Natural and Cultural Resources Featured project

MONITORING POPULATIONS OF THREATENED FISH, WILDLIFE, AND PLANTS

 Environmental Monitoring Project at Hanford Site 

  • EAS staff members have supported the Environmental Monitoring Project for more than 30 years. We worked with MSA to support to protect Hanford Site natural resources.
  • Specific EAS responsibilities and support functions to the project are to:
    • Characterize and monitor biota to assess their abundance, vigor or condition, and distribution
    • Define and map habitats and species distribution for land-use planning
    • Perform baseline surveys and monitoring to assess long-term trends in the condition of sensitive species and habitats
    • Develop management and monitoring plans to help assess changes and trends in the condition of flora and fauna
    • Assess impacts to biological resources from Hanford Site operations.

EAS staff work with MSA to conduct population-level surveys to monitor fish, wildlife, and plants. We monitor the following species and habitats:

  • Federal and state endangered, threatened, sensitive, and candidate species. This includes 28 plant species, 3 mollusks, 3 insects, 6 fish species, 18 bird species, 3 species of amphibians and reptiles, and 5 mammal species
  • Rare plants, including those classified by the Washington Natural Heritage Program as endangered, threatened, and sensitive species
  • Fall Chinook salmon redds
  • Steelhead redds
  • Bald eagle nesting and communal night roosting sites
  • Raptors, including ferruginous hawks
  • Sagebrush-steppe dependent birds, including sage sparrows, sage thrashers, and loggerhead shrikes
  • Burrowing owl nests
  • Bat roosts
  • Townsend ground squirrel colonies
  • Mule deer
  • Hanford elk
  • Snake hibernacula

View more of our Natural and Cultural Resources Projects.

Scroll to Top