Grit City Carnivore Project (GCCP)

Hi Everyone!

Thank you all for your participation in our community science arm of the Grit City Carnivore Project! We are excited to have you as a member of the project, and value your participation in our efforts. With your help, we hope to provide exceptional resolution and understanding into human-carnivore interactions around the city that will illuminate how these animals co-exist and thrive in and around Pierce County.

The ask:
The Schell Lab, in partnership with Point Defiance Zoo & Aquarium, Northwest Trek, and Metro Parks Tacoma, is launching a community science project that will help capture carnivore behavior and distribution across Pierce County, using sightings from members of our community. This particular community science initiative under the newly-minted Grit City Carnivore Project is meant to provide a platform for community members to report and grade their sightings of coyotes and raccoons across Pierce County. In so doing, we can create “heat maps” of human-carnivore interactions and ask/answer fundamental questions about those interactions in cities.

How it works:
If you notice a coyote or raccoon anywhere in or around Pierce County (that includes Tacoma, Federal Way, Fife, University Place, Gig Harbor, Lakewood, and even as far south as Eatonville), report your interaction on this site. You can also seamlessly do this by downloading the iNaturalist app, which provides the mobile flexibility to report sightings on the go! Moreover, your smartphone or device gives you the potential to snag a photo of the elusive animal when you see/hear it. Note that you will be asked to create a unique login, and also asked to join the project.

Our main questions:
The hope is that by crowd-sourcing sightings, and documenting the nature of those sightings, we can ask and answer fundamental questions in urban carnivore ecology using these community science data. Some of those questions include:

1. Are carnivore interactions more prevalent in particular parts of the city?
2. Do interactions tend to change over time and with season?
3. Are interactions graded along an urban-rural gradient?
4. Are sightings more frequent at a particular time of day?

Spread the word!:
As everyone can imagine, the biggest hurdle to answering the above questions (and others) comes down to who’s reporting: we need a whole bunch of folks across the city and socioeconomic spectrum to participate as community members.

With that, report, report, report! Thank you for your help and we look forward to sharing our results with you all periodically throughout the project!

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Christopher J. Schell, Principal Investigator
Assistant Professor of Urban Ecology
School of Interdisciplinary Arts and Science (SIAS)
University of Washington, Tacoma
1900 Commerce St., Box 358436
Tacoma, WA 98405
Office: 253-692-5838
Email: cjschell@uw.edu menos ↑