Volunteer Monitoring

Volunteer monitoring is vital to early detection and rapid response to new invasions. Using volunteers from members of the general public to folks who are out and about working on the water daily allows us to greatly expand our capacity for finding new species at the start of an invasion.

Volunteer monitoring opportunities have been built into a range of our projects and span a wide range of species and skill levels. The easiest thing you can do is report suspect species. Nonnative species of concern may show up in the wild as well as in bait shipments, in school classrooms and hitchhiking in a variety of unusual places. The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife has a list of prohibited species and the Oregon Invasive Species Council maintains a list and photos of the 100 Least Wanted Invasive Species in the state. Both are great resources if you are looking for a list of species to be concerned about.