Volunteer & Student Partnerships
Help Us Track Carnivore Activity Across Our Region
Carnivore Project is a community-driven nonprofit working to better understand how mountain lions, black bears, and wolves use residential spaces, ranchlands, and working landscapes. Our work depends on local knowledge, public sightings, resident interviews, and community relationships.
Carnivore Project is made up of regional, local people — not outsiders coming into communities we do not understand — and that is what makes our work different and stronger as a grassroots organization. We depend on volunteers to help collect sightings, support public reporting, contribute to our public maps, and form trusted connections with residents, ranchers, and livestock owners. Those relationships help us understand each area’s specific needs when it comes to carnivores, conflict, and coexistence.
Whether you live in the Sierra Nevada Foothills, Northern California wolf country, ranching communities, or another area where Carnivore Project is actively tracking carnivore activity, there is a way to help.
Volunteer From Anywhere
Our volunteer program is designed to be flexible and largely remote. Volunteers can help from home by monitoring public sightings, organizing reports, assisting with map updates, helping contact residents, or supporting outreach in their own communities.
Because carnivore conflict looks different in every region, we rely on people who know their local area. A volunteer in one county may help us understand livestock depredation concerns, while another may help track neighborhood sightings, public safety concerns, agency responses, or community questions.
Every report helps us better understand where carnivores are being seen, where conflicts are occurring, and what kinds of support residents and livestock owners need.
Ways Volunteers Can Help
Volunteers may assist with:
- Collecting public sightings of mountain lions, black bears, and wolves
- Helping organize reports for our public sightings maps
- Monitoring local social media groups, community pages, and public posts
- Following up on sightings or conflict reports when appropriate
- Building relationships with residents, ranchers, livestock owners, and local community members
- Helping identify area-specific needs related to carnivore conflict and coexistence
- Supporting public outreach and communication
- Assisting with data entry, mapping, research organization, and report writing
No formal wildlife background is required for every volunteer role. What matters most is reliability, attention to detail, respect for local communities, and a commitment to supporting both people and wildlife.
Student Projects & Research Partnerships
Carnivore Project also partners with students who are interested in wildlife, conservation biology, GIS, public outreach, social science, human-wildlife conflict, livestock protection, and coexistence work.
Student projects may involve mapping, literature review, public sightings analysis, outreach materials, data organization, GIS projects, report writing, or area-specific research questions related to carnivore activity and conflict mitigation.
We welcome students who want to gain experience working with real-world, community-based wildlife data. Projects can often be shaped around course requirements, internships, independent study, senior projects, or volunteer research experience.
Students interested in partnering with Carnivore Project should be prepared to work carefully, communicate clearly, and understand that our data represents real residents, real livestock owners, and real communities living alongside carnivores.
Why This Work Matters
Carnivore conflict and coexistence are not the same everywhere. A mountain lion sighting in a rural subdivision, a bear entering residential areas, or a wolf depredation on a working ranch each represents a different set of concerns, needs, and possible solutions.
By collecting community-based sightings and conflict reports, Carnivore Project works to create a more complete picture of carnivore activity on private lands, ranchlands, and residential edges. This information helps us advocate for more accurate, localized, and practical conflict-mitigation strategies.
Our goal is to support long-term carnivore conservation while also supporting the residents, ranchers, and communities who live alongside them.
Join Us
Carnivore Project is built by local people, community volunteers, students, residents, ranchers, and wildlife advocates who believe that better information leads to better coexistence.
If you care about carnivores, conflict mitigation, working lands, rural communities, or community-based conservation, we would love to hear from you.