Enforcement & Monitor Team Outlook

• A new division was created in Wildlife for 2023; The Tomanamus Forest Inspector
• classification was created to patrol/monitor Tribal owned forest lands and enforce all rules and conduct
• per the access policy for all members, contractors and permit holders.

Biologist Team Outlook

• Muckleshoot will host a Chronic Wasting Disease training to be taught by the Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission veterinarians.
• We will continue to comment on and influence landowner habitat projects to benefit wildlife of interest to the Muckleshoot Tribe.
• We will actively participate in intertribal and agency discussions regarding hunting, populations, and habitat.
• We will continue to conduct habitat improvements in the White, Green and Cedar River Watersheds.
• We plan to deploy cameras to monitor for wolves, fisher, wolverine, and Cascade fox.
• We will maintain large, statistically-valid sample size of radio-marked elk, deer, cougar, and bear, conduct surveys as appropriate, and investigate rates and causes of mortality.
• We will conduct predator removal as needed to allow ungulate herds to reach and maintain population and hunter harvest objectives.

Enforcement & Monitor Team Highlights

• The Wildlife Enforcement Departments mission is to provide assistance to all hunters, their families and guests/permit holders while they spend time on the Tomanamus/White River property. The department also teaches Hunter’s Ed/Hunters Safety; patrols the landscape, monitors collared animals; and works closely with the surrounding Cities, County and State WDFW Enforcement Departments.
• In 2022, each member of the Wildlife Enforcement and Monitor team, was trained in mountain first aid. This highly technical training was held in the surround mountains of Bellingham, WA. There, each member was trained to find and administer first aid in a mountain setting.

Biologist Team Highlights

• We captured and collared 25 new elk, 1 cougar, 5 black-tailed deer, 39 mule deer, and 5 bear. We investigated 15 elk and 22 deer mortalities. We investigated 78 cougar kill sites. We investigated 59 bear cluster sites for tree damage.
• We conducted aerial elk surveys in the White River, Green River, and Mount Rainier National Park. Staff conducted mountain goat aerial surveys south of I-90 and north of Mount Rainier. Staff also conducted aerial mule deer and groundbased black-tailed deer surveys.
• We analyzed Muckleshoot harvest and biological data and reviewed other user group harvest to understand potential hunting impacts on big game herds. We prepared and sent out a letter to other Tribes regarding the status of elk in the White River, GMU 653 and we stressed the need to refrain from shooting cow elk.
• We documented the history of the Wildlife Program and presented the information at the annual Hunter’s Meeting in July.
• Staff began to participate in a large-scale cooperative effort to survey for fishers from I-90 south to the Columbia River. MIT Wildlife installed 6 fisher camera “traps” on and adjacent to the Tomanamus Forest and will retrieve them in the spring.
• Staff participated in cooperative meetings to design a carnivore monitoring sampling strategy with focus on detecting wolverine, lynx, and other carnivores (e.g., fisher, fox, grizzly bear).
• Vales gave a presentation to the Native Leadership Certificate Program in September on Wildlife Program activities.
• Vales published a paper Black‐tailed deer seasonal habitat selection: accounting for missing global positioning system fixes in the November 2022 issue of the Journal of Wildlife Management.
• Vales prepared a draft management example for a book chapter on using nutrition to guide Muckleshoot elk management.
• McDaniel presented a poster at the annual Wildlife Society meeting in Spokane on the black bear study results of tree peeling and feeder use.
• The Program hosted an appreciation event in June for retired helicopter pilot Jess Hagerman
• We terminated the dog program that had been used to remove cougar and restore elk in the Green and White River. Future removals, or capture and collar, will occur with contract dog handlers.
• We had a display set up at the Tomanamus Community Day in October
• The Program entered an inter-agency agreement with Bonneville Power Administration to fund $100,000 of habitat work in the Green River Watershed in 2022 to enhance elk forage under the power line corridor. The Program used the funding to spray 300 acres and mow 30 acres of scotch broom.
• Program staff re-seeded 15 acres of the mowed area with an elk forage mix of native grass seed.
• We participated in finalizing the Cedar River Forest Management Plan that specifically includes improving elk and deer habitat on 920 acres over 28 years through thinning and gap creation, with ancillary benefits on up to 2,952 acres that are to be thinned.
• The Program enrolled the Tribe in King County’s Healthy Lands Project Landowner Agreement which uses King County funding and resources to remove noxious weeds and restore habitat on 26 acres of the Tribe’s property below the 180th Street gate. The agreement lasts through spring of 2024.
• Sam Hoffer worked cooperatively with USFS, Conservation Northwest, and Tulalip Tribes on Greenwater elk forage area maintenance and seeding of newly created forage units.
• Staff mowed the MIT forage plot in the MacDonald Mountain area under the BPA power lines as well as the Foothills units in the Cedar River Watershed.
• We met with Tacoma Water and WDFW to set Green River harvest seasons and provide biological update to cooperators.
• Staff participated in Point Elliott Tribes/WDFW Technical Committee meetings and Intertribal Wildlife Committee meetings.
• Staff participated in habitat connectivity mapping meeting, with emphasis on cougar travel corridors and core areas. We discussed with Department of Transportation a possible elk crossing on SR 164 just east of the Reservation boundary.
• The Wildlife Program was influential in expanding the Fisheries and Wildlife parking lot in the back of the Phillip Starr Building.
• Supply chain issues have affected our ability to acquire transmitter darts for darting elk and deer.
• Transmitter darts help to locate animals after they are darted and run into heavy cover.
• Helicopter pilot and helicopter availability is not what it used to be so we are more challenged to accomplish our capture, survey, and monitoring goals.

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