*Please Note: This is a SPECIAL SOP Pop-Up Event. It will take place at the Columbia Gorge Discovery Center & Museum.

Event Description: Here in the Washington Cascades, two rare carnivores roam the high-alpine. Wolverines were once eliminated entirely from Washington, but in 2020, a wolverine and her kits were photographed in Mt. Rainier National Park for the first time in over a century. Three years later, the Cascades Carnivore Project announced it had documented three new baby wolverines (called kits or cubs). Another carnivore, the Cascade red fox (Vulpes vulpes cascadensis) has called the high Cascades home for half a million years. In fact, these foxes are found no place else in the world. Yet despite their native status, this elusive species has gone largely unnoticed, until now. In 2022, the Cascade red fox was listed as endangered by the Washington Department of Fish & Wildlife. So how do we learn more about these unique species and what can their presence here tell us about the history and future of the High Cascades? Sense of Place host/curator, Sarah Fox will be joined by wildlife biologist, Jocelyn Akins, for an in-depth conversation exploring what it takes to research these rare carnivores, Jocelyn's personal journey, and what the research may tell us about the rare carnivores' chances of survival in the American West.

Guest bio: Jocelyn Akins is a wildlife biologist with more than two-decades of experience in wildlife conservation research. Her research and the Cascades Carnivore Project, which she founded in 2008, have been featured in National Geographic, the Smithsonian Magazine, on OPB and in USA Today among many. Jocelyn studies rare, alpine carnivores, working in collaboration with numerous partners to promote the conservation of carnivores and their ecological communities in the Cascade Range. She earned a Ph.D. in Conservation Genetics from the University of California Davis. She was a 2021 Wilburforce Leaders in Conservation Science Fellow.

Learn More:

Cascades Carnivore Project

SOP Field Note: A Stinky Sponge, a Frozen Beaver, and a Camera

Video about Dr. Jocelyn Akins, produced by Modoc Stories

The Wild podcast: an alpine outing with Jocelyn and host Chris Morgan

Sense of Place Pop-Up: Wolverines, Foxes, and Rare Carnivores of the High Cascades

at Columbia Gorge Discovery Center & Museum