Well, six months goes by pretty quickly. I am now down to just two days. We finished up the sucker rearing project in Upper Klamath Lake last week, and have deconstructed the net pens and docks as of 2 days ago. There was not a very good survival rate of the suckers, being that we only had in the end 21 suckers out of the 1,000-1,500 larvae that were introduced to the net pens. This ended up being the exact same amount as was able to be recovered last year. The project is not likely to be continued in the same manner in the future, as it has not had very high success rates over the last three years.

I have gained many skills in the field of fisheries over this past six month period. I now know how to use five different types of nets including seine nets, fyke nets, drift nets, trammel nets, and Wisconsin style tow nets, to catch both adult fish and larvae, and their food resources. We have gotten experience in both assisting in the process of PIT tagging, taking length measurements and inspecting for parasites and other abnormalities, and have had the opportunities to tag the fish ourselves. Also gaining more experience in electro-shocking to catch fish and sample for fish presence. Learning to manage data sondes for water quality measurements has also been very interesting and is much more efficient than the hand methods that I learned in college.

Although I was never able to get my Motorboat Operator Certification because I was not notified the most recent time they were back in Klamath Falls, I was still able to gain much more experience than I had previously had in boat operation. At the end of this season I feel much more comfortable driving boats than in the beginning of the season, which will be useful in the future, as most of the animal species I want to work with the most live in, or near, aquatic habitats.

This season was also filled with many other types of experiences, in a large part conducting plant surveys. I can say that while I do love plants, I do not think I would like to continue in a direction where I would be conducting plant surveys in the majority of my job. This may be because for the most part when conducing our surveys the weather was very warm and the species which were being studied all occur in habitat with no cover. These species included Applegate’s Milk Vetch, found to be slightly less endangered than previously thought, and Slender Orcut, an endangered grass which was not found in the target study areas. However, even though it was most likely just the weather which caused this feeling, I think that I have a passion for working with animal species. I was involved in more water fowl work, including the collection and banding of Canada geese and duck species in general. This was so different from the other bird banding and collection that I have done, which only included smaller passerine species during mating season. It was really interesting learning to sex the species from their cloaca, instead of brood patch development and size, or the lack there of.

This job has left me in quite a conundrum as I do not know exactly what I would like to go into. I have gained more experience in fisheries work from this summer that I feel like I would have a better chance of obtaining a fisheries job in the future. However, I don’t know if I want to stay in fisheries work, or try and gain more of the experiences I have been trying to obtain, including telemetry and radio tagging for working with birds or small mammals. I am not going to get into carnivore work because I have found that it is just too competitive.

Overall, this has been a great season. The people who I worked with are all so wonderful, and have really been so helpful these past months. Many of them them have also expressed how important it is to go to grad school, which I was not really considering, and I will be taking my GREs this winter. I will continue to reflect on the experiences I have had and will make a decision on which species I will be going to school to study further. May it be fish, or birds? I don’t know but will figure it out.

I think the other most positive part of this internship was the location. I have been so many beautiful places this summer. Being in south central Oregon has been a great opportunity to visit other areas haha. The redwoods are only 3 hours away, I had never seen them and it was a magical trip, I fell in love with those giant trees. The Oregon coast is also amazing! My favorite spots were Cape Perpetua with the temperate rainforest, Diamond Peak Wilderness, and of course the area surrounding Crater Lake. Best wildflowers I found were on Mount Ashland 🙂

Damnation Creek trail- Del Norte Redwood State park. So pretty

Me and the Boy scout Tree- Jedadiah Smith Redwoods State Park

Trail near home, view of Upper Klamath Lake

Oregon Coast at Cape Perpetua, didn’t see any whales

Shilah Allen

USFWS Klamath Falls, OR

Well, time seems to be going so fast, I already only have about 5-6 weeks left! Since my last post we have begun only one new project: counting juvenile sucker vertebrae (using the x-rays of specimens collected from 2006-2008), to determine if there was a presence of Lost River Suckers spawning in rivers above Upper Klamath Lake. You can figure this out by counting the spinal vertebrae and if there are 45-47 this means that the fish is a Lost River Sucker, the other non target species will have less than this, and the majority of what we counted only had counts of 41-42.

The time is now approaching to finish up our sucker rearing projects and we will be collecting the fish to be relocated to a separate pond for future study in the next 2 weeks. We have been discussing how the office would like us to write our final reports and will be jumping on that very soon as well.

A small side project my co-intern, Molly, and I have been doing is raising monarch caterpillars to butterflies. When they transform into butterflies they are being released with a sticker on them so that they can be monitored and tracked during their migration. A sample of scales from their abdomen are also being collected to test for a nasty protozoan parasite called OE, which exist as spores.  Also, if a Monarch Caterpillar has this it can cause deformity of development in the chrysalis stage, thus making the butterfly who emerges weaker and less likely to survive. This information is being collected for Washington State University.

In the last weeks of summer I have been trying to take every opportunity that I can to explore as much of the region that I can. I recently spent four days in the Redwood State parks in Northern California, one day at each park I was near including the Jedadiah Smith, Del Norte, and Prairie Creek. This trip was absolutely magical and I never imagined that anything like these parks existed in the United States. Even the sheer amount of vegetation on these areas amazed me (I have developed a strong interest in ferns since being in the Pacific Northwest). I also had an interesting experience happen while in the Jedadiah Smith. While coming back from the Boy Scout Tree trail I was alone with no one around and started to hear a flute. I looked around and did not see anyone nearby still and continued to keep walking, it was almost like the trees were singing to me. After walking a little over half a mile or so I then saw a woman standing behind a tree with a Native American flute. When i saw her I told her what I had thought and she replied that the trees were in fact singing to me because she was playing a flute made from the Redwood trees. I believe she was a member of the Yurok tribe in the area.

I have gone many other places with my time off but should probably not list them all for this would be too long of a post. All I know is that each day seems to be going by too quickly and I am not ready for either the summer or my position with the  USFWS to be over. This has been such a great experience and I am so happy to be learning so many different things and see so many beautiful places in the region.

Shilah Allen

with USFWS, Klamath Falls, OR

The last three weeks have been filled by looking for grasses. The grasses we have been looking for are Orcuttia tenuis and Tuctoria greenei, both species are listed as federally endangered. These species exist in areas known as Vernal Pools. Vernal Pools are wetlands which only have water in them seasonally, as in winter or spring, and then become dry during the summer. They form in depressions, which have no access to an inflow of water or groundwater generally.

We have been looking for these grasses in the region known as the Gerber Block, which is just a bit southeast from Klamath Falls, OR, and also extends into California.  The Gerber Block has many different kinds of vernal pools and also many associated species of plants which also grow with the grasses. Surprisingly, Orcuttia tenuis has been found on the California side of the GB, but have somehow been undetected on the Oregon side. This is the main reason that these surveys are needing to be conducted is because we are not sure if it has just not been looked very hard for in Oregon, or if it really does not occur in the state. However, because the state line is completely arbitrary, there is not really a good reason the grasses should not exist in Oregon, being that the habitat is the same.

So, the surveys being conducted are following a previous study performed in 2010 and 2011, which covered a good chunk of the block and contained 118 different sites of various vernal pool habitats; from intermittent streams, to vernal meadows, actual vernal pools, and stock ponds. The surveys are only presence/ absence of either grass species and also we were helping BLM survey for a species of mint, Pogogyne floribunda, and Disappearing Monkeyflower, Mimulus evanescens.

We have now completed the surveys, and we did not find either species of grass. We were able to survey 74 of the 118 sites. We tried to hit the spots which were considered “better” habitat, and also we tried to hit the spots which had the most relevant species, which would be in areas where ORTE is currently found.

It was definitely an interesting couple of weeks looking for mysterious species of grasses, and I was really pretty happy that in the last week and a half the temperature starting getting to a more enjoyable level for surveying. I believe that these were the last plant surveys of the summer, and now onto more fishy days 🙂

Since my last post we have still been very busy. We were required to attend the MOCC (Motorboat Operator Certification Course) in Stockton, CA for a week. Having never driven a boat before, I was not surprised that I did not pass.  I for sure need a good amount of practice before I feel confident being responsible for everyone on a boat I would be driving. They will be coming back later in the summer so I will get another chance.

Myth Dispelled! You will not sink when wearing waiters. During PFD section of class and water retrieval of people in trouble

Prior to this training week, we had been going out at night to catch larval suckers using a drift net over a private bridge in Chiloquin, OR. We did this for multiple nights and before leaving for the trip we had a total of 2,427 larvae. The net pens/ dock were also brought out into the bay and anchored down. When we returned from the training there had been a mass die off of the larvae most likely due to very high nitrogen levels and the fact they hadn’t been brought out to the net pens the previous week because our boat had been broken. With the help of the BOR our remaining fish were brought to the net pens. More night collection of larvae was done for a couple more nights and those were added as well.

Net Pens in Upper Klamath Lake. Fish were put into two of the pens.

Using a drift net off a bridge to catch larval suckers

We have started working on a few more projects in these last few weeks of June: Night collection of larvae was done one final time after memorial day to begin my co-intern’s larvae raising project in Lower Klamath Ponds; We began performing surveys of an endangered plant in the Pea family (Fabaceae), the species name is Astragalus Applegatei, or Applegates Milkvetch as it is commonly called. We have done surveys for this plant in 3 different locations, one of which is a newly reported population and has required more time to complete than expected (already 4 days and still not completed), but this abundance in the thousands is great news; We have been helping another fish biologist in our office with habitat surveying for good potential pools in streams in Modoc County, CA for the Modoc Sucker to be found in the next coming field season; We have also been assisting in electrofishing surveys and in pit tagging the fish in streams on Gearhart Mountain to determine the presence of and monitor native species such as Bull Trout and Red Band Trout as well as those that are non native like Brown Trout.

Modoc Sucker potential habitat beneath this large undercut. Marked tree above to survey in next year

Applegate’s Milkvetch, Astragalus applegatei

Myself and one volunteer still surveying newly found site, in this section alone there were 1,638 plants

In the most recent week we have been able to further progress in getting data on our larvae. We have figured out how to work our data sondes and calibrate them correctly to capture water quality data. As of yesterday we put the data sondes in both the ponds and in the net pens in Upper Klamath Lake. We installed a solar powered aerator in the net pens as well. We both were able to capture fish with minnow traps to asses the growth of the larvae, my larvae in the net pens are now at sizes 15- 28 mm which is a good sign of growth. The ones caught in her ponds were quite a bit bigger (multiple inches) than they should be, which leads us to believe they are not the ones that were put in, but from a different project that somehow got into the ponds unknowingly.

The babies are growing! size of larval suckers from net pens as of 7/05

There have been other days when we have been able to be a part of some other fun activities as well. We went nest searching to check on bald eagle chicks with the Wildlife Biologist in our office one day and found 7 chicks during our search of 10 nests, and a few adults. We were able to be a part of a Canada Goose banding session with USFWS out at the Tule Lake Wildlife Refuge which was fun and very interesting in learning how to sex the birds. There was also one day where I was able to go with my supervisor to RAP Camp (Resources and People). This was a camp where high school students were able to learn about a lot about different biological and ecological processes, and also gave them an opportunity to be out in the wilderness and enjoy fun outdoor activities like kayaking and bird watching. We were running the fish dissection station where the kids worked in teams to dissect Steelhead Trout. There was a interesting activity they do every year with this which is to match up the internal organs to the face template of Mr. Fish E. Guts. To some this may seem a bit morbid but it was actually a good tool in getting the kids to be able to identify each organ and seemed to gauge some of their interest more when they were making his face. My supervisor and I were available if any of the kids needed help with identification.

This was a female Canada Goose who I banded and am about to release

This was captured through the spotting scope. There is the adult on top and actually two chicks in the nest but you can only see one

This is my update!

Shilah Allen, intern with USFWS in Klamath Falls, OR

I came from Steamboat Springs, CO to Klamath Falls, OR to work with the USFWS and started in mid April. I came about 3 weeks later than the other two CLM interns I am working with, so when I got here things were in full swing and I did my best to understand everything that was going on. We are working with the Endangered Species crew and have been very involved in trying to capture the endangered Short-nose Sucker and Lost River Sucker adults in order to collect their eggs and sperm in order to spawn them. This has all been a very different and exiting experience for me being that I have done hardly any fisheries work, and I am gaining so much new knowledge in so many different ways.

My first week we worked the BOR in Lake Ewauna here in town.  We were using trammel nets to catch fish, and collected about 6 suckers, but were not able to make any of them become “ripe” using an experimental human growth hormone. This was exiting because it was my first experience on a boat here and I have only been on a boat about twice in my life! Later in the week I also got to experience using a dry suit and snorkeling in the river with my boss in order to see if we could see any suckers and catch them, however the turbidity levels of the water made seeing very difficult and we couldn’t get or see any fish.

Me and my boss following snorkeling

Another interesting experience the first week was meeting up with some fisheries biologists from the USGS who had collected Lost River suckers and were pit-tagging them. We were able to use 2 of their fish to collect eggs and sperm from to send down to a laboratory in Roswell, NM. It is very weird collecting these things from the fish, they are very big and you have to make sure you hold them tight, then you point their tail end downwards and squeeze their lower belly and everything just pours out! We sent them out that day and heard back the next week that 90% of the eggs we got had been fertilized, which is really good.

Lost River Sucker

My second week was interesting because we were focusing mainly on a project to get suckers out of a pond in the Lower Klamath Refuge where they had been raising them. This involved draining the pond and using Seine Nets to get all of the fish out of the major canal and outlying areas. This turned into a bit of a scramble because when the canal was getting low many fish began surfacing for air because the dissolved oxygen levels had become so low. We raced in the canal and used little nets to capture suckers as they were surfacing. The hardest thing about all of this was managing to walk in the mud where the pond had been. In some areas it was almost 3 feet deep and I got stuck at one point because the mud was acting like quicksand and the more I tried to get out the deeper I kept going, luckily we had a large crew with us and one of our guys helped me out- whew! It was a bit scary. In the end we got over 65 suckers out and they have a different home now.

SO MUCH MUD!

Yesterday we went to Redding, CA to pick up some baby suckers from a hatchery, they are going to be raised in a smaller pond which is next to the one we drained. I had never seen baby fish before and wow are they small!

Tiny baby suckers at the hatchery

This last week has mostly been focused on putting together net pens where we will be raising other larvae. This has been good, hard work.  The net pens are made out of these buoyant blocks you can make boat docks from, they just take a bit of effort to actually assemble.  But we finished and now just need to get it taken out to where it will be all summer.

That’s all I have for now, it has been good getting into everything these last few weeks and I am pretty exited for what will come next!

Klamath Falls Field Office- USFWS, Klamath Falls, OR.