Bass and salmon: who’s for dinner?

I went to an interesting lecture this week at the University of Washington Fisheries department on the potential effects of climate change on the interactions between Chinook salmon and smallmouth bass. 

Smallmouth bass

Juvenile Chinook salmon

Smallmouth bass are native to the Northeast and upper Midwest, but like many other fish species, they were spread across the United States by avid fishermen during the 20^th century. One method of spreading bass was to put them in large milk containers on trans-continental trains, and then stop and dump fish in every body of water they passed along the way. By the second half of the 20^th century, stocking fish became even easier, with the invention of planes.

Fish being released from a plane to stock a lake for fishing

As with many of the things we did to nature in the 1900s, we are now beginning to understand the consequences of planting bass. In western rivers, one major impact of non-native bass on Pacific salmon is predation. Bass eat juvenile salmon, and in rivers where they co-occur, they form a predatory gauntlet for the juvenile salmon migrating out to the ocean each year. As one fishing website declares, “smallmouth bass are aggressive freshwater fish that will readily engulf nearly anything that they can fit in their mouths.” And juvenile Chinook certainly fit that description.

The fact that Pacific salmon populations have crashed over the past half century as a result of climate change (hotter river temperatures), freshwater habitat loss (dams etc.), and overfishing, is well-known. There are lots of studies showing that rising river temperatures negatively affect salmon, but what I found really interesting about this lecture was the discussion of how climate change (in the form of hotter rivers) could affect the interaction between bass and juvenile Chinook salmon. Salmon are cold-water fish and can only tolerate water up to about 75F, so as rivers warm, juvenile salmon are forced higher up into watersheds to find suitably cold water to rear in. At the same time, small-mouth bass are limited in the opposite direction – if the water is too cold, they can’t spawn. So as rivers warm, they are able to move further and further up watersheds. In the John Day River in Oregon, smallmouth bass and juvenile Chinook rearing habitat now overlap. This range shift and overlapping habitat lead to new questions: will bass presence negatively affect juvenile salmon in other ways than direct predation? It’s no longer just a predatory gauntlet, a one-time-only deal that the juvenile Chinook have to face as they out-migrate. Now their daily interactions and behavior, and possibly their growth potential, could change as a result of the encroaching bass. On a much larger scale, it is these kind of unforeseen effects of climate change that make it so hard to predict.

On birds and science communication

Wild Geese

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting --
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

~ Mary Oliver ~

I heard Mary Oliver on NPR today, and was reminded of how much inspiration I find in her poetry. I have loved her poem Wild Geese ever since reading it on the wall of our English classroom my first year out of college, teaching in North Carolina. From childhood, I was captivated by the flocks of migrating Canada geese that flew over our Massachusetts home every fall and spring, stopped dead in my tracks to crane my neck and listen to their disorganized honking. I had a similar experience when first reading this poem, stopped in my tracks in the classroom, drinking in the words and images, so vivid I could once again hear the honking of the migrating birds.

Mary Oliver is a poet and naturalist, or perhaps a naturalist and poet. It’s hard to tell which comes first, she blends ideas about nature so seamlessly into her writing. Darting foxes and inquisitive weasels wend their way through her poems, and she brings the natural world into sharp and beautiful focus, so that I feel as though I can almost smell the morning dew better than if I were out on a hike myself. There is a genius to the way in which she uses so few words to inspire new thoughts and feelings about nature. And this is the power of art.

We need to find a way to harness the power of words and art better when we communicate our scientific research to the public. There is a place for peer-reviewed journal articles, but there also needs to be a bridge to bring that information to the public, one that is as evocative as this poem, that can play to people’s emotions as well as their intellect. A step between the scientific journal and the boiled down New York Times Article. And one that can lend all animals and plants the charisma of baby polar bears.

As Oliver says, a poem should have birds in it. Our science communication could use some birds as well.  

Dune restoration: changing the world plant by plant

I had the opportunity to work on a dune restoration project on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington last week. We were working out of Sequim (pronounced ‘Squim’), which is known affectionately as “the blue hole,” because it gets only about half the rainfall of other towns on the peninsula (and approximately the same as L.A., for any Angelenos looking to relocate northwards). The goal of the project was to build/restore a natural bluff along a beach where houses had suffered considerable storm damage in 2006. The houses are built between a long beach and a large wetland, and are thus a classic case of buildings that are not “supposed” to be there. However, given that they are, we were working on helping implement the best option for mitigating winter storms that are continually eroding the beach and causing flooding up over the houses’ decks.

Initially, when the landowners approached Dave (of Shreffler Environmental, the company working on the project), they proposed building a large rock seawall to fend off storms. This is an interesting, and common, case of misguided decision-making in the continual battle between coastal houses and the ever-present, ever-hungry ocean. Namely, the feeling that big (non-porous) walls will protect us better than what nature had there in the first place (i.e. a bluff or wetland). Luckily, the landowners were both amenable to hearing alternatives to the seawall, and also clearly possessed impressive collaborative skills – it’s not often you get 13 landowners to all agree on a land-use plan, and then cooperatively implement it! The idea behind the bluff restoration is that by providing a natural vegetative barrier, the plants will absorb a lot of the water. Imagine a hillside of grass versus a hillside of pavement –water will run off a non-porous surface like pavement much more quickly. The difference is similar with the bluff of dune grass versus a seawall; incidentally, this is one of the many reasons that channelizing rivers is also undesirable (i.e. increased flash flooding potential).

The bluff had already been engineered and built back in 2006, by carting in large amounts of sand and gravel, and pouring it over a bunch of large logs and driftwood anchored together with chain to form a solid base. This formed an ~8ft bluff, on which they planted dune grass. Our goal was to replant dune grass where there was localized erosion. Overall, the dune has held up remarkably well since 2006, with only minor erosion, and no breaches or flooding of the houses.

Canada hiding behind the clouds

Bluff on left, stretching down the beach

The beach we worked on was out on a beautiful spit of land, with views of the Olympic mountains behind us, and the Canadian mountains (and snow-capped Mount Baker) across the bay. We spent three peaceful days on our hands and knees, scooping up sand and plopping the small plants into the holes, stopping occasionally to watch a heron, bald eagle, Northern Harrier, flock of migrating Canada geese, or lone fisherman towing a gill net. We had hopes of talking one of them out of a Coho, but unfortunately they always drifted by before they had caught any. As Dave said, “it’s hard to talk a guy out of a fish when he doesn’t have any.” The Coho are almost all hatchery spawned, from the nearby Dungeness river. And I can confirm that they are indeed delicious.

In the end, we planted around 1000 plants. It was inspiring to participate in a hands-on project with such direct restoration application. Since I’ve recently spent most days staring at fish data on my computer, with the goal of contributing to river restoration practice through more indirect routes, it was nice to actually get out there and dig in the dirt, restoring the beach plant by plant.  

Freshly planted dune grass!

American Gothic (nouveau version)

Four weddings and a conference (aka life as a grad student)

First of all, I have to credit my husband, Pete, with the initial inspiration for this title. He has long remarked that he would like to write a satire on grad school life with the above title (likely an intertwining of rom-com and dark satire). However, that being said, this title has been a very apt description of my life over the past few summers. We just attended two beautiful weddings over the past two weekends, in one of which Pete acted as officiant and married the couple. (Back-up grad school plans now updated to Pete (officiant) and me (baker)?) Luckily, academic conferences offer almost as much interest and entertainment—if not joy— as weddings. They are an odd, intense microcosm of academic life, acting as a social outlet, a wonderful venue for building connections in your field, and an intense overload of scientific stimulation and information, which can be both exciting and overwhelming as you dash from room to room across the conference center. Trying to negotiate the many concurrent sessions can feel a little like a feeding frenzy—you dart in and out, trying to snatch up the most valuable pieces of information, always keeping half an eye out for what other morsels might be available.

One of my favorite conferences thus far in my academic career was the AFS (American Fisheries Society) conference that I attended in Seattle last summer (2011). It comes to mind now primarily because Pete and I just moved to Seattle for the fall for his last field season, and in a weird twist of fate, our daily ride to the University of Washington campus takes us along a beautiful bike path by the lake, and also happens to pass right by the car impoundment lot where I got my government truck impounded during AFS. An ironic reminder of a wonderful conference. Our move up to Seattle warrants a brief aside, since our powers of creativity and problem-solving were called upon during the drive. The situation: a heat wave in California with temperatures reaching 100F, broken AC in our car, and two panting cats. The solution? Drive the longer (but much more scenic) route up the coast… and ice the cats.

Cheesie being iced

The Humboldt coast

In any event, the AFS conference was the first large scientific conference I had ever attended, and I was not sure what to expect. It was a somewhat similar moment to the first time I went to Vegas, which was on our way back from a hiking/birding trip in Guadalupe National Park. Since my only knowledge of Vegas was based on movies such as Ocean’s 11 and the gambling drama 21, I worried that I was not dressed nicely enough in my t-shirt and jeans. Pete just laughed at me. However, in the case of an academic conference, my preconceptions of what it would be like were much more accurate. Dress code was what you might expect from a group of outdoorsy people hitting the city—fleece was prevalent, and the male uniform seemed to be a plaid short-sleeve dress shirt and khakis/jeans. What I love most about academic conferences is the buzz of excitement that pervades the air, which comes from, I think, the exchange of interesting ideas and the fun of gathering with so many like-minded people.

Given the large number of engaged friends we currently have, I expect the summer trend to continue. I’m not sure yet which conference I’ll attend next summer, but I am sure (and am daily reminded) that I will look carefully for any faded red paint on the curbsides of the city. Suffice it to say, it’s embarrassing to get a government truck towed. New proverb: red paint at night, not a conference-goers delight. 

Summer Project: Baking up a storm

It’s been a whirlwind trip back to Santa Cruz, and we only have two weeks here before we head up to Seattle for the fall for my husband’s research on dam removal. It’s amazing how immediate the present is—Ashland and those sunny days on the Klamath River seem miles and months away now. I can’t say I’m sorry to be back in the cool, breezy, always-perfect weather of Santa Cruz, but I do already have moments where I miss the summer heat, especially when it was infused with the smell of hot fresh bread.

My summer project, aside from fieldwork, was to bake as many types of bread as I could, both to feed the guys (my field assistants and husband), and to work on my bread baking repertoire. I grew up in a home where home-made bread was the only thing around. I am amazed to think back on my child’s desire for pb&j on Wonder Bread, when we had a constant supply of fresh bread. But such are the whims of children. My parents delighted in making things from scratch—we went through a butter-making phase where we siphoned our whole milk and shook the cream by hand. And there was a period of time when we ground our own wheat for bread—it was very loud. While these were passing phases, fresh bread was a constant, and I appreciate that it’s given me a determination to always bake my own bread, no matter how busy. When I’m burnt out on data analysis, or exhausted from fieldwork, bread baking is a kind of meditation.

I baked a total of nine kinds of bread this summer; the potato-rosemary bread was the winner. 

Anadama bread

Whole-wheat bread with roasted garlic

Cornbread

Multi-grain bread

Coconut-banana bread

Beer bread!

Potato-rosemary bread

Rye bread 

Challah

A Song of Water and Fire: Our last week of fieldwork in northern California

We just finished up our last week of fieldwork on the Klamath River for the summer under billowing smoke clouds and circling helicopters. We were down at Grider Creek, one of my thermal refugia sites along the Klamath, fishing for juvenile steelhead, and also taking in our front-row view of the fire across the river. The “Goff Fire,” as it’s been named, is one of many dotting northern California this summer, and has been burning for a several weeks now. It was quite a scene—huge piles of orange smoke and the occasional flaming tree, helicopters zipping back and forth above us carrying big buckets of water on long lines, and the air tasting like a campfire. It brought back memories of being evacuated from our house in Yosemite a few years ago, the clouds yellow and ash falling from the sky as an uncontained fire moved imperturbably closer. I was out preparing to lead a backcountry trip at the time, and had the unique experience of getting a call from Pete, my husband, asking “I’m packing—what do you want me to save?” I couldn’t think of anything, besides my computer. I’m not sure I want to over-analyze that.

Smoke from the Goff Fire.

Luckily for us now, the river was separating us from the fire, and simply added to the drama of fieldwork. We wrapped bandannas around our noses and gamely embarked on our fieldwork, constantly expecting the helicopters overhead to pull out a loudspeaker and order us to flee. I felt a little jealous of the fish—or perhaps just more able to empathize with their experience of algae-filled, oxygen-depleted water. We were down at Grider Creek to catch juvenile steelhead and Chinook for DNA samples—I’ll run some stable isotope analyses on these samples later to find out if the fish are relying on the river or the tributary as their primary food source. My two summer field assistants—Jordan and Kyle—were there, along with Jeremy, my fly-fishing guru, up from the Santa Cruz NMFS lab to help me catch my fish. Leaving Jeremy and Jordan to their fly-fishing “work” on the river, Kyle and I e-fished the creek. Electro-fishing is used in fisheries work a lot—you wear a battery backpack with a long metal pole attached that puts a small current through the water, momentarily stunning the fish so you can scoop them up with a net. For me, it always elicits mild feelings of guilt, as if I’m secretly cheating at something… but that is quickly outweighed by 1) the joy of getting enough fish for samples, and 2) how ridiculously fun it is to scoop up lots of fish. Kyle soon proved himself an expert netter—or “Ninja-netter,” as we dubbed him—even diving headlong across the stream in pursuit of an already awake and fleeing fish, and managing to net it. Jeremy and Jordan managed to catch enough fish in the river—even landing a half-pounder each!—so that we were able to head upriver, away from the fire, to my other site at Beaver Creek.

Jeremy with a steelhead from Grider Creek area.

We’ve spent most of the summer at Beaver Creek, my main refugia site. It’s a beautiful spot, teeming with fish, kingfishers and mergansers, flocks of darting swallows in the evening, and the occasional posse of river otters. It’s supposedly still one of the prime steelhead fishing locations in the world. We camped nearby the creek, and woke early for a full day of fieldwork, fueling ourselves with the habitual bacon, and deep-fried eggs (Kyle’s specialty). On the agenda: fishing/seining for steelhead and Chinook, dismantling and packing up all our radio-telemetry gear, and retrieving the 50 or so water temperature loggers we’d put out at the beginning of the summer. These loggers have been the bane of my summers since first starting fieldwork in 2009, and I’ve tried everything from Olympic weights and huge amounts of orange flagging to long lengths of chain and rebar stakes as a means of deploying them so that they don’t wash downriver, and so that I can find them again 2 months later. You’d think it wouldn’t be that hard. But you’d be wrong. The sediment moves and often buries the loggers, the orange flagging gets covered with a brown-green algae scum, and by August the water visibility is at about 2 feet because of the blue-green algae blooms from the reservoir. The method for retrieving the temperature loggers, therefore, is to snorkel round the site, at first following the directions on our map that seemed so well drawn and clear at the start of the summer, and eventually just swimming round and round in circles, searching semi-blindly for the missing loggers. The search this year was complicated slightly by the rotting beaver we knew was floating somewhere down in the refugia pool—we’d found it dead on the bank earlier in the summer, and tried to push it downriver to get rid of the stench. The river current wouldn’t let us get rid of the creek’s namesake that easily though, and sent it right back into the eddy that forms the refugia pool, where we knew it had been lurking for the past month. The feeling of swimming blindly through murky water, diving down to the bottom to search for loggers, and wondering if at any moment you might bump nose-first into a bloated decomposing beaver, was surprisingly creepy. Luckily, Jordan was brave enough to take on that area of the pool. Thank you, field assistants.

Eggs frying in about 2 inches of bacon grease. Ah, the smell of summer.

We finished up by evening—a long final day in the field, and a great way to end four wonderful summers spent on the Klamath. It’s been quite a journey, one that I’m sure I’ll reflect on more in future posts. But it seemed somehow fitting that my last week of fieldwork should bring together some of the key elements that shape our western landscape—fire and water. And now, armed with mountains of data, I can begin the next step of deciphering this story, this story of fish and heated rivers in a changing landscape. Or, if you are a George R. R. Martin fan, this Song of Water and Fire.

Our Hot and Dirty Rivers

Salmon. That single word evokes strong images and feelings in so many of us. Indeed, it was the single most memorable word from Obama’s 2011State of the Union address. Depending on your perspective, salmon can be your livelihood, a necessary thread for the health of the ecosystem, a vital part of your cultural heritage… or of course, purely delicious. And despite, or perhaps because of, their importance, their populations are at a fraction of what they were half a century ago. Many factors are contributing to their decline, including impacts from dams, habitat loss, reduced flows due to irrigation, toxic algal blooms, disease, and fishing pressures.

So what can we do to restore our salmon populations? Because salmon have a life cycle that spans both rivers and ocean, the answer is not simple. Salmon are anadromous, meaning that juvenile salmon spend as much as 1-3 years in rivers before heading to the ocean, making the health of our rivers extremely important for their survival. Water temperatures are rising in many rivers along the west coast, and since salmon are a coldwater species and ectotherms (their body temperature changes to match their environment), these elevated temperatures are extremely stressful for them. Imagine a 110°F day without air-conditioning… then imagine that your body temperature rose to match the outdoor temperature. We might be moving to a different part of the country pretty quickly if we were ectotherms. Hot water temperatures, along with bad water quality, are just some of the hurdles that young salmon face on their journey to the ocean.

I study juvenile steelhead on the Klamath River in northern California. I am interested in how habitat constraints (temperature, food) affect steelhead behavior, growth and survival. On summer mornings, the Klamath River actually steams; the water can reach 80°F, and feels like a lot like bathwater. The hot river temperatures cause juvenile steelhead to move into coolwater refugia created by incoming creeks. They pack into these areas—there can be up to 400 fish in one small pool—raising questions about how much refugia area is necessary for them to survive the summer months. I study the dynamics of these refugia, and do radio tagging studies to determine how food availability and water temperature are affecting their behavior.