Current Projects


Seattle Coyote Study

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Coyotes are a clear “winner” of the Anthropocene. They are thriving in cities throughout North America and continuing to expand their range. What makes them so successful? We have launched a study of Seattle’s coyote population, in collaboration with the Seattle Urban Carnivore Project. What are coyotes eating? How many of them are there? We seek to answer these questions and more by combining fecal genotyping and metabarcoding of collected scats.

Project website

Funding: National Science Foundation (DEB-2223973), UW Royalty Research Fund, Animal Welfare Institute, Woodland Park Zoo

Student thesis: Sami Kreling (PhD)

Collaborators: Robert Long (Woodland Park Zoo)


Linking seasonal snow processes to wildlife population dynamics

Dall’s sheep ewe with a snow depth station (game camera and snow stake) in foreground, Wrangell St. Elias National Park AK (Photo: L Prugh).

Dall’s sheep ewe with a snow depth station (game camera and snow stake) in foreground, Wrangell St. Elias National Park AK (Photo: L Prugh).

Seasonal changes in snowpack have a profound influence on the energetics and population dynamics of wildlife that reside in snow-covered regions. The overarching goal of our study is to address the coupled question: What are the key factors driving snow accumulation and ablation during shoulder seasons, and which snow properties are most important for wildlife applications? We hypothesize that fall weather has a disproportionately large impact on snowpack dynamics of relevance to wildlife over the entire snow year. For example, we predict that patterns of temperature and precipitation during fall will have strong and persistent effects on ice layer formation, soil insulation, and annual snow cover duration. We further hypothesize that snow density, icing events, and snow depth will each have distinct and scale-dependent impacts on the movements and population dynamics of ungulates and their predators. To test these hypotheses, we are using snow modeling, remote sensing, and data assimilation at multiple spatial and temporal scales coupled with large datasets of ungulate and carnivore GPS locations, snow track measurements, and population-level metrics in northwestern North America. This project builds directly from the NASA ABoVE Dall Sheep Project and the Washington Predator Prey Project to examine impacts of snow properties on Dall sheep, moose, caribou, mule deer, white-tailed deer, elk, wolves, cougars, coyotes, and bobcats. This project will provide new insights into how climate change is likely to alter shoulder season snow properties, and what the implications are for wildlife population dynamics.

Funding: NASA Interdisciplinary Science Program (IDS), NASA Arctic and Boreal Vulnerability Experiment (ABoVE)

Co-PIs: Jessica Lundquist (UW), Mike Durand (OSU), Natalie Boelman (Columbia U), Glen Liston (CSU), Todd Brinkman (UAF)

Staff:  Taylor Ganz (postdoc), Ben Sullender (PhD student)

Project Website


Evaluating camera traps as ground-based remote sensing networks linking snow and wildlife

Eurasian lynx travel through the snow in Norway (Photo: ScandCam)

Eurasian lynx travel through the snow in Norway (Photo: ScandCam)

Changing snow conditions as a result of climate change will have major effects on ecosystems and wildlife. For example, rain-on-snow (ROS) events are increasing in frequency, leading to catastrophic die-offs of northern ungulates by blocking access to forage. Remote sensing data and in-situ observations are the traditional way to capture snow information, but with the increasing use of camera traps, their ability to supplement and verify this data is ready to be further explored. In collaboration with the Norwegian Institute for Nature Research (NINA), we are using an extensive camera trap network (ScandCam) to validate and supplement remotely-sensed MODIS snow cover and freeze-thaw data from the Freeze/Thaw Earth System Data Record (FT-ESDR), a NASA MEaSUREs product. By comparing snow cover, temperature, and precipitation data between camera traps and satellite data from 2011-2019 in Norway and southern Sweden, this project will accomplish three main goals: (1) develop algorithms to automate extraction of snow and rain data from camera photos for satellite data validation at multiple scales; (2) develop a new ROS product, and (3) connect changing snow cover and ROS frequency to changes in wildlife populations. This project will facilitate extraction and public archiving of data from camera trap networks, providing a direct link between remotely-sensed environmental conditions and biodiversity observations to increase the availability of ground-based data for earth science applications.

Funding: NASA Graduate Fellowship, American-Scandinavian Foundation, ERASMUS

PhD student: Katie Breen

Collaborators: Carrie Voyuvich (NASA), John Odden (NINA), Dan Morris (Microsoft AI for Earth)


Effects of human social-ecological patterns on urban carnivore movement and health

The distribution and interaction of wildlife species is inextricably tied to how human populations are distributed across the landscape. In a rapidly urbanizing world, these relationships are especially difficult to disentangle. The environmental factors controlling wildlife populations are complicated by urban development, which can introduce new resources, alter habitat availability, and create dispersal challenges. This study is investigating the effects of human sociological factors, specifically environmental health risks informed by socio-demographic variables, on carnivore populations. Using camera trap data and neighborhood-level environmental health predictors as covariates, we aim to determine if carnivores are less likely to occur in areas with higher human vulnerability to health risks. We are conducting necropsies of salvaged mesocarnivores from the Seattle-Tacoma area to assess the health (e.g., toxicant exposure, parasite loads, body condition) of urban carnivores in relation to variation in socio-demographic variables. This study will highlight key factors affecting urban carnivore health, and shed new light on the potential for urban carnivores to serve as sentinels of human health in cities.

Project Website: Sentinels of the City

Funding: National Science Foundation (DEB-2223973), NSF Graduate Fellowship Program

Student thesis: Yasmine Hentati (PhD), Sam Kreling (PhD)

Collaborators: Chris Schell (UC Berkeley), Chelsea Wood (UW), Burke Museum

MSc student Yasmine Hentati assisting with a necropsy of a roadkilled wolverine at the Burke Museum (photo: L Prugh).

PhD student Yasmine Hentati assisting with a necropsy of a roadkilled wolverine at the Burke Museum (photo: L Prugh).