When Taystee Jefferson, makes a passing reference to “the
road less traveled,” in Orange Is the New Black, she receives a lecture from
fellow inmate, Piper Chapman. “You know,” Piper says, “that doesn’t mean what
everyone thinks it means…. Everyone
thinks the poem means to break away from the crowd and do your own thing, but
if you read it, (Robert) Frost is very clear that the two roads are exactly the
same. He just chooses one at random. And then it’s only later at a dinner party
when he’s talking about it that he tells everyone he chose the road less
traveled by, but he’s lying. So the point of the poem is that everyone wants to
look back and think that their choices matter. But in reality, it just happens
the way that it happens, and it doesn’t matter.”
Blogger’s note: Warm Springs National Fish Hatchery is located on the Warm Springs Indian Reservation. Established in 1966, it began operation in 1978 to stock Reservation waters with salmon and trout. The hatchery is on the Warm Springs River, a tributary of the Deschutes River, that flows into the Columbia. It is operated by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on lands leased from the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs. The Confederated Tribes have sole management responsibility for fishery resources on the Reservation. The hatchery is managed in cooperation with the Confederated Tribes. Here is the story of how the hatchery survived “snowmageddon 2017″ thanks to our Tribal partners. As told by hatchery manager, Mary Bayer.
Since December 19th, the Warm Springs National Fish Hatchery has been operating on one of two boilers due to limitations of our three-phase electrical system. On August 25th, the circa 1981 three phase line at the hatchery failed, causing damage to one of the two Service owned transformers. Wasco Public Utility Commission was immediately responsive, and temporarily repaired the line by 9:45 PM that night.
Throughout the winter storms, contractor parts deliveries are as much as two weeks behind so the next date available to attempt to start boiler #2 was December 30th. When we tried to bring boiler #2 online that day, we blew the Wasco transformers off the pole at the top of the hill. Once Wasco replaced these transformers, the next date for a boiler commissioning was set for January 10th; this turned out to be good timing as then the storm started but at least now we can defrost our intake continue to care for the fish.
Throughout the repeated storms, temperatures have gotten as low as -10F at the facility, and then, for the first time in weeks, we reached 30F the other day. Our next step was ponding some of the fish from brood year 2016. However, since these tiny fish had only one broiler to keep them warm (temperatures in the nursery averaged 34F), their growth was slowed and ponding was delayed. With help from our partners at the Warm Springs Tribe, we were able to get these fish transferred into ponds. Check out this video to see what this process looks like:
During the first snow event the first week of December, the Warm Springs National Fish Hatchery received about 14" of snow. The second snow event over new years weekend yielded an additional 21" of snow. The event of the past weekend, an additional 18" of snow, and currently (as of earlier this week) there is 2" more and still snowing.
The Service and many state agencies understand that raising live organisms is a huge responsibility. To that end, the hatchery has three dedicated on-station residents that have been manning the hatchery during emergencies: Joseph Badoni, nursery lead, member of the Navaho Tribe, resident for 15 years; Mary Bayer, project leader, resident since 2010; and Terrance Freije, assistant project leader since Oct 2, 2016. Through partnership and dedication we are caring for each other and future generations of wildlife. Happy “snowmageddon” everyone!
Wisdom sits on her nest after returning from foraging for food in the ocean. Photo credit:
Wieteke Holthuijzen/Friends of Midway Atoll
After a couple weeks of foraging in the open ocean, Wisdom
has returned to relieve her mate, Akeakamai, from nest duty. Both Akeakamai and
Wisdom will share the responsibility of incubating the egg, each taking turns going weeks without
food and water while the other one forages, to assure the success of their chick. Volunteers report the egg
looks healthy with no visible issues. If all goes well we should expect an
early February hatch date.
Wisdom sits on her nest after returning from foraging for food in the ocean. Photo credit: Wieteke Holthuijzen/Friends of Midway Atoll
The approximately 66 year old Laysan albatross was spotted on December 3
already incubating the newly laid egg. Eggs will generally take between 62 and 66
days to hatch and chicks will need care for an additional four months before
they are able to fledge. Laysan albatross will only lay one egg a year, almost
every year.
Wisdom, live! Video captured by: Charlie Pelizza/USFWS
Wisdom has been using the same nesting site on Midway Atoll
National Wildlife Refuge, within Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument
since at least 1956, when she was first banded. The landscape around her nest
may look different but in 61 years our famous bird is still sitting pretty.
Blogger’s note: Benjamin McLean is presently a student at Portland State University working with our regional office staff in Portland, Oregon. Our hardworking interns have some pretty cool experiences during their time with the Service are often inspired to write about them. Be sure to catch up on the rest of the series by reading the other Intern Adventures!
Interning for the U.S. Fish and
Wildlife Services has been full of new challenges and unique experiences. My
favorite example of this took place a few months back when Fish and Aquatic
Conservation Program biologist Sean Connolly and I fled our cubicles in the
Service’s Portland Regional Office to go fishing! That’s right, fishing. Not
your typical, “you grab a pole, I’ll grab a pole” kind of outing though. We had
been asked to help the Abernathy Fish Technology Center staff conduct a survey
of wild and hatchery steelhead populations using electrofishing!
If you are like me, you have a
few questions at this point: What is electrofishing? Does it hurt the fish?
Isn’t that cheating?
To give you an idea of what
electrofishing is, picture someone on the beach with a metal detector; now
imagine that person has four friends following him with shovels. Every time the
metal detector beeps, the friends rush in to dig up the buried treasure. Simply
replace the beach with a stream, take away the shovels and add nets, and
instead of lost rings and loose change you are after fish. That is electrofishing.
The user waves a handheld device through
the water to emit a low-level electrical charge that stuns the fish for a few
seconds, allowing those with nets to scoop the fish up and put them in holding
tanks to be studied by the field biologists and then released. So yes, it is
cheating of sorts. The fish do receive a small jolt, but it has been proven to
be a very efficient and non-invasive method for conducting thorough stream
surveys.
Newly-hatched Goshawk chicks identifiable by color, before seamless bands can be fitted. Photo credit: J. Bathke
In the wild Goshawks can be found in both deciduous and coniferous forests. The adults feed the babies until they are about 70 days old, while especially attached young stay up to a year around their parents. For the adorable little fluff balls in the picture above however, Jimmy Bathke is their guardian.
These are Goshawk babies that were produced in captivity. Bathke, a permitted raptor propagator in Washington, feeds these chicks by hand and will raise them for abatement falconry when they mature. The colors marked on their heads are so Bathke can tell them apart until he bands them with a seamless metal band. He will band them within 10 days of hatching while the band can still slip over their feet.
Leavenworth,
Wash.—Entiat
National Fish Hatchery fought to keep fish alive Sunday December 18 when ice
flowing down Entiat River jammed the intake and pipes. The crew spent a
grueling 5 ½ hours fighting the flow and saving the 460,000 fish in the
raceways, which were without flow for quite some time.
Hatchery Manager Craig Chisam described the
emergency: “Our intake rack, vault, and 1,000 foot delivery line, along with
the 800 foot by-pass line (where the ice has to go), were completely clogged
with ice. After a couple hours, we
restored enough flow to the raceways to allow us to reconfigure to a re-use
scenario and keep fish alive. As we
continued to fight the remaining ice clogs in our lines, the 36-inch main intake
line suddenly freed up, sending massive amounts of ice and water to the screen
chamber and instantly filling the building with ice with about a foot of water
pouring out of the building and down our roads.
“At the same time, the massive amount of water that came with the ice overflowed our sand-settling basin and sent its water down our roads as well. As a result, the 800-foot bypass line became clogged with ice again. We were forced to turn off our surface water delivery line, which left the raceways with no flow as we dealt with the problem. Much time was spent melting the ice with warm groundwater and freeing up the clogged line in order to restore adequate flow to the raceways.”
Craig describes his crew as “sore, beaten, and battered but thankfully safe in the end.” The problem may have started with an ice dam in Entiat River collapsing, sending massive amounts of ice and debris downstream. Entiat resident John Craven, whose home is close to the hatchery, captured footage of an ice flood on Friday December 16.
Matt Webster is an AmeriCorps member serving with the
Washington Service Corps in Issaquah, Washington, with members of the Lake
Sammamish Urban Wildlife Refuge Partnership.
On
a warm Alabama night, we waded carefully into the tepid Gulf, seines in hand.
We set up our nets, swaying with the gentle ebb and flow, and quickly got to
work. As we ended the pass, we lifted our haul to survey the bounties of the
intertidal world at our feet. Wondrous incredulity swept over our fifth-grade
faces, as we lifted our nets to find a galaxy of life illuminating the
interwoven line of our seines. Bioluminescent dinoflagellates, and comb jellyfish
were intermingled throughout an aquatic menagerie, and for those brief moments
of exposure, reflected in our nets the beauties of the greater body of
existence.
Matt’s service is focused on conservation and stewardship education and
outreach, fisheries research, and habitat restoration.
Fast
forward thirteen years, and you’ll find me nowhere near the Alabama Gulf Coast,
and yet no less excited by the incredible grandeur hidden in the diverse
complexities of our natural world.
My
name is Matt Webster, and I am an AmeriCorps member serving with the Washington
Service Corps, and the United States Fish and Wildlife Service. My position is based
out of Issaquah, Washington, with members of the Lake Sammamish Urban Wildlife
Refuge Partnership (a
collaborative group of partners working to connect people in urban places with
nature). My service is focused on conservation and
stewardship education and outreach, fisheries research, and habitat
restoration.
As
indicated above, I hail from Alabama. I grew up chasing lightning bugs through
resilient pine woods, and probing the vastness of macroinvertebrate form, in
the teaming creeks that cut deep the foundation of land at the cusp of
Appalachia. It was in these early transformative experiences that the seeds of
curiosity were sewn, and a deep love for our natural world took root. I
eventually attended Birmingham-Southern College (BSC), and earned a Bachelor’s
degree in Biology, with an academic distinction in Leadership Studies. My time
at BSC nurtured and cultivated these curious seedlings into the framework for a
veritable forest of inquiry and understanding. While at BSC, I conducted field
research on topics ranging from the effects of fire suppression on montane
Longleaf pine ecosystems, to the effects of chemical supplements on root growth
in legumes. My capstone research experience focused on aquatic invertebrates
and water quality monitoring of freshwater ecosystems. My experiences at BSC
not only transformed my love for, and fascination with, nature but also sparked
in me a passion for knowledge-sharing, through outdoor environmental education.
In January of 2015, my passion for outdoor and environmental education was more
fully realized, as I completed the Southwest Outdoor Educator course with the
National Outdoor Leadership School. Since then, I have been excited to lead
with several environmental centers and outdoor leadership programs in Alabama,
New York, and Wyoming.
As a student of Leadership Studies,
I often grapple with the question of how to define leadership. I think one of
the most impactful lessons that I’ve learned, is that leadership can occur
profoundly from a position of service. It is this concept of leadership through
service that has brought me to Washington. I traveled over 2500 miles to engage
in this community-level servant leadership by educating area residents, and
providing them with opportunities to invest in the rehabilitation of, and care
for their natural environment. Through stewardship-focused educational
programming, my AmeriCorps service connects school children with processes and
functions of their natural environment, and challenges their understanding of
how we fit in to a larger ecological scheme. Through fisheries-based ecological
research with the USFWS, my AmeriCorps service helps grow the collective body
of human knowledge, and empower action through understanding. Through ongoing
habitat restoration projects, my AmeriCorps service empowers community members
to act, by providing opportunities for them to lead in their community, and
improve their natural environment. Though I have only been in Washington for a
few months, I have already begun to see the effects of my service taking shape
in profound ways.
I am excited to be a part of this
AmeriCorps family of service, and can’t wait to see what the next 8.5 months of
service has in store.
Rachel is an
Americorps student serving with the Washington Conservation Corps at the U.S.
Fish and Wildlife Service’s Western Washington Fish and Wildlife Conservation Office
in Lacey, WA.
One day I
might be bushwhacking through the forest and wading through swift creeks in
Mount Rainier National Park in search of bull trout. The next I could be seine-netting for fish in the Elwha River estuary. Or, I may spend the day building
children’s imaginations and stewardship knowledge through slimy salmon
dissections. Every day is a new
adventure, and I have been able to experience so many exciting new activities
since I started my term of service!
Rachel Van Dam helped restore Red Salmon Creek, a part of the Nisqually National
Wildlife Refuge. She helped plant hundreds of native trees and shrubs over the course of a week, assisted 3rd grade students with
planting, and helped to organize and host a planting event where volunteers
planted 208 trees.
Hello! My
name is Rachel Van Dam, and I am serving with the Washington Service Corps at
the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Western Washington Fish and Wildlife
Conservation Office in Lacey, WA. I’m having a fantastic time so far living and
serving in a new part of the country. I’m from Wisconsin, most recently Green
Bay (go Packers!). I grew up playing outside almost every day after school and
going on outdoor adventures with my family, which inspired me to get a job in
some sort of natural resources field. As a result, I went to college and got my
bachelor’s and master’s degrees in environmental science and biology at the
University of Wisconsin-Green Bay. During my time at UW-Green Bay I was able to
get an internship at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service office in Green Bay
working in the fisheries field, and this led me to pursue a career in
fisheries. My master’s degree thesis project focused on restored wetlands on
the west shore of Green Bay: I researched how northern pike were using these
habitats during the spawning (mating) season and whether they were able to reproduce
successfully.
After I earned my master’s degree, I wanted to continue working
with fish but hadn’t had much experience outside of Wisconsin. So when the opportunity to move to Washington
State came up, I had to take it. Now I will be able to work with and raise
awareness about all the amazing fish in the Pacific Northwest, including fish I
already know, like some species of salmon, and some unfamiliar fish—for
example, all the marine fish!
During my term of service, I will have the opportunity to practice
conservation science by assisting with research and surveys in streams,
forests, prairies, and more, and by helping with habitat improvement and restoration
projects. Another responsibility I have is stewardship education, including: classroom
visits, field trips, tours, events, and other outreach activities, educating
nearly 600 students. One lesson involves salmon dissections to show the
different parts of a salmon, how they function and how humans can influence
their health and habitat. Other lessons focus on the importance of wetlands,
river habitat and water quality. One such
lesson involves kids role playing salmon by using their sense of smell to find
their way “home.” Through this activity,
participants learn how pollution can harm a salmon’s sense of smell and, in
turn, their ability to find food, avoid predators and locate their home stream.
The participants then learn how to
practice stewardship by minimizing these kinds of pollutants.
In addition to teaching all these lessons, I have had the
opportunity to help with many habitat assessments and research activities.
These have been fun, exciting, and sometimes a bit messy! I have assisted with
food web sampling for invertebrates on the Elwha River, seining (netting) fish
in the Elwha River estuary, radio tracking tagged bull trout, collecting data
on National Fish Hatchery salmon, removing non-native reed canary grass from a
wetland to support habitat for endangered Oregon spotted frogs, and much more. I
am also planning invasive plant removal and native plant planting events to
help improve habitat within the Billy Frank Junior Nisqually National Wildlife
Refuge. I am excited to continue teaching kids more about salmon and the
environment, and support more population, habitat, and recovery studies in the
field. I’m glad to be here for my AmeriCorps term and I can’t wait for all the
amazing opportunities to come!
I’m a public affairs
officer with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Pacific Regional office in
Portland, Oregon. I’m not good at math
and had to use all my fingers and toes when adding for this blog.
Everyone who dreams about retirement knows that investing for
the future is important. The same type
of planning is required for the future of conservation.
For your retirement, let’s say you invested $28 in a stock in
1992. If that stock traded at the Dow Jones Average over the past 24 years (a 7.36%
annual return), then you would have $154 in your pocket today.
But the numbers are much more impressive when investing in
the “conservation fund.”
There were 28 adult western snowy plovers found in Oregon in
1992. But when you compound 24 years of hard work, dedication and investing in collaborative
conservation, you’ll find that conservation fund has rocketed to 375 adult
snowy plovers in Oregon.
That’s an average annual return of 11.42%, including a
whopping 35% increase from 2015. Now that’s an investment with a big payoff! Had
the Dow Jones performed this well, then your retirement fund would be worth 2.5
times as much today. That’s smart
investing. Let’s call it the original “nest egg.”
“The rebound in plover numbers that we have seen in Oregon is
outstanding,” said Daniel Elbert, a biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service’s Newport Field Office. “The situation was pretty bleak in 1993 when this
population was listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act. We had to
act fast, but we also knew that we had to invest our efforts wisely over the
long term. Investing in collaborative conservation has really snowballed, and
we’re seeing the payoff.”
Blogger’s note: This article originally appeared on the Sage Grouse Initiative (SGI) website. Along with our other partners in conservation at local, state, and federal levels, SGI collaborates with the Service work together to ensure healthy sagebrush habitat for people and wildlife.
Photo: November 7, 2016 - Researchers in Montana carefully attach a lightweight radio transmitter to this days-old sage grouse chick to monitor its survival. Credit: Kenton Rowe.
Ask An Expert: Mark Szczypinski, Conservation Technician with Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks
Why do scientists want to tag chicks?
It helps us keep track of chick survival rates, seasonal movements, and habitat use. Plus, it also helps us understand sage grouse behavior. Here in eastern Montana, we’re learning a lot from tracking hens and their broods as part of a 10-year sage grouse research project that started in 2011.
Photo: Mark’s sage grouse tagging crew for the 2016 field season.
What’s your role in the Montana sage grouse research study?
I coordinate all of the field logistics from my base in Roundup, Montana. That means hiring and training 9 seasonal technicians, communicating with landowners, making sure all of the equipment is working, and capturing, tagging and monitoring birds myself, too.
The study area covers approximately a half-million acres, which makes it a huge undertaking. We have 7 pickup trucks and 6 ATVs to help us find and monitor the birds. Each tech is assigned a specific area, and is responsible for tagging and monitoring all of the birds within that area.
Landowner cooperation has been phenomenal during the project, which is important since 85% of the study area falls on privately-owned ranches. The funding provided by a host of public and private partners is also central to keeping the project going.
Photo: A volunteer tagger displays a young sage grouse chick. Credit: Mark Szczypinski
How many birds do you tag each year?
That depends. Before we can tag chicks, we have to first tag females so that we can find their nests. Our goal is to start each spring with 100 radio-marked hens. Usually, we have to capture about 25-40 hens in March and April to get us back up to 100 hens before nesting begins in late April.
It’s important to note that we use very different tags for fully-grown females versus small chicks. We fit adults with a VHF radio transmitter that are 25 g — about the size of the first joint as your thumb — and hangs like a necklace on the hen. For chicks, the transmitters are only 1.3g in weight (smaller than your pinky nail) with a 6-inch-long antenna attached. We suture these tiny tags with two small stitches to the skin on the chick’s back — similar to getting your ears pierced.
Photo: Mark (right) tags a chick with Joe Smith, a PhD student working on this study. Sage grouse tagging takes place in the dark, either after sunset or in the pre-dawn hours. Credit: Kenton Rowe.
So how do you know when a hen has hatched her brood?
We go out on the ground every other day during the April-May-June nesting season using handheld three-element Yagi antennas to listen for each hen’s VHF radio transmitter in order to get a her location — a process called telemetry. Once a hen’s location doesn’t change for two consecutive checks, we go in to confirm whether or not she is actually on a nest. If she is on a nest, we mark a point at least 100m away, which becomes the remote monitoring site for that nest.
Each nest is assigned an estimated hatch date which is 27 days from the first day we found the nest. Every two days after that first marking, we check to see if the hen is still on the nest by listening with telemetry equipment and evaluating if the compass bearing of the hen from the monitoring point has changed. This bearing won’t change more than a few degrees if the hen stays on the nest.
If the hen is absent from the nest around the estimated hatch date, we go in to see if one or more eggs hatched successfully. Hatched eggs will have an even break around the middle with a detached membrane inside and are usually still in the nest bowl. Often, one end of the shell will end up stacked inside the other end.
