Olympic Peninsula Audubon Society meeting explores Elwha River research

Published 2:55 pm Tuesday, April 12, 2016

The Olympic Peninsula Audubon Society will meet at 7 p.m. Wednesday, April 20, at the Dungeness River Audubon Center at Railroad Bridge Park, 2151 W. Hendrickson Road in Sequim.

Kim Sager-Fradkin will discuss research on river otter and American dipper responses to dam removal, salmon recolonization and marine-derived nutrient influxes to the Elwha ecosystem. She also will describe her research to document wildlife recolonization of the former Elwha reservoirs, with a specific focus on small mammals, birds and ungulates.

Sager-Fradkin is a wildlife biologist for the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe in Port Angeles and has been with the tribe since 2007.

Prior to working for the tribe, she worked for Olympic National Park and the USGS Olympic Field Station studying everything from marbled murrelets to black bears. She grew up in Montana and has a bachelor’s degree in wildlife biology from Humboldt State University and a master’s degree in wildlife biology from the University of Idaho.

She spends her free time exploring the wilds of the Olympic Peninsula with her family.

The program is free and open to the public.