Bowman Creek

The 250-acre Bowman Creek Natural Area in Klickitat County, Washington, is an enchanting oak-pine woodland conserved by Columbia Land Trust in 2010 and home to one of the largest documented concentrations of Washington State–endangered western gray squirrel nests.

For many years, a cadre of hearty volunteers have joined Land Trust staff in the winter to locate, count and classify the nests of these squirrels, which they build more than 25 feet off the ground in ponderosa pine trees. Protecting this rare squirrel habitat is a priority of our management at Bowman Creek.

The site has also benefited from extensive restoration work and land-management treatments over the years. Most recently, we focused on reducing the risk of future catastrophic wildfire through strategic thinning (removing trees from overcrowded forests), and controlled burns to lower the intensity of future wildfires. Together, these treatments improve forest health, restore beneficial fire to a fire-adapted landscape, and lower the likelihood of severe wildfires in the future. The positive impacts of prescribed fire on understory vegetation can be seen relatively quickly when native plants like Arrowleaf balsamroot, Douglas’ cinquefoil, and bracken ferns re-sprout within a few days or weeks following the completion of a prescribed burn, and the understory as a whole is more vibrant the following year. 

Bowman Creek is in the Klickitat River watershed. Our stewardship efforts in this region facilitate the development of mature, open and patchy oak-pine woodland forests that support diverse native plant communities and high-quality wildlife habitat.