Columbia Land Trust

Rhythms

Glenn Lamb's Muse

Geese are in the air, soaring overhead as we busily go about our daily errands. Up in the mountains, pine cones thunk to the ground, released by squirrels getting ready for winter. Within a few weeks, salmon will be returning to spawning beds throughout our homelands, seeking rich gravel beds to pass along their heritage.

At Columbia Land Trust, we pay attention to the seasonal rhythms on thousands of acres of privately conserved lands. Week before last, Stuart Johnson walked our Klickitat – Dillacort Creek lands and met with a black bear grubbing for insects. Further upstream along Logging Camp Creek, isolated pools are alive with steelhead fry, one to five inches long. They welcome the returning rains, which eventually will connect their pools to the river and provide them with the chance to head out to sea. Before we know it, dozens of bald eagles will be perched along riverside trees occasionally launching themselves down for a snack of spawned-out salmon.

We humans have our own rhythms.

One of our octogenarian landowners lives in Portland, caring for her younger sister and maintaining the family affairs. Together with their brother, the three siblings owned their old family farm, valuable habitat along a coastal river in Oregon.

She is still vibrant as ever, but she realizes that the day has come to make sure that her family’s wishes about their land can be realized. Recently her 91 year-old brother died. All three of the siblings loved the environment and animals. “It is a crime if we don’t do everything we can to conserve these salmon, these natural areas that define our northwest way of life,” she says.

All of you – our members – are the reason we are there for this dear landowner and for other landowners in our region who want to conserve their lands. May we be as reliable a force in conserving these great lands as the natural rhythms of land, wildlife and people.

New addition

Fearless triathalon machine, Stuart Johnson, gets his biggest kicks at The Vine Man Iron Man qualifier in Sonoma, California. When he's not running or biking or swimming, or performing controller responsibilities in the office, Stuart can be found eating food prepared for him (he admits he's lazy) or listening to all things guitar, provided they are also melodic. Stuart draws his land conservation enthusiasm from the knowledge that he is contributing to the preservation of today's landscapes.

Volunteer Days

You can be a powerful part of Columbia Land Trust! Our volunteers are credited with contributing hours of effort on restoration, maintenance and research projects in and out of the office, taking our organization (and land) to its fullest potential.

If you have not previously volunteered for Columbia Land Trust, please take a minute to call, email, or register online at www.columbialandtrust.org/volunteer.htm.

VOLUNTEER DAYS CALENDAR

November 15: Forest Inventory on the Wind River
Join Columbia Land Trust for an hour training session on forest monitoring techniques and then help us collect valuable forest inventory data on our Wind River property in Skamania County, WA. Half or full day event, child friendly, dog friendly, transportation available. 

December 20: 2nd Annual Winter Solstice Squirrel Nest Surveys!
If you enjoyed this event last year, or if you weren't able to make it last year, we'd like to invite you to participate in our western gray squirrel nest surveys on Logging Camp Creek, a tributary to the Klickitat River near Lyle, WA. This event is an excellent way to experience oak woodlands and to celebrate the beginning of winter while helping Columbia Land Trust with its stewardship responsibilities! Full day event, transportation available.

To volunteer, or for more details, contact:

Lindsay Cornelius, Stewardship Coordinator
1351 Officers Row
Vancouver, WA 98661
360-696-0131
    or
email: lindsayc@columbialandtrust.org

Intertidal spruce swamps of the Columbia River estuary: A critical link

By Ian Sinks

While struggling through the nearly impenetrable tangle of vegetation on the Grays River in Wahkiakum County recently, the group I was with had the opportunity to ask the question, “Why?” Why is this spruce swamp, with all its tangled disorder of vegetation, fallen trees, and more holes and channels than can be counted, good habitat for the Columbia River estuary and for salmonids? And does restoring this type of habitat help recover declining salmonid populations? The answer really has two parts: The first is that intertidal spruce habitat is an important contributor to the health of the estuary. The second is that the Columbia River estuary is a critical link in the life history of salmonids throughout the entire watershed, juveniles in particular.

On an estuary-wide scale, we know that there have been numerous changes to the landscape since the time of European settlement. Channels and river flows have been altered, towns have grown along the banks, trees and fish have been harvested, and vegetation communities have changed. The ultimate effect of this change is that the estuary is not as healthy as it once was. It is a less productive place for fish, waterfowl, shorebirds and a myriad of other wildlife species that depend on what is arguably one of the most productive ecosystem types anywhere.

One of the most dramatic changes to the estuary environment has been the loss of intertidal swamps and marshes: Over the past 100 years as much as 65% of this habitat type has been diked and drained to convert the land to agricultural and residential uses (see chart below). This habitat loss has been identified as a major modifier to estuary ecosystem functions and process. It has disconnected the river from the floodplain and significantly reduced a number of functions including flood storage capacity, tidal water exchange critical to nutrient cycling, organic material recruitment, habitat access for a large variety of species, and water quality functions. All of these habitat functions are important to at least one class of wildlife: salmonids.

Anadromous salmonids throughout the Columbia River basin, including coho, chum, chinook, steelhead and searun cutthroat trout, all have at least one thing in common: the estuary. Every fish that spawns in a freshwater river system and matures in the ocean environment must come and go through the estuary. But the estuary is much more than just a conduit for fish. There is a growing understanding of how fish utilize the estuarine environment, and how critical this environment is to the completion of their lifecycle. Estuaries provide critical habitat for adult anadromous salmon while they make the physiological transition between salt and freshwater, and for juvenile salmonids it is critical habitat for foraging, physiological transition and refuge.

One of the most critical factors for juvenile salmon survival within the Columbia River estuary is size and nutritional condition. A young fish that has fed and grown well stands a much better chance of making it to the Pacific Ocean, ultimately increasing its odds of returning to spawn. Studies have shown that many of the prey on which salmon feed are dependent on detritus (dead material) for food. In other words, that tangle of mud, plants and wood material found in intertidal areas of the Grays River provide a great source of food for fish in the river, as well as in the estuary.

Within the estuary, fish will move with the tides into different habitats: They ride the incoming tides into marshes and swamps to access feeding areas with abundant cover, and return to larger channels or backwater areas during lower tides. The daily fluctuation of the tides creates a productive dynamic of nutrient, water, and food exchange.

The transition from fresh to saltwater, and visa versa, is one of the more complex and wondrous physiological transitions in nature. All anadromous fish complete this transition twice: once on the outmigration from rearing areas, and again on their return to natal waters to spawn. This transition requires time and an availability of habitats offering a wide range of water salinities. A functional, healthy estuary system composed of diverse habitat and vegetation types, with complex channels and variable flow regimes, provides this for anadromous fish.

A healthy system of complex habitats also provides refuge for rearing and migrating fish. The Columbia River is a dynamic and powerful system capable of heavy flows and its own share of adverse conditions. Like sheltered coves in a storm, backwater areas provide refuge. Fish can make use of a diverse network of habitat areas to find more favorable flow conditions, better water quality, more productive feeding habitat, as well as shelter from predators.

The Columbia Land Trust has identified intertidal/spruce swamp wetlands as a key conservation priority based on its importance to the estuary and to salmon recovery, as well as the opportunity to provide community benefit through conservation and restoration. This priority has led the Land Trust to significant conservation work in the Grays Bay watershed and to emerging projects in the Youngs Bay watershed of Oregon. Working with conservation partners, significant areas of intact and functional spruce wetlands are being permanently protected, and other areas of disturbed historic habitat are being restored. It is the goal of the Land Trust to complete these projects, which total almost 1,000 acres, in a responsible manner. This means working with local communities, establishing clear project objectives, and implementing a monitoring program to demonstrate project success. In the coming years we hope to expand the body of knowledge showing the role this habitat type plays in the ecosystem; for estuary and watershed function, for salmon recovery, for local communities, and for the people who every now and then feel the need to immerse themselves in a rich and productive natural environment.

Source: from Columbia River Estuary Science Taskforce - Changes in Columbia River Estuary Habitat Types (D.Thomas, 1983)

Habitat Type	Definition of Habitat Types
Deep Water	Open water 18 feet and deeper
Medium Depth	Open water between 18 and 6 feet in depth
Shallow Water and Flats	Open water areas above 6 feet in depth to the edge of vegetation or Mean Higher High Water (MHHW) where vegetation is absent
Tidal Marshes	Between MHHW and Mean Lower Low Water (MLLW)
Tidal Swamp	Wetland areas between MLLW and the upper limit of wetland vegetation (approximately 3.7 feet above MLLW)

Save The Date!

Great Lands Great Actions
DINNER and AUCTION

Earth Day
Thursday, April 22, 2004
at 
Red Lion at the Quay 

It will be bigger and better than ever and we are already looking 
for great items to auction off and folks to help organize the event.

Call Terry Cornelius at 360-695-0707 
for more information.

Columbia Land Trust, a private, non-profit organization, was founded in 1990. We're dedicated to conserving signature landscapes and vital habitat together with the communities of the Columbia River region.  Questions, comments, or concerns may be directed to info@columbialandtrust.org

All material on this site, unless otherwise noted, Copyright ©2000-2006, Columbia Land Trust
This page was last updated on May 10, 2004

Site maintained by staff of Columbia Land Trust.