With ever-shrinking pristine habitats across the region and globe, wildlife is often hard-pressed to find a place to call home. Andrew Shirk, research scientist with the Climate Impacts Group, discusses the Cascadia Partner Forum and the work he is leading to develop a map-based tool to inform conservation efforts.

This documentary captures the diverse perspectives of stakeholders involved in creating the Chehalis Basin Strategy, which aims to reduce flood damage and restore salmon habitat throughout the entire Chehalis Basin. Guillaume Mauger is interviewed.

Scientists are mapping what they call "wildlife escape routes." As the climate changes, they expect wildlife to migrate. They took KING 5 Environmental Reporter Alison Morrow a thousand feet up to show her why these migration routes are so important.

The Northwest Regional Invasive Species and Climate Change (NW RISCC) Network is a partnership of regional agencies and organizations dedicated to helping practitioners address the nexus of climate change and invasive species, including plants, animals and pathogens. The Network aims to reduce the compounding effects of invasive species and climate change by synthesizing relevant science, sharing the needs and knowledge of managers, building stronger scientist-manager communities and conducting high-priority research. This work serves invasive species biologists, climate scientists, natural resource managers, policymakers and the broader public.

An online culvert-design tool that engineers, managers, regulators, and other interested parties can use to explore the impacts of climate change on fish passage and streamflow. This tool will help engineers size culverts to accommodate both fish passage and future streamflow.

The Climate Impacts Group, in partnership with Northwest Climate Adaptation Science Center (NW CASC) consortium universities, is leading the development of a Northwest Climate State of Knowledge Synthesis for ecosystems, species and habitats. The goal is to develop a resource that synthesizes existing scientific knowledge of climate projections, impacts to natural systems, and adaptation options relevant to natural resource management in the Pacific Northwest (Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and western Montana).

The primary audience for the synthesis is technical staff in wildlife and land management agencies of federal, state, local and tribal governments. We anticipate that this resource will be used in planning documents and vulnerability assessments, as well as for increasing awareness within agencies about potential climate impacts and adaptation options.

We are developing regionally-specific guides for small forest landowners that describe the most immediate climate impacts on forests and potential actions landowners can take to increase climate resilience. We have completed a guide for western Washington, are working on one for eastern Washington, and hope to do additional regions in the Northwest. Each guide takes into account the specific climate and ecology of the region.

These guides are geared toward small forest landowners in the Northwest, as well as organizations (non-profits, conservation districts, local governments) that support these landowners to manage their forests.

The Cascadia Partner Forum and the UW Climate Impacts Group are partnering to develop and implement the Blueprint for a Resilient Cascadia. The Blueprint, released in winter 2022, identifies key climate adaptation actions for facilitating coordinated climate adaptation across the political and jurisdictional boundaries that divide the Cascadia region. The Blueprint offers a collaborative, large-landscape complement to the individual climate adaptation efforts of the many organizations and partnerships working in Washington and British Columbia.

Under climate change, plants and animals will shift their habitats to track the conditions they are adapted for. As they do, the lands surrounding rivers and streams (known as riparian corridors) offer natural migration routes that will take on a new importance as temperatures rise.

We created a system to rank habitats along rivers and streams based on the likelihood that they would be relatively protected from climate change and would promote the ability of species to move across the landscape to more suitable habitats as the climate changes. Results of this analysis will help resource managers and conservation groups decide where to focus efforts to support species’ resilience to climate change.

Photo: A black bear walks along the South Fork Flathead River in Montana.U.S. Forest Service/Wikimedia.

We developed and validated models of habitat suitability and habitat connectivity for greater sage-grouse in the Columbia Basin of eastern Washington. The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife and other state and federal agencies and tribes in the region are using these models to predict where the best remaining habitat is for this species given the current landscape and climate, and to consider alternative management scenarios.

Scientists from the Climate Impacts Group, US Forest Service and US Fish and Wildlife Service collaborated to develop an automated monitoring tool that uses remote sensing and cloud computing technologies to track changes in Mexican spotted owl (Strix occidentalis lucida) nesting and roosting habitat across Arizona and New Mexico from 1986 to present. This tool provides decision-makers with up-to-date information on recent trends and current conditions, helping managers to assess drivers of habitat loss (e.g., wildfire, timber harvest, climate change), measure success of habitat restoration and land-use practices and devise management strategies accordingly to better conserve this highly threatened species. US federal agencies have used this tool to assess an overall 21 percent decline in Mexican spotted owl habitat across Arizona and New Mexico since 1986. Information provided by this tool and follow-on assessments is now being incorporated into forest management of Mexican spotted owl habitat across the region.

We collaborated with the US Forest Service to develop predictive models of marbled murrelet nesting habitat suitability and at-sea abundance along the Pacific coast from Washington to California. The models identify areas where forest characteristics, near-shore foraging habitat, human footprint, and climatic conditions are all within suitable ranges to support local populations. They are being used to support the Northwest Forest Plan’s goal to stabilize and increase marbled murrelet populations by managing forests in a way that maintains and increases nesting habitat.