Photo by Ken and Mary Campbell (c) The application period for the 2024 season has closed. We will not be accepting any more applications until 2025.Citizen ScienceThe Olympic marmot is an iconic endemic species. To make informed management decisions to protect the species the park needs range-wide population information. Enter the Volunteer Citizen Scientists, aka Marmoteers, who have been helping us survey marmot colonies annually to determine occupancy since 2010 with financial help from the Washington National Park Fund and their donors. 
Washington's National Park Fund has provided generous financial support for the Olympic marmot monitoring program, as well as many other important projects within the park. Who Can Be a Volunteer Marmot Monitor (a Marmoteer)?Interested individuals will need to submit a group application to the park. Typically, the application period opens in mid-January and stays open through June 1. If all positions are filled before then, the application period may end early. The park will then review applications and fill positions based on applicant fit and survey area availability.What Skills Are Required?
Group SizeFor safety reasons, volunteers must travel and work in groups of at least two people. You must find your own partner. Up to 6 members of families or friends can travel and camp together, breaking into teams of 2 or 3 for the surveys. Children aged 13-17, accompanied by a responsible adult, can participate in the surveys. In fact, they make excellent volunteers! Younger children, if capable of hiking to the study areas, can remain in camp with a non-participatory adult.
What to Expect as a Marmot MonitorPrior to Your Work Session As a MarmoteerVolunteers will sign up for one of four sessions, each to start on a Wednesday in late summer. Volunteers can work 5 days or 8 days. Volunteers for the earlier sessions will be assigned their survey units by early June. Maps of survey units and other details can be provided to those volunteers at that time. Trip assignments may change due to unforeseen backcountry conditions (e.g. late snow-pack, fires). Volunteers for the latter two sessions will have tentative assignments, but final assignments may change up to 5 days prior to the start of their work period. This is because they may need to survey units that were not reached in the first two weeks or resurveying units where marmots were not detected in the initial surveys. Transportation and Accommodations
Training, Park Headquarters, Port Angeles, WashingtonA Marmoteer's first day begins with training. Bring lunch, snacks, and day hiking gear. Below is a general schedule:
Field DaysField days will consist of hiking, surveying, or both depending on your destination. Where possible, you will camp in or very close to survey units. However, in some cases, day hikes of up to three miles will be necessary to access the survey units. When possible, you should survey before 11 am or after 4 pm. In rain and heavy fog, marmots stay in their burrows and volunteers can stay in their tents.For safety reasons, you should survey in pairs. You will travel off-trail and will traverse steep ground with loose rocks. Volunteers will be given a GPS unit with the survey units pre-loaded on it. Using the GPS, you will identify the boundaries of units then scan the area for marmots. If you don’t see any, you will walk systematically back and forth across the area looking for burrows or marmots. After using the GPS to record the locations of burrows and marmots, then you will complete a data sheet for each survey unit. If you do not find marmots in a unit, you may return later in the day or the following day to confirm that you did not miss them. However, it is more important to survey all your assigned units one time than to resurvey unoccupied units. During the last two sessions, volunteers will be scheduled to resurvey to those units where marmots were not found. Post-surveyAfter completing the field work, you will return field gear and data sheets to Port Angeles or to a ranger station near your exit point. Park staff will review your data sheets for completeness and contact you if they have any questions. You may be asked to fill out an evaluation form to help us improve communication, training, and field protocols.WeatherSummer conditions in the Olympic high-country are highly variable. July and August are generally dry but wind, rain, and freezing conditions occur. Plan for rain and for cold evenings. At high elevations, sunburn is a concern. Biting insects and wasps are troublesome in many areas.EquipmentVolunteers must provide their own personal equipment. Ultimately, you are responsible for determining what gear you need for 4-7 days in the backcountry and for supplying that gear.Marmot Sighting DisclaimerVolunteers will survey places that are known to have had marmots recently, areas where marmots used to live but were not found in recent surveys, and a few places where marmots are not known to have ever lived but where the habitat appears suitable. To monitor the population over time, it is important that we survey previously occupied and never occupied (to our knowledge) locations so that we can detect colonization as well as extinctions. We cannot guarantee that you will see marmots, but you will be surveying in one of the most beautiful places on earth!
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Last updated: November 15, 2024