News Release

Longtime Olympic National Park Wildlife Biologist Receives National Award

Date: July 10, 2023
Contact: Public Affairs Office, 360-565-3005

Dr. Patti Happe, who retired in June after 28 years as the wildlife branch chief at Olympic National Park, has received the National Park Service Director’s Award for Professional Excellence in Natural Resource Stewardship. This is a national honor recognizing outstanding contributions of individuals in understanding, protecting, and managing park resources. 

Dr. Happe began her career at Olympic as a Ph.D. student studying elk populations in the mid-1980s. In 1996, she returned to the park as a wildlife biologist and branch chief. Over the course of her career, Dr. Happe made tremendous contributions to restoring native wildlife and ecological balance on the Olympic Peninsula. She pioneered and facilitated studies of elk movement and ecology, monitoring of northern spotted owl populations, and research foundational to the Elwha River restoration. Beyond these scientific accomplishments, Dr. Happe led park efforts to prevent human-wildlife conflict while providing exemplary leadership for the Olympic wildlife management program. 

Dr. Happe has been a leader in regional collaboration to achieve large-scale conservation goals. In recent years, she headed the successful removal of over 500 non-native mountain goats from the park, with over 300 reintroduced to their native habitat in the North Cascades. Dr. Happe initiated, developed, and implemented this complex, multi-decade project involving tribal, federal, state, non-profit, and volunteer partners.  

In addition, she has been a key partner in restoring the Pacific fisher to Olympic National Park, the first such effort in Washington State where the species was believed to be extirpated. Subsequent population monitoring, which confirmed that a breeding fisher population had returned to the Peninsula, involved close cooperation among multiple government agencies, tribes, and other organizations.  

As these programs were ongoing, Dr. Happe also trained and mentored a cadre of over 70 volunteer citizen scientists to monitor changes in the distribution and status of the Olympic marmot, a species unique to the Olympic peninsula and vulnerable to the effects of climate change. 

“Patti accomplished the kinds of things in her 30-year career that people will remember and rely on for decades,” said Sula Jacobs, Olympic National Park Superintendent. “Her contribution to Olympic National Park and the National Park Service mission is remarkable, and we thank her for the incredible work she has done.”

Dr. Happe’s wide-reaching contributions are foundational to current and future stewardship of Olympic’s wildlife and globally unique ecosystems. She and other honorees will be recognized at an event in Washington, DC, in 2024.