PROJECT
PARTNERS
COOPERATING ORGANIZATIONS AND AGENCIES.—The work is being shared almost exclusively by personnel of three organizations: (1) the UW Burke Museum; (2) the CAS Department of Entomology; and (3) Peninsula College in Port Angeles, Washington. We have also partnered with other non-profit, tribal and governmental organizations: (1) the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe, (2) Olympic National Park, (3) the Olympic Park Institute; and (4) the North Olympic Land Trust
The Burke is Washington’s state museum of natural history, the only major natural history museum in the Pacific Northwest. The museum is accredited by the American Association of Museums. Its three scientific divisions of Anthropology, Biology, and Geology contain nationally ranked collections totaling over twelve million specimens and artifacts. The zoological collections are especially strong in mammals (about 52,000 specimens), birds (87,800, including skeleton and egg sets), fishes (7.6 million specimens, including eggs and larvae), spiders (100,000), and a few additional invertebrate taxa such as butterflies and moths (37,000), and bees, wasps, hornets, scorpions, and fleas (136,000). The herbarium is a nationally ranked collection of over 600,000 specimens; while its primary focus is northwestern North America, it is worldwide in scope, including material from Alaska, the Aleutian Islands, Kamchatka, the Kuril Islands, Sakhalin Island, Siberia, and Japan.
The all new California Academy of Sciences, scheduled to open on 27 September 2008, contains one of the great natural history museums of the world. Its entomological collection, with approximately 7.5 million pinned specimens and 180,000 taxa (plus primary types for about 16,000 species-group names), is among the five largest collections in North America and one of the two largest west of the U.S. East Coast. It is the only major collection in the West that is worldwide in scope. All major taxonomic groups are well represented, with exceptional holdings among the Coleoptera, Diptera, Hymenoptera, Lepidoptera, Hemiptera, and Trichoptera. Its large staff of curators, collection managers, and associated students from nearby San Francisco State University is more than up to the task of handling the large quantity of insects that will come from the Elwha.
Peninsula College, one of 35 community and technical colleges in the state of Washington, was founded in 1961 to meet the educational needs of residents of the North Olympic Peninsula. The College is situated on 75 acres in the foothills of the Olympic Mountains, overlooking Port Angeles and the Strait of Juan de Fuca. The Life Sciences at PC consist of a variety of courses and programs in biology, botany, environmental science, zoology, fisheries technologies, and anthropology. While natural history collections are not maintained, the Biology Department has offered us ample space in an all new state-of-the-art science building on campus that we will use as a staging area for sorting and curating material as well as for classroom training.
A solid working relationship has been established with the Olympic Park Institute (OPI), a non-profit organization that provides outdoor science education programs to school groups (grades 4−12), and professional development opportunities for teachers, non-formal educators, and citizen scientists. Located on the shore of Lake Crescent, in the Olympic National Park, OPI programs "create memorable and rewarding life experiences for students and adults. Benefits include increased engagement in science, enhanced comprehension of environmental and stewardship issues, improved group dynamics, increased sense of citizenry, and a renewed sense of wonder about the natural world and local communities. The natural classroom of the National Park features countless opportunities to study ancient forests, wilderness coasts, and alpine peaks. Programs are experiential, inquiry-based, and aligned with state learning requirements." In partnership with OPI, we have initiated monthly environmental education forays along the river that focus on the impact of dam removal and the importance of understanding the present biocomplexity of the Elwha as a way to assess the value of restoring river ecosystems in general. To date, we have conducted two events for students and teachers of the Crescent Middle School in nearby Joyce, Washington, and one for Native American students of the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe (see U-Week News Article).
The North Olympic Land Trust works to protect the North Olympic Peninsula’s biodiversity, natural resources, and cultural heritage for present and future generations. We have worked with the North Olympic Land Trust to survey conservation parcels outside of the protection of the National Park
