CWU to host nationally recognized conservationist tonight at The Ridge

Throughout the academic year, the Central Washington University Departments of Biology, Chemistry, and Geology have teamed up to deliver a monthly speaker series held in downtown Ellensburg, with a goal of promoting scientific literacy and cross-community communication.

The series, titled “A Bite of Science,” has seen participation from a broad variety of disciplines, and will conclude tonight (Tuesday, May 12) at The Ridge restaurant with a visit from nationally renowned conservationist Jocelyn Akins.

Akins is a wildlife biologist who has dedicated her career to studying at-risk species in mountain ecosystems. She saw her first wolverine in 1998 in the Canadian arctic and went on to study them in Yellowstone National Park. She has also studied grizzlies, black bears, mountain foxes and jaguars. Now, she spends her times studying and working to conserve elusive mountain carnivores across the Cascade Range.

Akins earned her PhD from the University of California-Davis, studying the conservation genetics of the Cascade red fox. She has since poured her passion for the conservation of carnivore habitats into the Cascade Carnivores Project, a nonprofit organization that has worked for nearly 20 years to develop working conservation strategies to ensure thriving carnivore populations and healthy mountain ecosystems across the Cascades. She serves as founder and executive director of the project, and her work was recently featured as the cover story of Smithsonian magazine.

Akins’ presentation, “Mountain Carnivores in the Face of Climate Change,” will begin 5:30 p.m. Tuesday, May 12, at The Ridge. The free public event is sponsored by The Ridge, the CWU College of the Sciences, and the CWU departments of Biology, Chemistry, and Geography.