Throughout the past month, we have been given the opportunity to conduct mussel surveys along the Sprague River. During these presence/ absence surveys, we have been looking for three mussel species: the California floater, western ridged, and western pearl shell mussels. The surveys, which are completed either by kayaking or snorkeling, have given us great views of the river as well as an opportunity to explore other wildlife! Before these surveys, I was unaware of the abundance of life among the riverbed.

I took an invertebrate biology course during undergrad and we had a section dedicated to mussels. I surprised myself with the knowledge I retained during the course, as I remembered where the mussel’s “tooth” and “foot” were located, which are important indicators when determining a species. Below are some examples of western ridged mussels observed along the Sprague.

We also had the opportunity to visit the wildlife forensics lab located in Ashland. I was a bit weary at first as I tend to get squeamish around deceased organisms, yet I faced my fears and learned so much about wildlife trade and trafficking. Wildlife trafficking was always a blurry subject for me, as I never understood how people got caught and what is considered illegal and legal. I learned that many tourists when traveling abroad want to bring back souvenirs such as ivory or animal fur, however, the gifts they acquired may have been illegally sourced. The gifts are then collected and brought to the forensics lab to determine where they originated and what type of animal was used. This is why the role of wildlife inspectors is crucial within international travel, as many goods are sourced from endangered species. Below is a collection of trophy animals donated by a family who had legal permits to hunt on safari trips, it is baffling that these animals were all acquired legally!

It was also interesting to learn about various cultural cosmologies. To a worker in southeast Asia, they might want to impress their boss by purchasing a “valued” good such as a sculpture from an endangered animal, since that animal is endangered, it is considered “rare”, meaning goods created from it have more value. To me and most people from the western world, this way of thinking seems skewed, however, this is common in several cultures across the globe. Throughout the tour, I kept asking myself, “how can we respect other cultures and animals at the same time?” I left the tour with more questions than I came with, so I hope to come back to the lab someday!

Every week I obtain a great appreciation for the work completed at U.S. Fish & Wildlife and I am so excited to share what is next to come.

Another month down and one more to go; it is a bit bittersweet as this internship has been so amazing. We started the month off by electrofishing on Leonard Creek to monitor what is in there after the fire that came thru the area 2 years ago.

Then to finish the first week, we monitored Demming Creek again using block nets to section up part of the creek to capture all the fish in the stream and then measure each fish.

For the next three days, we conducted mussel surveys. This fun activity involved floating down the Sprague River on kayas and looking at the bottom of the river with an aqua scope. We were looking for the western ridged mussel (Gonidia angulata), the western pearl shell mussel (Margaritifera falcata), and floaters (Anodonta oregonensis).

On Thursday of that week, I got to go on the boat on Upper Klamath Lake with the telemetry crew. We relocated a station that day, taking it down, loading it in the boat then setting it up along the shore.

The following week for the first two days, we were tasked with an interesting job of cutting 800 yards of netting into 100-yard pieces. The first three nets went quickly; then, we found the knot that was tricky to get past. We electrofished the rest of the week in Callahan Creek, removing invasive brook trout. For the last week, we surveyed for mussels on the Sprague River again. This month has been exciting, just like the first two months, and I am excited to see what we will do for my last month.

Most of this month was spent doing mussel surveys, which is easily my favorite thing so far. The Klamath Basin is home to one of the healthiest Western Ridged Mussel populations, however this species is proposed for listing due to losing much of its range elsewhere. For these surveys, we floated the Sprague River in kayaks, watching the bottom for mussels. The intention was presence/absence reporting for data about the ranges they occupy. Nearly every section of the river we explored had healthy populations, which was an exciting find! Spending the day on the river, watching fish, and finding mussels is just about the best thing to get to say you do for work!

Another adventure we had the opportunity to take was to Ashland, OR, which is the home of the National FWS Forensics Lab. This lab investigates all international FWS crimes and holds an impressive collection of species samples used for identification in other cases. We toured the building learning about the different lab departments including morphology, genetics, chemistry, and more. We even got to participate in sample organization. The tour was an amazing experience, but bittersweet to say the least. While learning so much and seeing many species samples was a great opportunity, we also had to face the fact that many of those samples are obtained through illegal, unsustainable, and unethical trade practice.

The month was filled with more electrofishing as well! Brook trout removal is a never ending job, but one we have so much fun doing. Towards the end of the month, we also assisted in an inventory project on Five Mile Creek, recently recovering from the Bootleg Fire. This opportunity offered a different set of species to work with including redband trout, sculpin, lamprey, dace, and minnows.