Living with Lions Webinar - Cougar Connections: Wildlife Crossings in Washington

Washington mountain lion | Credit: Sebastian Kennerknecht

Cougar Connections: Wildlife Crossings in Washington

Wednesday, March 19 at 12pm PT via Zoom

Learn more about Washington's efforts to solve one of the biggest problems for mountain lions: habitat fragmentation. Glen Kalisz has spent decades improving the geographic connectivity of mountain lions in the state. His talk will focus on his work as a Habitat Connectivity Biologist and the crossing structure projects that he's led in his tenure with the Washington State Department of Transportation.

THE SPEAKER

Glen Kalisz

I’m the Habitat Connectivity Biologist for the Washington State Department of Transportation, where I work to increase the ability of animals to safely navigate the highway system and reduce the frequency of dangerous wildlife-vehicle collisions, typically with the aid of wildlife crossing structures. My day-to-day work involves a broad suite of duties, including but not limited to prioritizing locations along the state highway system for habitat connectivity investments, managing an array of ~200 wildlife cameras in priority areas across the state to document wildlife activity and justify investments, monitoring recently completed wildlife crossings for success, modeling wildlife corridors using GIS, managing carcass removal and wildlife-vehicle collision data, finding common sense ways to integrate habitat connectivity elements into other aspects of highway management, such as within the purview of fish barrier removal projects, mentoring Habitat Connectivity Interns, and securing funding for habitat connectivity projects and research. I love my job.