Cascadia Wild

05/16/2026

Our biggest highlight of the season was seeing this wolf pair visit one of our volunteer owned cameras! They are the breeding pair of the Mt. Hood wolf pack, a new pack recognized by ODFW!

We also saw Western grey squirrels, who are very cute and fluffy but also a species of interest for us. In Oregon, they are a considered a sensitive species due to habitat loss.

What animal visited most of our camera locations? We assumed it would be deer, but it was actually coyote!

Our summer season is starting in a few weeks, stay tuned for more photos!

05/01/2026

Our winter survey season is coming to a close, and Mt. Hood is getting ready for summer, just like we are! A bear emerged from torpor and made a nighttime appearance on one of our wildlife cameras.

Do you want to be a community scientist, or even just hang out in the woods? Come volunteer with us this summer! Between our camera surveys, s**t surveys, and tracking surveys, we have something for everyone! Check out our website (https://www.cascadiawild.org/)to sign up. Registration ends May 18th!

Stay tuned for our end of season wrap up next week!

04/24/2026

Earlier this season, our cameras recorded a fisher in the Washington side of the Columbia River Gorge! This is the furthest south one has been spotted since they were reintroduced to Washington. Fisher reintroduction in Washington spanned 2008-2021. The Wolverine Tracking project and our camera surveys play an important role in tracking animal movement, contributing to species management plans and conservation strategies!

Interested in supporting Cascadia Wild? We are raffling off a wind surfing lesson for two, courtesy of Big Winds in Hood River. The raffle ends on Saturday at 5pm! Click the link in our bio to enter!

04/17/2026

04/08/2026

Calling all nature-lovers, conservation nerds, and outdoorsy folk! Our winter season is coming to a close as the weather warms up and the sun comes out up here in Portland. Registration is open for our summer season!

We are always in need of passionate volunteers to trek out to camera survey sites or to join in on our iconic group tracking survey. Orientation training for both camera and tracking surveys occurs in a few weeks and we love seeing fresh faces in the Zoom crowd. Interested? Head on over to cascadiawild.org to sign up!

We also a naturalist training starting this month, and our outdoor survival series classes is kicking off this Sunday! Register on our website!

03/21/2026

Seasonal Job Alert! We're looking for the next intern for summer tracking season here at Cascadia Wild and applications close in 2 weeks. If you like nature, trail cams, and are detail-oriented, please reach out and submit an application - details are below.

Dates: May 4 to Oct 20, 2026 (start and end dates flexible)
Hours: ​20-25 hours/week
Application Deadline: March 31

To apply, please email the following to [email protected]:
- your résumé
- a cover letter explaining
1) your interest in this internship and what you hope to gain from it,
2) why you are a good fit to perform the described duties
3) your availability to take on a weekly commitment for the time frame and hours per week as described

We look forward to adding more nature lovers, trail blazers, and wildlife enthusiasts to the team! Best of luck!

03/12/2026

We're pretty good at identifying most of our animal visitors, but a couple of weeks ago we had an especially sneaky visitor come by! They blend in with the tree on the right side of the picture. Our initial thought was cougar, but their tail seemed too short.

Who do you think this visitor is?

03/06/2026

Interested in learning more about nature? Come join us at our online Nature Book Club! Our nature book clubs are free, and open to everyone, not just volunteers!

Our next meeting is on March 11, from 6:00-7:30pm.

March's book is "Wading for Bugs: Exploring Streams with the Experts" by Judith Li and Michael Barbour.

Contract us at [email protected] for the link to join. We hope to see you there!

02/28/2026

A very fluffy deer visited one of our sites in the forest this week! In freezing temps, deer can raise their winter guard hairs to trap an insulating layer of air between their hair and skin. This can keep them nice and toasty up to -30 degrees Fahrenheit. This deer spent a lot of time cruising around the trees, foraging in the surrounding vegetation before joining back up with mom (seen behind the tree on the right).

02/19/2026

Mt. Hood received some much needed snow this weekend! Not only does snowpack provide habitat for some of our target species (such as the wolverine), it can help preserve meat for our carnivore target species, and it serves as an important water source through replenishing ground water and feeding streams, creeks and rivers when it melts. It also helps our tracking teams find tracks on their surveys!

Interested in learning more about tracking? Considering joining our Tracking Club meeting this Sunday, February 22nd! It's from 9am to 12pm at Oxbow Regional Park. Meet us at the Floodplain, which is the first parking lot on the left after you enter the park.​ Joining the club is free, but there is a $5 entrance fee to the park. We hope to see you there!

02/06/2026

Guess it's 6 more weeks of winter for all of us, including these little Douglas squirrels!

In the winter, native Douglas squirrels will often rely on one or few, large central locations of food storage - known as middens - for their winter food supply. This is in contrast to more well known s**tter-hoarding, which involves burying smaller caches of food in multiple locations. Typical food items in a Douglas midden include conifer seeds, mushrooms, and berries.