Olympic National Park needs teams of volunteers to hike locations within the park to record up-to-date information about the declining number of Olympic marmots.
This is timely information that is vital to our understanding of this endemic mammal and its future. Most of the sites would not be visited without the help of volunteers.
Field days will consist of hiking, surveying, or both depending on your destination. Volunteers must be capable of traveling and camping in remote areas, navigating to areas off-trail, and traversing steep slopes and scree.
We will conduct volunteer research again this summer to learn what is happening to the marmot populations from year to year. This program is supported by donations through Washington's National Park Fund.
If you'd like to sign up for this year's program, go to http://www.nps.gov/olym/naturescience/marmot-volunteer-information.htm to get started. Investigate what a marmot monitor does and figure out if this is a task that is right for you. Identify which area of the park you'd like to survey.