It’s hard to believe another month has passed. I’ve learned a great deal since the last time I wrote. I was able to attend the Klamath Basin Monitoring Program conference at Oregon Institute of Technology and the presentations and discussions of the people there helped me better put my work into context. Things look pretty grim for the endangered Shortnose and Lost River suckers and the reason for their demise remains to be pinpointed. I really appreciate the chance to work intimately with these special animals and at least try to be part of a solution.

Our office has a few different projects in the works to try to boost populations for suckers. They’ve all involved hard work and some gross factor but I can honestly say it’s pretty amazing to get paid to get in the water and get muddy.

Holding an adult Lost River Sucker at Cinder Springs in Upper Klamath Lake, a spawning location

Since I work closely with two other CLM interns, we’ve divided some management for the projects between us. The project I’ll be leading involves collecting wild sucker larvae, holding them in natural Upper Klamath Lake conditions inside net pens, monitoring and loosely regulating lake conditions in the pens (aeration), and releasing them into the system after summer. The suckers will be pit tagged upon release to permanently mark them as fish from the project. This effort has been performed the past two years, but since suckers take 5-7 years to spawn, the previously released fish have not been detected by readers at spawning locations. It’s neat to be part of research that will hopefully be beneficial for the future. It’s been a rough couple weeks constructing the net pen dock, but my fellow interns and supervisor have been amazing team workers! Looking forward to pulling out of the dock on the boat next week and collecting drifting larvae for the next steps in the project. It’s very exciting to be gaining so many new experiences!

Jessica Anderson

Klamath Falls Fish and Wildlife Office