• Olympic: Three Parks in One

    Olympic

    National Park Washington

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  • Olympic Hot Springs Road Closed

    The Elwha Valley's Olympic Hot Springs Road is closed to public entry beyond the Altair Campground during removal of the Glines Canyon Dam. Olympic Hot Springs is not accessible from the Elwha.

  • Elwha River Closures

    Boating is prohibited on the Elwha River from Upper Lake Mills Trail downstream to the Highway 112 bridge, except for the stretch between Altair Campground and the Highway 101 bridge.

  • Changes to Visitor Services Due to Sequestration

    Due to mandatory, across the board budget cuts, some visitor services at Olympic National Park have changed. See the Plan Your Visit section for more information.

Olympic NP and WNPF Kick Off Marmot Monitoring Project

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Date: August 14, 2010
Contact: Dave Reynolds, 360-565-2985

Teams of volunteer “citizen scientists” began training last month as part of a volunteer project to monitor populations of Olympic marmots (Marmota olympus) in Olympic National Park.

Thanks to $26,300 in funding from Washington’s National Parks Fund, volunteers will have an opportunity to study population size and distribution of the Olympic marmot throughout the park. The funds were used to purchase GPS units for the volunteer marmot monitors to use while conducting their studies in the field.

More than 100 people, hailing from the Olympic Peninsula, Seattle/Tacoma area and as far away as Los Angeles, have signed on to become marmot monitors. Volunteer training began July 20 and will continue over the next several weeks.

“The marmot is an iconic species at Olympic,” said Dr. Sue Griffin, who heads up the monitoring program for the park. “More than 90 percent of the species lives within park boundaries, so we have a special responsibility to study and safeguard the animal.”

Existing only on (endemic to) the Olympic Peninsula, the Olympic marmot is one of the rarest species of North American marmots. Due to its geographic isolation, the species has evolved in isolation for thousands of years and differs in coloring, vocalization and genetics from the closely-related hoary and Vancouver Island marmots.

Did You Know?

dam with water flowing

Removal of two dams on the Elwha River is the second largest ecosystem restoration project in the National Park System.