North America, along with other rivers in Kamchatka, Russia, still flows unimpeded, maintaining healthy runs of salmon and supporting high densities of brown bears and eagles. WCS plans to compare intact and recovering systems to highlight critical linkages between salmon and wildlife to inform land and wildlife management practice and conservation policy.

Restoring Stream Habitat and Songbirds

Riparian systems, the interface between land and water, are highly productive areas associated with creeks, streams, rivers and wetlands.  In California, Oregon and Wyoming, WCS has been working with both private and public land managers to evaluate the response of riparian-depended songbirds to a variety of managment and restoration efforts.

Sudden Oak Death and Wildlife

The pathogen that causes sudden oak death infects a diversity of plant species including redwood, Douglas fir, and rhododendron, in addition to oaks and tanoaks.  WCS collaborated with state, federal, private and tribal agencies to study the ecology of the epidemic to understand its effects on wildlife. 

Black Bears in Yosemite - Conservation and Human - Black Bear Interaction

WCS conducted research in the Yosemite Valley on human - black bear interactions in an effort to understand the components of this problem and to provide recommendations for future management improvements. 

Urban Black Bear Conservation in the Tahoe Basin

WCS researchers are examining how black bears and other large carnivores move through the urban and suburban landscapes in the Tahoe Basin.  By identifying conflict areas between carnivores and human uses of the landscape, this project will facilitate coordination amongst biologists and others working with carnivores in the region to establish sound urban planning that will take into consideration the spatial needs of large carnivores. 

Green Sturgeon Conservation in Oregon

Since 2000, the WCS Marine Program has been designing projects, developing methods, and collaborating with State, Federal, and University researchers to uncover information needed to manage and conserve green sturgeon.  Our work is centered in the Rogue River, OR, one of only three rivers used for spawning by this species.  The primary goal of this project is to develop and promote effective management strategies that will protect green sturgeon in the Pacific Northwest. 

Ecology and Conservation of Mountain Goat on the Yakama Reservation

Historically, Mountain goat (Oreamnos americanus) extended from Alaska down through the Yukon Territory, British Columbia and into the Cascade Mountains of Washington State. Goats may have numbered as high as 10,000 statewide but likely number fewer than 4,000 today. In response to this decline, the Yakama Nation Tribal Council declared the Mountain goat a species of concern in June of 2003. With support from WCS, Yakama Nation wildlife biologists are monitoring Washington’s current goat population to better inform future conservation action of Mountain goat on the Yakama Reservation.