With the tremendous effort of more than a hundred volunteers, we succeeded in sampling over 1000 bigleaf maple trees scattered from the canyons of southern California to the fjords of British Columbia for our Timber Tracking project.

The season is all but closed with a total of 972 leaf samples and 86 sets of wood samples. We couldn't be more proud of this landmark data collection effort, and we're grateful for each and every one of our volunteers.

The samples the team collected will be used to build a genetic database of the species, which will give authorities a powerful new tool to identify the origin of suspicious timber, and bring an end to the activities of illegal loggers.

In the animation below, watch the samples fill the map of bigleaf maple's range as the dates of the season run by at the bottom.

With all the samples collected, the team is now focused on wrapping up and celebrating. Sampling gear needs to be returned, we hosted a virtual happy hour webinar, and there's the end-of-the-season survey for volunteers to fill out. The feedback from surveys like this help us constantly learn from our volunteers and shape each field season for each project to be a success.

Although we're sad to say goodbye to the leafy season, we are excited to keep working with each of our volunteers over the fall and winter months. And further down the line we'll share our comprehensive 2018 field season summary and reports on our partners' preliminary scientific findings. 

Thanks everyone who participated directly in the project, as well as everyone who supported it through your broader support of Adventure Scientists!

​It's been another incredible year of collecting data, empowering scientists, inspiring adventurers, and getting key decision makers in government, business, and medicine the hard facts from remote areas that they need.

To thank you for all your support throughout the year we're pleased once again to to offer up great gifts of end-of-the-year gear from our partners!

​Whether it's a collection of reusable water bottles and tumblers from Klean Kanteen, spacious and stylish messenger bags from Peak Design, sleek sunglasses from Sunski, Croakies to help keep said sunglasses from plunging to the depths on your next adventure, or a GoPro camera to capture it all, these tokens of our appreciation will help you make Adventure Scientists part of your experiences every day.

To enter for your chance to bring home some of this haul of gear, simply make a donation below, or send an email to media@adventurescientists.org.