NEAR LEAVENWORTH, Wash. - Researchers Paula MacKay and Rob Long are on their way back into the deep woods in the Icicle Creek Canyon. They were here two weeks ago, stretching a strand of barbed wire between trees surrounding a pile of sticks covered in a putrid blend of blood and chicken guts. They hope curious bears will go to investigate and leave behind a strand of hair on one of the barbs.
The husband and wife team are from the Western Transportation Institute and what they find might change the way the state builds its roads and highways.
"Our highway systems and the way we've developed hasn't been done with as much foresight as maybe it should have," explains Long.
DNA in the bear hair samples will tell them if highways like I-90 have severed traditional migration and mating routes for bears. If bears share the same DNA on one side of the road but not with bears on the other, they know the mating diversity has been interrupted.
Crews widening I-90 have already used the information to create more wildlife friendly underpasses for safe passage. The research will help identify improvements to future projects.
But in the back of their minds, and the minds of other teams doing the same work, is the suspected return to Washington State of the long absent grizzly.
"We're out here trying to see if we can detect a rare grizzly bear and that will help them form a recovery plan process," said MacKay.
The State's last resident grizzly was believed to have been hunted down in the 1960s. MacKay and Long were excited to find a sample of brown hair on one of the strands, and to find that their motion activated wildlife camera had been activated at one site.The pictures revealed it was a common brown haired black bear. But the two, along with several state and federal biologists, are convinced grizzlies are visiting the state and it won't be long before some of them decide to stay.