Shaping a River: the Hungry Horse Dam

Posted on 22 October, 2024 by Grace Davenport

On a cool September day, my co-intern and I drove the fifty miles on a dirt road to the Spotted Bear Ranger Station. The road follows the winding, rugged shoreline of the Hungry Horse Reservoir. Pulling into the station’s office, we noticed a fringe of orange flames burning lazily up the mountain. We wondered if we would still be able to stay at the bunkhouse that night. We soon learned that a prescribed burn was taking place, carefully planned around the several inches of rain predicted that night and the next day. The morning proved the weather forecast correct. A mist hung about the road as we drove past the ranger station the next morning on our way to Meadow Creek Gorge. The gorge is reminiscent of what the Hungry Horse landscape may have looked like before the reservoir, before the inundation of the long, steep valley carved by the South Fork of the Flathead River.

The swimming hole at Spotted Bear Ranger Station

Smoke and mist settling in the Meadow Creek Gorge

At Meadow Creek Trailhead, we spoke with a few visitors who had turned southeast, away from the gates of Glacier National Park, and towards the remote Bob Marshall Wilderness. One of the visitors, a fisherman, mentioned the beneficial impact of the Hungry Horse Dam in preventing nonnative fish from swimming upstream and degrading habitat for native cutthroat and bull trout. This comment, said in passing, catalyzed a world of exploration for me as I delved into the dam’s history and ecological impact.

View of the reservoir at the top of the Hungry Horse Dam

On our next trip down to Spotted Bear, we stopped at the dam’s visitor center, perched halfway up the steep mountainside, along the road that runs overtop the dam. A sign in the art deco style of “The Big Dam Era” — in its heyday from the 1930s to 1960s (Lee 2023) — announces the dam. Finished in November 1953, the Hungry Horse Dam was a crowning achievement of the era. Standing at 564 feet, it was the second tallest dam in the world at the time of its completion (McKay 1994). Black and white photographs in the visitor center document the larger-than-life engineering feat of the dam’s construction. Tiny figures of men stand in miniature within the 12-foot diameter spillway tunnel. Yet these men moved mountains, blasting a tunnel through the adjoining rock wall to divert the river during dam construction.

Man inside the giant spillway tunnel; photo from the Hungry Horse Visitor Center

The diversion tunnel the river flowed through while the dam was being built; photo from the Hungry Horse Visitor Center

The little town of Hungry Horse, still standing today, sprung up to support the laborers. The town and dam are named after an incident in the winter of 1900. Two men hauling equipment over the South Fork of the Flathead River noticed, after the river crossing, that two of their horses, Jerry and Tex, were missing. A month later the horses were found “belly deep in snow and nothing but skin and bones” (Stene 1995). The horses were nursed back to strength and lived out their days in nearby Kalispell, but the area bears witness to their hungriest hour. A large steel ball, painted a garish silver, stands as a mysterious testament to the town’s origin. The dam building started not with pouring the dam’s concrete but with clearing trees from the flow area to limit debris in the reservoir. (Grant 2018). Several logging companies took up the herculean task of clearing the 37 square miles of land in the reservoir’s path (McKay 1994). The large steel ball standing in Hungry Horse today was used in the “highball” clearing method that could clear 200 acres in 4 hours (McKay 1994; Grant 2018). The ball, 8 feet in diameter and 8,000 pounds in heft, was not a wrecking ball but rather a weight (Shaw 1967). A long cable, secured between two bulldozers and held fast at the center by the heavy ball, was used to drag down and uproot trees. Using this unusual method along with more conventional methods, loggers harvested 90 million board feet of timber from the area in just a few years (Grant 2018).

8,000-pound steel ball used in the “highball” clearing method

Once completed in 1953, the dam backed up the South Fork of the Flathead River for 34 miles and flooded about 22,500 acres of land (McKay 1994). Today, the dam still fulfills its original purpose, generating electricity, regulating water flow for flood mitigation, and acting as water storage for downstream dams in the greater Columbia River Basin system. The Hungry Horse reservoir is one of two other headwater reservoirs for the Columbia River Basin, the other being the Koocanusa Reservoir in the adjacent Kootenai National Forest. Together, these two reservoirs provide approximately 40% of the usable water storage in the U.S. portion of the Columbia Basin (Muhlfeld, 2012). The Hungry Horse dam impacts both local and regional ecosystems, since water from the reservoir travels more than 1,100 miles from Montana’s mountains to the Pacific Ocean. Some of those impacts are obvious, like the creation of a lake from a river. Other impacts are less so.

This sign outside the visitor center shows just a few of the almost 60 dams in the Columbia River watershed

The dam’s four penstocks (gates that direct water to the turbines) are located 241 feet below the reservoir level. Water at that depth maintains a year-round temperature of about 38F, which is quite a bit colder than summer surface temperatures of up to 68F (Christenson et al., 1996). Biologists speculated that the dam’s cold-water discharge would modify the downstream river ecology (Christenson et al., 1996). By the 1980s, biologists with Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks were recording falling native trout populations, stunted trout growth rates, and changes in the trout’s prey, macroinvertebrates. They also found unusually large numbers of cold-water lake trout in the Flathead river’s main stem. The cold water offered an ideal habitat for the voracious lake trout which fed with abandon on juvenile cutthroat and bull trout (Cristenson et al.,1996). The food web was changing. To combat these effects, the discharged water needed temperature control (Standford et al., 1992). A “Selective Withdrawal System” was installed in August 1996. The system placed 100-foot-long selective depth outlet structures over the penstocks. Warm surface water could be skimmed off the top of the reservoir and mixed with cooler water anywhere from 30 to 200 feet below the water’s surface. Electronic temperature sensors ran the length of the structures and informed which outlets to open and close to produce the required water temperatures. The system is still in use and begins operations each year in June after spring runoff flows reduce and continues until October. The release of warmer water during the biologically productive summer months has eliminated the artificial cooling of the river and returned it to its pre-dam annual temperature cycle (State of Montana, 2014).

Selective Withdrawal System information board at the Hungry Horse Dam Visitor Center

In the almost 30 years since its installment, the selective withdrawal system has measurably affected the surrounding ecosystem. Eliminating cold discharges during summer appears to have restricted the movement of non-native lake trout upstream from Flathead Lake (Muhlfeld et al., 2012). Studies on macroinvertebrate populations are mostly inconclusive though there are some signs of slightly improved benthic macroinvertebrate assemblages in the South Fork River, downstream of the dam (Richards, 2010). The selective withdrawal system allows some aspects of the downstream river to return to pre-dam conditions, but other aspects cannot be so easily turned back. Flow regulation for flood control and power generation has resulted in an inversion of the natural hydrograph; water storage during spring keeps run-off low and release of water during summer, fall, and winter keeps flows unnaturally high (Muhlfeld, 2012). The current flow management strategy simulates natural flow conditions to maximize bull trout habitat in the South Fork of the Flathead River by keeping flows lower, but flows must still remain artificially high to augment flow for anadromous fish recovery hundreds of miles downstream, in the lower Columbia River Basin (Muhlfeld, 2012). Caught in a web of ecological consequences, changing one thing then affects another, achieving all pre-dam conditions is elusive. Can a controlled river really be made to mimic a natural river?

The visitor’s passing comment about one of the beneficial effects of the dam is true; the dam has proven an effective barrier against nonnative fish. The South Fork River upstream of the Hungry Horse Dam contains one of the largest self-sustaining populations of westslope cutthroat trout in existence (Marotz et al., 1996). The reservoir also supports a stable bull trout population, which can be attributed to the relatively undisturbed spawning tributaries in the Bob Marhsall Wilderness upstream of the dam (Marotz et al., 1996). Moreover, the dam provides clean, renewable energy, critical as we try to slow down human-caused climate change. Yet, by removing the historical disturbances of flood and drought cycles through flow regulation, the biological characteristics of the downstream Flathead River have been altered (Schmutz and Moog, 2018; Muhlfeld, 2012). And, of course, the reservoir itself has buried an entire landscape and its local ecosystem under hundreds of feet of water. The Hungry Horse dam created a new ecosystem while also preserving some aspects of the past ecosystem. Some impacts of the dam can be mitigated, while other impacts require adaptation in human, animal, and plant lifestyle.

The land southeast of the reservoir, past the Spotted Bear Ranger Station; the mist over the old burn area looked like a fantasy novel setting

References

Christenson, D. J., Robert L. Sund, and Brian L. Marotz. “Hungry Horse Dams successful selective withdrawal system.” Hydro Review 15.3 (1996).

Grant, James A. “Historic Logging Uses and Timber Management at Hungry Horse Reservoir.” U.S. Bureau of Reclamation. (2018). https://www.bpa.gov/-/media/Aep/environmental-initiatives/cultural-resources/historic-logging-uses.pdf

“Hungry Horse Reservoir, Montana: Biological Impact Evaluation and Operational Constraints for a proposed 90,000-acre-foot withdrawal.” State of Montana. September 14, 2011. https://dnrc.mt.gov/_docs/water/Appendix_8_StateBiologicalConstraintsMemo.pdf

Lee, Gabriel. “Overview: The Big Dam Era.” Energy History Online. Yale University. (2023). https://energyhistory.yale.edu/the-big-dam-era/.

Marotz, B. L., et al. “Model development to establish integrated operational rule curves for Hungry Horse and Libby Reservoirs—Montana.” Report to the Bonneville Power Administration. Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks, Kalispell (1996).

McKay, Kathryn L. “Trails of the Past: Historical Overview of the Flathead National Forest, Montana, 1800–1960.” Flathead National Forest. (1994). http://www.npshistory.com/publications/usfs/region/1/flathead/history/#:~:text=TRAILS%20OF%20THE%20PAST:%20Historical%20Overview

Muhlfeld, Clint C., et al. “Assessing the impacts of river regulation on native bull trout (Salvelinus confluentus) and westslope cutthroat trout (Oncorhynchus clarkii lewisi) habitats in the upper Flathead River, Montana, USA.” River Research and Applications 28.7 (2012): 940-959.

Richards, David C., and Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks. “Possible effects of selective withdrawal-temperature control at Hungry Horse Dam, nuisance growth of Didymosphenia geminata, and other factors, on benthic macroinvertebrate assemblages in the Flathead River.” Report to Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks, Kalispell MT (2010).

Schmutz, Stefan, and Otto Moog. “Dams: ecological impacts and management.” Riverine ecosystem management: Science for governing towards a sustainable future (2018): 111-127.

Shaw, Charlie. “The Flathead Story.” USDA Forest Service, Flathead National Forest. (1967) http://www.npshistory.com/publications/usfs/region/1/flathead/story/index.htm#:~:text=THE%20FLATHEAD%20STORY.%20By.%20Charlie%20Shaw.

Stanford, Jack A., and F. Richard Hauer. “Mitigating the impacts of stream and lake regulation in the Flathead River catchment, Montana, USA: an ecosystem perspective.” Aquatic Conservation: Marine and Freshwater Ecosystems 2.1 (1992): 35-63.

Stene, Eric A. “Hungry Horse Project.” U.S. Bureau of Reclamation. (1995) https://www.usbr.gov/projects/pdf.php?id=125

Celebrating our Public Lands

Posted on 22 October, 2024 by Anthony Rondon

National Public Lands Day (NPLD), according to the National Parks Service website, “is [an event] organized annually and led by the National Environmental Education Foundation, in partnership with the National Park Service and other federal agencies.” The day involves, “…hundreds of thousands of volunteers roll[ing] up their sleeves to help restore and preserve public lands of all types and sizes…” including our National Forests. This event, celebrated annually on the fourth Saturday of September, gives an opportunity for the public to show an appreciation for the unique green spaces many of us use for recreation and our local flora and fauna call home.

The San Bernardino National Forest (SBNF) celebrated NPLD 2024 this year by organizing a volunteer restoration event held in partnership with the Southern California Mountains Foundation (SCMF) on Saturday September 28th. I was one of the staff members on hand facilitating this event alongside the volunteers, and I was so happy to be able to do so. It not only was a great way to personally reflect on my love for our public lands but to also get to share that passion and love with members of our local community.

Preparation for our NPLD volunteer event began two weeks prior with a scouting trip to several of our restoration sites in Miller Canyon a popular off-highway vehicle (OHV) spot east of Silverwood Lake State Recreation Area. Myself along side Koby Bench (SBNF restoration), Jorge Rodriguez (SBNF restoration/botany), Kimi Bechtol (SBNF recreation), and Lili Ortega (IERCD) identified a restoration site that seemed most friendly for volunteer work (i.e. relatively accessible for consumer vehicles and well shaded). Our site was located off forest service road 2N33, also known as Pilot Rock Truck Trail. This black oak woodland-meadow had been degraded due to heavy OHV use and intervention was needed in order to restore its historic beauty and ecologic function.

Restoration site for NPLD off forest service road 2N33 showing a degraded turn-off area likely due to OHV use (back left).

Continued preparation was needed to get the site ready for volunteers to help with the work to be done here. First, t-post fence was installed and slash (pieces of wood and other natural material spread to act as barriers preventing unauthorized use) was laid to prevent further OHV travel into the turn-off area. Scouting was also done of the surrounding plant communities to identify native species naturally present and get an idea of what plants we could pull from our nursery to begin to revegetate the area successfully and maintain the structure of the ecosystem. Some of the species we identified for restoration use in this area included California aster (Corethrogyne filaginifolia), Cobweb thistle (Cirsium occidentale), and rubber rabbitbrush (Ericameria nauseosa).

In order for plants to be put into the heavily compacted soil at this restoration site, holes had to be dug. With the help of the SCMF and a crew from the Urban Conservation Corp (UCC) we got to work using gas powered augers to begin the arduous process. We planned to drill at least 300 holes for out-planting, and in total that day with all the additional hands we were able to get 360 potential holes in the ground. Bamboo stakes were used to mark each out-planting hole after they were dug to help minimize the very real tripping risk created while they were empty. Ultimately, augering is sweaty work but it was made more enjoyable through the company of the crews from all 3 organizations coming together and collaborating toward a joint goal of preserving our public land, and this is the essence of what National Public Land Day is all about!

Images of Jorge Rodriguez and I preparing out-planting holes using gas-powered augers at the NPLD restoration site.

With the site itself prepared for our volunteers, we spent the following days filling the forest service vehicles with the necessary tools to make NPLD a success. Shovels, signs, golves, water tanks, EZ ups, folding tables, seed, and of course plants were loaded up prior to Saturday morning when we began meeting volunteers off highway 173 in Lake Arrowhead around 9am. In total approximately 36 people (excluding staff) showed up volunteering their time to show an appreciation for our public lands. Everyone was in good spirit (despite the many gnats harassing us as we talked) as we began to form a caravan of vehicles headed the short drive to our restoration site. Once at the site we did a safety talk and instructed them on the out-planting work we had planned for the day. Work began setting up the EZ ups for shade when breaks were required and setting up tables with clean gloves for everyone to grab in order to ensure the know pathogens were being introduced by us to the plants we could eventually spread them into the surrounding ecosystem. Plants were then unloaded from the trucks and placed still in their nursery bullets into their planned holes, a first introduction to their new homes outside of the forest service nursery in Big Bear.

Unloading California milkweed *(Ascelpias californica)* from the forest service truck bed alongside volunteer and staff waiting to grab additional trays of out-plants for our restoration site.

With all hands on deck the work of outplanting went fast. We planned to strategically put our less cuddly plants (Cobweb thistle and chaparral yucca) toward the perimeter closest to the roadside in order to further discourage activity in the area. The rest of the plants were randomly assigned spots within the restoration site. Planting occurred quickly with the amount of help we received. It was a pleasure to talk with volunteers about what they were planting and what had brought them out on that day and this all made the time fly by quickly. Plants were watered thoroughly to hopefully ease some of the stress of planting and a small lip (or berm) was left around the border of each plant to help the water to better saturate deep into the ground our plants now will be calling home.

Myself and Jorge Rodriguez planting into the restoration site (left) and an example of a successfully planted milkweed seedling (right)

The finishing touches had to be put onto the site before we could fully call it a day on our NPLD fun. We had prepared a native seed mix to be spread around the site (using some seed I personally collected just down the forest service road a few days prior). This mix contained only seed that had been sourced locally from Lake Arrowhead and was therefore genetically adapted to the area. Some of the species in the seed mix included: California buckwheat (Eriogonum fasciculatum), Interior goldenbush (Ericameria linearifolia), Wood’s rose (Rosa woodsii), and Sticky cinquefoil (Drymocallis glandulosa). A sign was also installed in the center of the site identifying the presence of sensitive species in the area and also marking it as a monarch habitat area due to the several milkweed species we planted there (Asclepias eriocarpa and A. californica). The day officially reached a conclusion with a delicious lunch of sandwiches (provided by SCMF) and some forest service goodies we handed out to the volunteers to thank them for all their hard work.

Lili Ortega and I spreading native seed mix throughout the restoration site (left) and the installed restoration sign identifying the area (right).

I was so thankful to be able to help with the organizing and implementation of this years NPLD event with the SBNF. With the help of volunteers from the public we were able to do in a day work that would have taken at least a week of visits if not more if we had to do it on our own. NPLD highlights the essential need for collaboration in restoration and conservation work. When you see a successfully restored area know that it is not the work of an individual but of a community of people rolling up their sleeves to preserve these areas for years to come!

Lose a fish, go to jail

Posted on 26 September, 2024 by Eliza Seigel

What. A. Month. I truly can’t believe August is ending – we have accomplished so much since July, and it’s hard to fathom that my time here is more than halfway over.

As far as plants go, we’ve been doing a lot of monitoring. Our projects are testing if our seed mixes (which are being used to revegetate old timber roads and make pollinator islands out of disturbed sites) are effective. We’ve also ramped up our seed collection quite a bit.

Cicely, my co-intern, scouting a potential seed collection site

It’s been fun learning more about restoration processes and how the seed mixes were developed. Laura even showed us a cool paper about different monitoring methods (LPI vs. ocular quadrat, for all you cool kids) in riparian areas. However, we’ve also gotten lots of opportunities to cross-train with other departments, which has been incredible. So far, the Botshots have:

Waded in the Bitterroot River with Wildlife, monitoring for Harlequin ducks and taking environmental DNA samples to detect their presence
Gone out with the “Archies” to map historic peeled trees – also known as culturally modified trees – that the Nimiipuu people used to eat from in the springtime
Electroshock fished with Hydrology
- which was very fun. We caught a Bull trout (which is threatened, so we were excited to see it) but the second we put it into the monitoring bucket, it tried to eat a smaller Cutthroat. Circle of life.
- We also had a great time slipping around on the rocks trying to net the speedy little guys, hence the amazing quote of the day:

“Lose a fish, go to jail.”
-Doug

A size comparison of the peel length for the archaeologists

Some other, non-work-related highlights from this month include:

Swimming in some hot springs in Idaho
Watching the Darby Rodeo
Going to Glacier National Park with Cicely and Li when all of the wildflowers were in bloom
A very dear friend coming to visit for a weekend

Flowers at Glacier, photo credits to Cicely

It’s been super busy, but in the best way possible. My brain and my heart feel very full.

See you soon,

Plants of Pollinator Friendliness

Posted on 7 August, 2024 by Erynn McNeill

“Bees are crucial for maintaining biodiversity and, by supporting healthy plant communities, a long list of ecosystem functions”
– Of Bees and Blooms, 2023

Queen bee *Bombus rufocinctus* pollinating Agastache utricifolia, one of our seed collection species in the Swan Valley of the Flathead National Forest

This field season (May through October) I was hired as a Seed Collection Intern by the Chicago Botanical Garden for the U.S Forest Service. I am stationed far North in the Flathead National Forest of Montana, and as late summer approaches for most of the continental United States, the species that we will be collecting seed from have just begun to flower.

Target species (from left to right) *Symphyotrichum laeve*, *Heuchera cylindrica* and *Monarda fistulosa* blooming in late July in Flathead Nation Forest

While waiting for our target species to bloom (and seed) we assisted with many other projects. Mostly, we helped out on Timber Unit Vegetation Surveys. This is where botanists go into a section of the National Forest known as a Timber Unit, a section of the forest that will be logged in the next few years, and conduct a vegetation survey. This vegetation survey involves recording every plant species in the unit and GPS marking areas of water (water=high biodiversity) and flagging rare and endangered species that we come across so that the area around them doesn’t get logged and they don’t get ran over/disturbed.

For us interns (Grace and myself) this mostly served as a way for us to familiarize ourselves with the plant species and habitats of Flathead National Forest so that we could properly identify our target species we are collecting seed from and be able to scout out the habitats they are found in. Two months later we are confident in our plant and habitat identification skills, and are now able to scout of populations of our seed collection species ourselves.

Subalpine *Heuchera cylindrica* population and wildflower meadow containing a *Monarda* *fistulosa*

Another project we helped on was the Bumble Bee Atlas project. This research project was started by The Xerces Society with the goal of gathering data needed to track and conserve bumble bees (bumblebeeatlas.org). Many bumble bee species are in decline, the exact causes have yet to be determined but it as been surmised that it is due to a combination of climate change, habitat lost, pesticides and herbicides, and lack of conservation efforts.

Bumble bees are strong, hearty and efficient pollinators that have coevolved with flowering plants. It has been estimated that 60 to 80 percent of all flowering plant species require bees for pollination and that more than a third of the food consumed by humans is pollinated by bees (Glenny, Will Et al., 2022). Due to these factors, the Forest Service and multiple other entities are collaborating to collect data in order to develop a conservation plan so that we don’t continue to loose these valuable pollinators.

The data that needed to be collected was; What species of bumble bees are on the landscape? What plant species are the pollinating? What plant species do they prefer? What disturbances are in the area if any? If we can answer these questions than we can move forward with developing a conservation plan for native bumble be species (bumblebeeatlas.org)!

We assisted with this project by conducting a few bumble bee surveys. We did this by going out to lovely montane meadows full of wildflowers and catching bumble bees! We used big bug catching nets and put them in little tubes so that we could put them on ice in order to put them to sleep and take pictures so that they could be identified to species later. Putting the bees on ice does not hurt the bees! It’s simply puts them to sleep, like the freezing cold air of an early spring night in the mountains.

Within a few minutes of removing them from the cooler, they were waking up, stretching and
flying off (often before we could even get all of the photos that we needed!)

Photos of native bee species from conducting Bumble Bee Atlas surveys outside Glacier National Park in the Flathead National Forest

Little did I know that this cute week with bumble bees would go on to play a roll in the rest of my field season.

As it turns out, the plant species that we are collecting seed from this year were chosen because the have a high pollinator friendliness score. What does pollinator-friendliness mean? and how does a plant get a high ranking? Plants with high pollinator friendliness is defined by the paper Assessing Pollinator Friendliness of Plants and Designing Mixes to Restore Habitats for Bees in 2022 as follows: plants with high pollinator friendliness were plants that had the highest bee visitation rates, attracted the most bee species, supported specialist bee species, and bloomed for extended periods of time (Glenny, Will Et al., 2022). In addition, the target species that were chosen to collect seed from also had to a line with the conservation needs of Flathead National Forest specifically.

The seeds the we care collecting will be added to a seed mix that will be used for roadside restoration. The open areas created by road construction and logging are great areas for grass and wildflower filled meadows and, additionally, great habitat for bumble bees.

Bumble bees photographed pollinating native plant species: *Chamaenerion angustifolium, Cirsium scariosum* and Lupinus argenteus on gravel road sides

Previously, the only plant species used for these road side restoration projects were grasses. Grasses are great at recolonizing gravel areas, but, being that they are mostly wind pollinated, not so great for native pollinator species. By adding native wildflowers to these seed mixes, roadsides, gravel pits and old gated off forest service roads can become great habitats for declining native bumble bee species (Glenny, Will Et al., 2022).

So, with all this in mind, the parameters that a plant species must meet is as follows

– Must be a native species
– Must have a high pollinator friendliness score
– Must prefer disturbed, gravely habitat

With these parameters in mind, the species that were selected were

Monarda fistulosa (bee balm)
Grindelia howellii (Howell’s gumweed)
Heuchera cylindrica (roundlead alumroot)
Agastache urticifolia (nettle-leaf horsemint)

5. Erigeron speciosus (showy aster) (not pictured because it’s not in flower yet)
6. Chamaenerion angustifolium (fireweed)
7. Symphyotrichum laeve (smooth blue aster)

Identifying and collecting seed from native flowering plant species that thrive in disturbed and are preferred by native pollinators is a crucial for restoration project because “bees are crucial for maintaining biodiversity and, by supporting healthy plant communities, a long list of ecosystem functions including but not limited to- food and habitat for animals, soil stability, and water quality” (Of Bees and Blooms, 2023). I feel incredible grateful to be working to restore biodiversity of our native forests and working to build habitat for threated native pollinator species. The seed that we are collecting this summer and fall will be sent to the Forest Service Nursery in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho were it will be grown out, the seed collected from those plant, and then CBG interns next year will spread that seed in restoration areas.

Now isn’t that a beautiful cycle.

– Erynn, Flathead National Forest

References

Glenny, Will; Runyon, Justin; Burkle, Laura. 2022. Assessing pollinator friendliness of plants and designing mixes to restore habitat for bees. Gen. Tech. Rep. RMRS-GTR-429. Fort Collins, CO: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station. 54 p. Assessing pollinator friendliness of plants and designing mixes to restore habitat for bees (usda.gov)

Of bees and blooms: A new scorecard for selecting pollinator-friendly plants in restoration (usda.gov)

https://www.bumblebeeatlas.org/pages/about

For more information and how to participate in the bumble bee atlas! – Bumble Bee Atlas: Ecology and Conservation

Internship Quickly Coming to a Close

Posted on 27 February, 2024 by bkurtz

It’s incredible to believe my position here with the Forest Service is coming to an end already. I thought 22 weeks was going to drag on; however, it has been a whirlwind and passed in the blink of an eye. February was relatively mundane at work but has been filled with some great memories of great people in a beautiful place. I saw some incredible waterfalls with my work twin. I ate a slightly squashed PB&J on top of a large rock overlooking the Willamette Valley. I had funny and interesting conversations with coworkers over seed cleaning, which consisted of everything and anything. Although my team has not won at our Monday night trivia events, we still have a blast not knowing I guess common knowledge questions???? I should have definitely paid more attention in history class as well as to the Grammys.

Overall, nothing too spectacular occurred this month. Towards the end of the month, I did get the Dorena cold for a few days, but it gave me the time to telework and get some well-needed rest. Sadly, my work twin and co-intern, Kass, will be leaving at the end of the month. She was a wonderful partner and sweet little treat buddy, but I know she is gonna have an amazing adventure in her next position. I will always remember our numerous trips to Taco Bell, “council” meetings to discuss the perfect texts, and little hikes and adventures. After this week, I only have about two weeks to go, which is sad but also exciting because it means my next adventure is beginning.

This is not Kass, but I wanted to include this photo because our mice (Teo) catcher was lookin a little goofy

There is really nothing too big to report this month, but there have been some extraordinary rainbows recently.

Pot of Gold at the End of the Rainbow is Our Oak Seedlings

I also will include some of the photos from last month because some of them are really sick. The ice storm definitely took a toll on the town, but it has recovered and is now looking forward to and preparing for the arrival of spring.

Plants Encased by Ice After the Great Ice Storm of 2024

Jack Frost Does Not Like Oregon

Posted on 1 February, 2024 by bkurtz

Hello everyone! I hope everyone is doing well and having a good time in the new year! January has been quite the busy month here in the Umpqua, but that has really made time fly by! The first few weeks were relatively quiet. We worked on seed cleaning and started the new process of extracting and packaging Douglas Firs and Ponderosa Pines for an assisted migration project, which addresses their geographic distribution in regards to climate change. It is a monotonous task; however, it does make the time pass because there is always something to be done. At Dorena, there is always something to be done, which I kinda love. I am never bored here.

Buuuuuuut, mid-January a gnarly ice storm hit my area and caused major damage to the community, native deciduous trees, and the power-grid. This storm created a temporary ice rink on every exposed surface and allowed me to slide to the grocery store rather than walking there. Do not get me wrong, it was beautiful, but it was also incredibly dangerous. Although I was lucky and only was without power and water for 6 days, others in the community did not receive their power for almost two weeks. After this experience, I think I take the doomsday preppers a little bit more seriously. This storm left my city in shambles from houses and cars being squashed by trees to fallen telephone lines across roads and sidewalks. Throughout the past few weeks, the community is still recovering and has dramatically increased their supply of firewood.

Post ice storm, Dorena regained power and normal activities returned. We continued on extracting and packaging the Douglases and Pines, but we had the awesome experience of having multiple jobs corps groups and volunteers come in to help the project. It was incredible. The extra hands turned the expected end date from two months to two weeks. Without their help, we would have been extracting and packaging for weeks.

Overall, this month has flown by. I am sure I am missing a few events here and there but that is kinda the gist. There was definitely some good moments, like sowing oaks with everyone in the greenhouses after the storm, which was so fun to drink our coffees and chat, but there were also some learning moments. Life is not life without both sides. This month definitely was a wild ride, but I am excited to see where February takes me. Also unfortunately, last week I did break my laptop; thus, I will have to share all my photos for next month 🙁

Hope y’all have a good February!

A Very Smoky August

Posted on 6 September, 2023 by Selah Tatem

Early this August, I got to make my first personal delivery to the Coeur d’Alene Forest Service Nursery in Coeur d’Alene, ID! Since the nursery is a 2.5 hour drive, it has proven to be quicker and more efficient to deliver the seed lots ourselves, rather than packing and shipping the large quantity of seeds that have take up all spare office space. Myself and the rest of the Lolo Botany Crew got to take a tour around the nursery facilities and take a look at all the different projects going on this time of year. The nursery is quite extensive, with many greenhouses and open warehouse space for plugs and seeds spread to dry.

Among the seeds and saplings are a more friendly nursery occupant: the nursery cats. Apparently three cats inhabit the Coeur d’Alene Nursery, although I only had the pleasure of meeting Smoky, who currently takes up residence in the seed extractory. What a hard worker! It was very impressive to see the success of current grow-outs from seed collections of years past from the Lolo NF. After surveying for much Whitebark Pine this season, one of my favorite parts of the nursery tour was to see the greenhouse designated for Whitebark Pine saplings.They typically ship out about 100,000 white bark pine saplings every year, so it was excellent to see great restoration hard at work. Super cool time!

Smoky the Cat, hard at work in the seed extractory

Another fun event in early August was the Western Montana Fair, which I got to attend both for work and fun. I had the chance to participate in some community outreach with the Lolo National Forest, greeting the public at the FS booth had and got to talk to the community about some of the projects going on and how exciting it is to work in natural resources/restoration. The best part was meeting new coworkers from different programs in the Missoula office who I don’t get to see every day. Aside from work, I went to the rodeo at the fair, and it was actually my first rodeo! It was so much fun to watch all the events.

Earlier in August I took a trip up to Glacier National Park. It has been pretty smoky this August, but the views were still great! I hiked from Lake McDonald up to Snyder Lake. Beautiful hike I would recommend to anyone visiting Glacier.

In which we electrocute fish

Posted on 19 October, 2009 by clmintern

One of the benefits to being a wildlife intern is that I get to handle animals. Usually it’s limited to the arthropods and herps I find out in the field, but sometimes it’s even more exciting. Most recently, Michelle and I were sent out to check on fish populations on Forest Service and BLM land. There’s a decently sized stream that runs through both FS and BLM land which has a number of indigenous species (Lepidomeda alicia, Rhinichthys osculus, and Catostomus platyrhynchus) as well as the accurséd Salmo trutta.

As an aside, I need to say that the BLM riparian vegetation was in infinitely better shape than the FS parcel thanks to more responsible grazing methods. Just sayin’.

<i>Lepidomeda alicia</i>, leathersides, are not for eating.

Lepidomeda alicia, leathersides, are not for eating.

As I expected, in order to estimate the number of fish in a stream it’s necessary to capture them. What I wasn’t prepared for was the equipment: a forty-plus pound backpack full of electronics and a very large 24 volt battery. It turns out that the preferred methodology for catching fish is to use this Ghostbusters cast-off to run an electrical current through the water. The field wreaks temporary havoc with their little nervous systems which causes them to drift aimlessly into our waiting nets.

We were warned beforehand that there’s usually low mortality with this technique, but not non-zero. Larger fish have greater surface area and therefore take a harder hit from the current and have a tendency to die. The current was actually very mild; I unthinkingly shoved my hand in the water to grab a fish while the stunner was running and only spasmed slightly. I’m marginally larger than even a brown trout, so I think that it’s fair to say that it wasn’t a horrible experience for them especially given that we didn’t lose a single fish.

Our field office doesn’t have waders large enough for me, so I didn’t get to wield the stunner. Instead, I was given an even better job which I know sounds crazy—what could be better than electrocuting fish—but it’s true. I was take-the-fish-out-of-the-net-to-put-in-the-bucket guy. That means that I got to handle the fish directly and admire them and their nematode parasites.

Michelle proudly holds the <i>Salmo trutta</i>, brown trout, I accidentally dropped. Repeatedly.

Michelle proudly holds the Salmo trutta, brown trout, I accidentally dropped. Repeatedly.

Now, prior to this field excursion, I had appreciated fish as theoretically pleasant creatures. Now I desperately want to take ichthyology courses so I can handle more of them. I can’t begin to describe what fantastic and beautiful pieces of engineering these things are. For example, the Salmo trutta (May their tribe decrease!) secrete mucus which makes handling them, or presumably eating them, much more difficult. I personally dropped the same brown trout at least five times while trying to pose for a photo. Michelle got a better picture with it just because I had stunned it already. I was also sort of secretly hoping that one of the larger fish might spontaneously die so that I could dismantle it but that in no way changed how I treated them.

We swept each stretch of creek twice: the first time was to catch as many fish as possible so that the second sweep would yield no more than 40% of the first catch. By doing so, we made the statistical witchcraft that estimates the total population more accurate. It meant a lot of work though. We caught several hundred on the first pass at one site. Luckily, doing a proper job the first pass makes the second a breeze.

The data that we gathered was some of the first for this particular system, so more will be gathered in the next few years as the monitoring continues. There’s some talk of (Euphemism alert!) “removing” the brown trout seeing as they’re an unwelcome species from Europe imported for sport fishing. The hope is to introduce trout endemic to Utah and restore the stream to its former native glory. Until then, most of the focus is on adjusting grazing schedules to repair the riparian communities along the banks. Having seen photos of what this stream looked like a few years ago, I’m proud of my field office’s handling of the situation.

Nelson Stauffer, BLM Cedar City Field Office, Over and out.

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