Wildlife after the Woolsey Fire: Research Images on Display, by Miroslava Munguia Ramos

The Woolsey Fire in 2018 remains the largest wildfire in history of the Santa Monica Mountains by acreage. The National Park Service, the Santa Monica Mountains Fund, partner agencies, and NPS volunteers collaborate to study and investigate the fire’s impacts and long-lasting effects on the ecosystem and its inhabitants. With the use of wildlife camera traps, biologists gain a better sense of what lives, breathes, and zooms through the Santa Monica Mountains and nearby mountain ranges. The first part of the lecture will highlight the scope of this research, how researchers capture these wildlife images, and get insight on the massive collaborative effort driven by park staff, partner agencies, and volunteers to maintain this project. The second part of the lecture will highlight select images from the research data including images of wildlife behavior rarely seen in-person, photos of collared animals, and site comparisons over the years.

Biography: Miroslava Munguia Ramos is the Woolsey Fire Recovery Project lead with the Santa Monica Mountains Fund, the official non-profit partner of the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area. She has worked under the Interpretation, Education, and Volunteer division of the National Park Service to provide public programming, school field trips, and engaging volunteer experiences for park visitors. She began her Santa Monica Mountains Fund career as a program supervisor for college-aged interns exploring careers in public land management. Now collaborating with the Wildlife division, she works regularly with volunteers and citizen/community scientists to showcase some of the park’s research and help make it more accessible to the public. Munguia Ramos received her undergraduate degree from the University of California, Davis, with a major in Environmental Science and Management and a minor in Wildlife, Fish, and Conservation Biology. She has recruited and led citizen/community scientists for years across California to study the state’s biodiversity using molecular-based research, including environmental DNA and crowd-sourced platforms like iNaturalist.