Pathways Perspective

Kyle Beard is presently a Pathways Intern with the Columbia River Fisheries Program Office.  

Well I’m now past the fall midterm point at Washington State University-Vancouver, and everything is going great. It has been a lot of work doing both school and interning (days just don’t seem long enough), but it is all working together nicely and really complementing one another. There seems to be a lot of crossover learning and I couldn’t think of a better way to learn about conservation biology than this.

In each of my classes I have been able to relate something to my work here at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Columbia River Fisheries Program Office, and vice versa. In my Environmental Science course we have been utilizing the creek and ponds on campus to study water quality for things such as dissolved oxygen content, pH, and temperature. We have taken soil samples to look at composition, pollution, and runoff of nitrogen and phosphorus. And we have studied marine fisheries and how they are affected by illegal fishing, derelict fishing gear, and a warming acidic ocean. All of these of course relate to salmon habitat and it’s great to see how it all connects with what I am doing here at the Service.

In my Chemistry and English courses there isn’t such a direct relationship but there is still some crossover. With Chemistry we are of course in a lab running experiments and learning proper lab techniques which makes my time in the lab here at work more comfortable. In my Technical Writing English course we have been pouring over documents to understand the reader/writer connection and how to write to a specific audience. I, of course, took the office’s Marking pamphlet from work to use for my first project.

Things have been really busy here at the office too considering its fall and adult salmon are returning. This means that much of the Marking and Tagging crew has been out of the office spending all their time at hatcheries either spawning adult fish or marking juveniles. With the fish being spawned, there is always a certain number that need to be sampled to determine run age composition. In addition, the ones with CWT’s need to be sent back to the lab to have coded wire tags extracted and read. This has been where I have spent the majority of my time.

The freezers have been completely full of salmon snouts and when it seems like I’m making headway, crew members return from the hatcheries with more. I guess with the great returns this year I can expect to be in there a while longer.

The only frustration I have had managing my school schedule with work is that I hardly ever have the time needed to go out on the full-day work trips to hatcheries. My classes are dispersed in such a way that my longest time available to work is a five-hour shift, which with the commute time makes it unrealistic to get out in the field. I have already planned to fix this for next semester.

I have been able to make a couple of trips, though, and one of those was a real highlight of my time here at the Service so far. This was my visit to the Abernathy Fish Technology Center. It was a real treat to be shown all of the projects that go on there, and by “there” I mean west of Longview (I’d never heard of it before either). This place has amazing capabilities and does extremely important work to aid in conserving salmon, steelhead, and other species.

For example, they have a genetics lab that processes samples to identify hatchery and wild fish and further the understanding of how they interact and use habitat. This is definitely a big topic and necessary for many reasons. Not only are they completing their own studies, they have a rapid response field kit that allows biologists in the field to collect a sample, ship it overnight to the lab, and obtain immediate results. This greatly improves the ability to make decisions and manage fish in real time.

There’s also a nutrition research laboratory onsite that tests the feed being given to hatchery fish. Since hatchery fish are raised on feed alone until they’re released, it is extremely important that they are getting all of the needed nutrients from the feed. They can also make small batches of experimental feed to see how it affects diet.

Another laboratory is set aside for testing fish health and physiology. From what I was told, it is like having a physical done at a doctor’s office. This helps to identify and document trends is fish health and behavior.

Overall, my experiences so far have been great. Everyone I have worked with at the Service has welcomed me and been willing to share their knowledge. I have never once felt like I was just some new guy or a burden on time.

I’m looking forward to 2015 with my new school schedule and being able to get out and experience some other things. It sounds like I will be helping out with some classroom activities in a program that works with 4th graders. This should be fun and I will be sure to write about it next time.

Pathways Perspective Chapter 1: Tag, You’re It

Kyle Beard is presently a Pathways Intern with the Columbia River Fisheries Program Office.  Throughout the year he hopes to share some of his experiences in this series of blogs.

It was almost a month ago when I first walked through the door at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Columbia River Fisheries Program Office in Vancouver, WA. Despite the short time, it’s already been quite a journey. My first day here was also my first official day as a student at Washington State University – Vancouver, and I was a little anxious to get it all started.

I am a Junior working towards a Bachelor’s of Science degree in Environmental Science. When I received the call in August 2014 that I had been chosen for the Pathways Intern position, I couldn’t have been more excited. My whole reason for going back to school is to eventually work for an organization like the Service, and here I am. Now it’s time to make the most of it and learn as much as I can in the hopes of finding a position I am truly passionate about. My original thoughts were that I want to work in law enforcement, and maybe that will remain the case, but now is my chance to see the science behind the conservation.

A little about my background: I grew up and went to school in the South Puget Sound region, including Eatonville, Roy, and Tacoma. I have a huge family scattered from Bellingham to Vancouver so I know Western Washington very well. I graduated high school early so I could join the Marine Corps and see the world, which I did, but after 4 years I was ready to come back home. I got straight to making money as a bartender in downtown Seattle, and for a number of years that was a blast, but I couldn’t see myself doing that forever. I finally made the decision to move to Vancouver, in with my grandmother, so I could focus on school and get a degree.

Much of my time so far has been spent with the Program Office’s marking and detection crew consisting of 7 Fish Biologists and 4 Biological Technicians. Now I knew that salmon are tagged but I had never thought much about the details of how or why. In just this first month I am beginning to see the big picture. The tags identify the fish by date and origin which is used when tracking fish and determining how many have returned to spawn.

Within the first few days I was able to go out to one of the Service’s marking trailers and watch the Coded Wire Tags being placed into juvenile fish (more on the tags later). The fish, not much bigger than my finger are corralled from one raceway, taken to the trailer to be tagged, and then sent down a tube into another raceway.

The trailer itself was fascinating to watch. Marking salmon and steelhead is a high-tech operation involving computers and automation.  There were six people each at their own station working nonstop to tag each and every fish. If they missed one, a magnetic tag reader in the out tube could tell and it was sent right back to be tagged correctly. I’m not sure how many fish were tagged that day but it was a lot. 

I have also worked in the Office’s lab to retrieve the tags from the snouts of the spawned adults. The snouts are half frozen and we have to cut into them to find the tags which seem no bigger than a sliver. We know it’s in there somewhere but finding it is the trick. The easiest way to do this I’ve learned is to first look in the “target area” towards the tip of the snout in the soft tissue cavity. If it’s not there we just have to narrow it down by cutting the snout in half and using the magnetic reader to see which half it is in. We toss out the half it is not and continue halving it till we find the tag.  

After removing the tags, we then place them under a microscope to read the code which tells us exactly when and where the fish was raised. It amazes me that something so small could actually have numbers inscribed on it.

Another thing I’ve done in the lab was look at fish scales under a microscope. I had no idea they could be read just like tree rings to determine the age. All of this data is compiled and entered into a large database that helps fisheries scientists tell a story about the fish that are returning.

In September, I also had the opportunity to witness the hatchery spawning operation up at Spring Creek National Fish Hatchery, boy is that wild. There were more than a dozen people, all with different and specialized jobs, processing the fish. Hatchery staff first ‘crowd’ the fish from outside raceways toward the spawning area, anesthetize them, then use a hydraulic elevator to bring the fish into the spawning building. Another employee runs the fish through a machine called a ‘pescalator,’ which helps identify which salmon might have a Coded Wire Tag or a Passive Integrated Transponder tag in them.  

Kyle helping at the bio-sampling station

 

At a separate station, employees or volunteers: they help too, remove between 3,000-5,000eggs from each female. Another person fertilizes the eggs with milt from the males. The eggs then get passed off to a station to be stirred and rest for a minute—this is when fertilization happens--before being whisked away to the incubation building. Meanwhile, the fish are passed to the biologists at the bio-sampling station where the snouts with tags are removed, a couple scales are removed, and the fish are measured for length.  There are even fish health experts at their own station collecting kidney and tissue samples to check for viruses and diseases.

All of these experiences have given me a better picture in my mind of the salmon life cycle for hatchery-raised fish--as well as the role the Service plays in helping manage Northwest salmon and steelhead populations. They take millions of eggs and raise them until the fish reach their natural migration age at which point they are tagged and released. The fish go live their fishy lives and then return to the exact place they were born. All of the data the Service collects is important to help track fish movement, migration, interaction with wild runs, and help set the numbers available for harvest. The entire operation is very impressive, and I am excited because I know this is just a starting point.

Letting the Rivers Teach: Of Memories and Science

 

 

By Paul Bakke, Geomorphologist, Washington Fish and Wildlife Office

 

All science begins with observation.  Although that statement may seem too obvious to mention, its truth becomes more difficult to hold when we are dealing with rivers, which can look so different from winter to summer, and which can seem to present the same features for years, only to change radically overnight.  After all, the rivers have been here much longer than each of us, so it becomes a challenge to recount their story accurately.  What we see today is merely a snapshot in time.  Change that occurs slowly tends to be imperceptible to us.  And from the long-term perspective, what we remember a river to be like over our short lifetime may not, in fact, be the normal or stable form.

The mark of a good scientist, like Luna Leopold, whom I introduced in a previous post (http://wordfromwild.blogspot.com/2013/08/letting-rivers-teach-leopold-revisited_12.html) is to be able to synthesize a great many observations into a coherent story relating what we see at one point in time, that is, the form of the river, with universal natural processes, which not only act upon this river, but on all rivers, throughout time.  To reiterate, the “form” of a river, that is, its shape, is like a snapshot.    Processes, such as erosion and deposition of sediment, are the forces that act to produce and change that form.   Processes, you will recall, are more like a video than a snapshot.  And to study these forces of change, we need to be patient, carefully documenting the way things change over rather long periods of time, and observing many different rivers to look for patterns. 

Seeking rivers that still had their natural processes of erosion and deposition mostly intact, Luna Leopold and other scientists made careful observations and measurements of channel form, and then put these observations together to create mathematical models like those in the graph, below, that allow us to predict the stable form of a river channel.  For example, in Western Washington, a river with a watershed area of 100 square miles would be expected, on average, to have a “bankfull” width of 93 feet and depth of 4.4 feet, for a water discharge of 2350 cubic feet per second.  “Bankfull” refers to the condition when the channel is full to the top of its bank and just ready to spill over onto its natural floodplain.  Because the floodplain is such a consistent feature of alluvial rivers, the bankfull channel dimensions work well (at least, much of the time) as an index to compare one river with another, and to judge whether a river is in a stable condition or not.

Figure 1.   Average bankfull channel dimensions for Pacific maritime mountain streams, showing observed relationship between drainage area and cross sectional area, average depth, and average width.  Data from Castro and Jackson, 2003.

In natural settings, the channel slope, curvature, width, depth and sizes of rocks making up the streambed adjust together into a configuration that allows an approximate balance between erosion and deposition.  When such a balance exists, the river can persist in roughly the same shape or form for long periods of time.  The channel is stable.  Note that “stable” does not mean “static.” Streambanks will erode, but that erosion will be approximately balanced by sediment deposition.  So “stable” means that the shape, in terms of average width, depth, slope and curvature, persists over time, even though the river may relocate its channel as it continually transports and rearranges the sediment that comprises its banks and bed.  If the form of the river is changed, this balance will be upset. 

The position of “bankfull” can serve as a clue for identifying imbalance.  Excessive erosion causes the streambed to drop in elevation, making it impossible for the moderate floods to reach the floodplain.  In other words, the “top of the streambank” no longer functions to disperse floodwaters and reduce erosive forces.  Alternatively, excessive deposition reduces the capacity of the channel to contain its flow, causing the channel to widen by eroding its banks.  The river no longer is bounded by the “top of bank,” and will flow across the floodplain more often, eroding new channels and depositing sediment in new places.  In both of these examples, the “bankful” channel dimensions have been disrupted.  And there are other ways of disrupting the form of a river, such by dredging it for depth or for gravel mining, or by artificially straightening or confining  it, as in the photo below.

Figure 2.  Walla Walla River near Milton Freewater, Oregon, during the winter of 1964-1965.  The flooding river burst through its dikes, re-creating the meandering pattern similar to the stable form which had existed prior to modification by humans.

Why do we care about this?  A river in balance is self-sustaining, meaning its form and thus its habitat features will remain consistent over time.  A river locked into a form that doesn’t allow a balance of processes will always be at risk of breaking out of its confines, of tearing itself apart.  This instability puts habitat and infrastructure and investment in restoration at risk. 

A river that was modified years ago may fool us into thinking that it is stable.  But the processes of erosion and deposition are relentless.  Eventually, something breaks.  When this happens, it starts the slow process of change back to a form that balances the processes of erosion and deposition.   That form, ultimately, may be quite different from what we remember.   Meanwhile, we have a choice.  Do we let nature take its course, allowing the river time and elbow room to regain a stable form?  Do we put it back into its former modified state, knowing full well that we will be doing that again and again? Or do we intervene by constructing a stable form, speeding up the recovery and giving the river some room for future adjustments?

Scientists have the difficult task of figuring out what the consequences of these choices will be.  For this, it is essential that they collect measurements on rivers that still have their processes intact.  These rivers can serve as models for a resilient, self-sustaining channel form.     A resilient form is capable of surviving disturbances, such as large floods, with few long-term effects.  Recovery tends to be more rapid, and in the direction of known, stable channel forms.  More about what those forms are in a future blog entry!

 

 





Pacific Lamprey Geocaching Adventure

Geocaching enthusiasts and friends of Pacific Lamprey, please join us in a new adventure. Travel bugs have been launched in the Pacific Northwest in four different locations. One lamprey travel bug is hiding in a geocache somewhere along the mouth of the Columbia River at a historic site in Washington. Another is hiding somewhere in a culturally-significant and historical site on Yakama Nation land in Toppenish. Two more are soon to be adventuring around the Portland area and Clearwater Basin in Idaho. (Check here for new information.) Please help them migrate. Don't forget to take your picture with the bug and log your entry into geocaching.com.

Pacific Lamprey Travel Bug

For more information:

Pacific Lamprey Geocaching Fact Sheet
Pacific Lamprey Geocaching Project News Release

Connecting Children with Nature

There’s no doubt that fishing and camping as a child had an influence in my career choice and implemented a lifelong conservation ethic in me.  In particular, my dad and my oldest sister’s-husband fished with me from a very young age and through my teenage years and family camping excursions occurred often.  Some of my best memories growing up are fishing trips with my Dad in western South Dakota. 

Now that I have a family, spending time outside, camping and especially fishing are activities we want our girls to experience while they’re growing up.  They’re at ages where their curiosity is sky-high and it’s just a matter of getting them out to experience nature and explore.

They both have been fishing before but this year we bought both of them fishing poles in the winter and told them they should get used to using them for the summer during our camping and fishing trips.  After the girls endured an excruciating 5-second introduction of casting by me, the poles were immediately snatched from my hand for their own attempts with a sponge fish or a bobber on the end of the line so nobody gets hurt.  Frustration ensued but after a short period of coaching and correction they both figured it out.  Periodically over the next few months, I would see one or both of the girls with their poles outside casting toward the tree in our front yard, or even the neighborhood kids having a turn at casting.  A few times we had to establish that casting was not something that needed to occur in the living room near breakable items but could happen in the driveway or yard anytime they wanted to practice. 

I was cleaning out our garage this spring and had our camping gear strewn about but was able to capture some of their spontaneity with the poles and excitement for our two big summer camping/fishing trips.  Notice the excellent technique!

 

Our first trip this summer fishing and camping was a big success!  First I should define success ….. getting the girls out in nature and getting a pole in their hands.  We didn’t catch fish on the trip but here’s some of what we did and talked about:

·        Will we eat what we catch?  This was discussed on the way to the lake with our poles and was a fairly in-depth and long discussion almost exclusively between the girls but they decided that they should if it was big and would not if it was a “kid” fish.  Our youngest had pointed out to me that in the movie Brave that Merida and her mom, Elinor, caught and ate fish together when Elinor was turned into a bear.  I said that our fishing would be similar but different.   

·        Salmon eggs vs. worms vs. lures.  What are lures and how do they look attactive to eat? Our oldest compared lures to earrings like Grandma wears but not the same thing.. a good observation, I thought.

·        Osprey  and what they are doing flying above the lake (we also saw them dive on fish and carry their meals back to eat).  Very exciting!  The girls deducted fish were present in the lake and the potential to catch something was palpable with the osprey successfully “fishing”.    

·        What are those things swimming by the shore? (Newts) Are those fish? (Amphibians) So they are frogs? (Similar). Why aren’t they fish? (scales vs. skin and terrestrial and/or aquatic lifestyle). Will we catch them?  (maybe).  We followed them along the shoreline watching them swim, pop their heads up and search for food.  What do they eat? (good question).  What’s that? (A crayfish)  Is it alive? (after a stick invesitgation by the girls it was determined dead).  Can we touch it? (Sure).  Are there more? (Likely).  Will we catch them? (Maybe).  I said bigger fish likely eat them in the lake which got our older daughter staring into the distance to paint that mental image, which appeared enthralling by her expression.

Anyway, a small snippet of our excursions and all told and we probably fished for a total of 3 hours over our entire camping trip before rainy weather, cold or wind played a role for deciding to move on.  Not as much time fishing as we had hoped but still a huge success and a lot of fun for them. 

 

 



If you’re thinking about how to get a kid out fishing or into nature this year there’s always opportunity to be had.  The Service has a great introductory website to just getting kids out in nature here.  Also coming up September 6^th from 8:00 am - 1:00 pm is Kid's Fishing Day at Carson NFH (information will be posted  here).  This event is great in that all the poles and gear are provided for the kids, Service staff will help them fish, they are nearly guaranteed to catch something in minutes, the catch is cleaned and bagged, and you might even get a momento like this.

 

The States of Washington and Oregon do a fantastic job organizing kids fishing events (Oregon and Washington) as well as outlining fishing tactics and locations (Washington and Oregon).   Some of the fishing events require kids to register so it’s best to try and plan a little bit ahead.  

We plan on meeting some of my family in Glacier National Park later this summer for a week of camping, hiking, fishing and just exploring nature.  I know the girls are going to have a great time and we can make some memories. 

 

Submitted by Rod Engle

 

 

 



Connecting Kids to Nature: Skyline Crest Youth Come to the Columbia River Fish Office

Sally Jewell, the Secretary of the Interior Department, announced a national initiative earlier this year to engage and inspire young people to connect to nature.  She confirmed her commitment to “welcome a new generation of young people into public land stewardship, into science”.

The Pacific Northwest Region of the Service provided a little funding in “mini-grants” to help deliver on this promise.  So, we partnered with Vancouver Housing Authority Community Family Resource Coordinator Sharon Linn and Skyline Crest Community Health and Wellness Advisor Sara Angelo to help connect underserved inner city kids to nature. 

Our “Take Time to Connect to Nature” project aims to add an innovative component to an inner city low income housing facility by providing hands-on and in the field nature experiences. Using a nearby neighborhood greenspace and field trips to other Pacific Northwest destinations, mentors and volunteers lead youth groups in activities such as a FWS hatchery visit and guided nature bike rides or hikes.  The project is a great collaboration – New Season’s grocery store even teamed up to help provide the kids with healthy, delicious lunches on some of the field trips!

In early July, 20 Skyline Crest youth from ages 7 to 15 came to a three-hour Nature Day at our Columbia River Fisheries Program Office.  Ten of our staff members led the kids through a variety of activities to give them hands-on experience with nature, native species, and scientific methods. 

We were impressed and inspired by how much fun the kids had learning about salmon, owls, and radio telemetry.  They showed so much natural curiosity and a love of science….they had a blast picking out rodent bones from barn owl pellets and dissecting big spring chinook salmon!

 

They grasped the salmon life cycle, from freshwater to ocean and back again, and made bracelets with various beads representing each life stage.  Creativity and artistic flourish were present as they made “gyotaku” Japanese-style fish art prints to take home.  

 

The day really underscored that every child is a naturalist…given the opportunity, time and access to the natural world they will apply curious and creative minds to interact with and explore nature.  Who knows what effect these early experiences might have or where they might lead a child to later in life …our job is to make the connection so they have the opportunity to forge their own path.

 Submitted by Amy Horstman and Donna Allard

Working with the City of Portland to Restore Urban Stream Habitat

The U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service is working with the City of Portland Bureau of Environmental Services to evaluate the success of aquatic habitat improvements in Tryon Creek.  In 2010, the City of Portland completed a 900-foot off-channel aquatic habitat enhancement along the Willamette River.  Habitat improvements included floodplain connectivity, removal of invasive species, and installation of root wads and boulders. 

In 2012, the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service began an intensive monitoring program to assess community, relative abundance, and temporal use by fish in the improved area.  Sampling occurred monthly throughout the year and weekly in the spring, sampling will continue in July 2014 at the same frequency.  Backpack electrofishing and seining is used to sample from the confluence to the Oregon State Highway 43 culvert.  All captured fish are identified, checked for external markings, measured, and tagged with a passive integrated transponder (PIT) tag.  Genetic samples collected from salmonids are transferred to the City of Portland.  To determine temporal fish use of the confluence habitat, two PIT tag antennas are installed at the mouth of Tryon Creek.  All PIT tagged fish moving over or through these antennas have the opportunity to be detected and identified before entering or exiting the Willamette River.

Sampling the mouth of Tryon Creek

 

Resident fish such as adult and juvenile cutthroat trout, rainbow trout, and hybrids of the two were identified in the confluence habitat along with outmigrating juvenile steelhead, Chinook, and coho salmon.  Native fish were more abundant than nonnative fish and coho juveniles were the most abundant species observed.  Coho and Chinook were detected emigrating after an average 37-44 days suggesting the habitat serves as a refuge for outmigrating juvenile salmon from elsewhere in the Willamette River basin.  PIT tagged Chinook and coho salmon (originating from upstream locations in the upper Willamette River basin and Eagle Creek) utilized the Tryon Creek confluence as part of their migration.

 

The Tryon Creek Confluence Habitat Enhancement Project improves aquatic habitat in the lower Willamette floodplain and provides refuge for native fish species.  Information collected from this assessment will aid the City of Portland in determining if the project is meeting its goals, gauging if the site is achieving desired function over time, and improving the design of future projects. 

This project is relatively small compared to the Willamette watershed overall, however, the combined efforts of habitat improvement and fish monitoring lead to a larger product.  This collaboration improves the design of future projects benefitting the entire Willamette River and supports the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s mission to work with others to conserve, protect and enhance fish, wildlife, and plants and their habitats for the continuing benefit of the American people. 

 For additional information, please see this factsheet from the City of Portland:

http://www.portlandoregon.gov/bes/article/494308

Submitted by Brook Silver