My time with SPAWN is coming to a close. I'm about to hit month 10 of the 11 month internship and August 31st is coming up quickly.
This means that I'm constantly hearing "So what are you doing next?"
The answer: I don't know.
A second year of AmeriCorps at the other site, IFR, is still up in the air. Funding issues (?) caused there to be a question of whether or not the site would exist, and while we were initially told that we'd know the answer to that question in early June, we still don't.
I'm not particularly excited about this mystery. Yesterday I heard a rumor that the start date for a second term would begin in January, so if I decided to apply for it, I've possibly got 4 months of unemployment to look forward to before it begins.
Rather than sit on my hands and wait, I've decided to apply for other jobs in the Bay Area. In doing so (and really throughout this internship), I've been trying evaluate what I'm really good at and what I want to do. I still don't think I necessarily have to decide this for the rest of my life, but at least it should help me shape what part of myself I want to explore and develop next.
Send job postings this way!
Thursday, June 28, 2007
Wednesday, May 30, 2007
Whoa, 2 entries in 1 week.
Heidi and I watered and mulched some plants we put in a couple months ago along Arroyo Creek, about a half mile up the road from my house.
We parked, and I noticed a turkey on the lawn, behind the cars, at the house we were at. It's not really unusual to see wild turkeys around here. Just a couple weeks ago while driving to the same place there were two walking alongside the road. I jumped out of Heidi's car and tried to chase them down (it was near the end of the month and my food stamps were running out). They out ran me.
Anyway, we sneak up and there's one male presenting - feathers all up, puffing out his chest, he looks huge - and there are 5 females hanging out around him. His little posse. About 20 feet further there's a young buck standing on his hind legs to get above a tree protector to nibble on the sweet shoots or buds of the tree.
I love my job.
We parked, and I noticed a turkey on the lawn, behind the cars, at the house we were at. It's not really unusual to see wild turkeys around here. Just a couple weeks ago while driving to the same place there were two walking alongside the road. I jumped out of Heidi's car and tried to chase them down (it was near the end of the month and my food stamps were running out). They out ran me.
Anyway, we sneak up and there's one male presenting - feathers all up, puffing out his chest, he looks huge - and there are 5 females hanging out around him. His little posse. About 20 feet further there's a young buck standing on his hind legs to get above a tree protector to nibble on the sweet shoots or buds of the tree.
I love my job.
Monday, May 28, 2007
May 2007
Wow, a long time since I updated… so I’ll try to keep this to exciting new things.
Disclaimer: My camera was running out of batteries, so some of these pictures were taken with my cameraphone.... which I have yet to master. More photos can be found on flickr.
On the drive home, Kristin, Heidi and I decided to stop at those giant redwoods we drove through on the way to Petrolia. Coincidentally, this is where Creek Days was held two weeks later (read on).
Matt the sustainability pirate.
------------
Disclaimer: My camera was running out of batteries, so some of these pictures were taken with my cameraphone.... which I have yet to master. More photos can be found on flickr.
Two weeks ago I spent the week up in Petrolia for AmeriCorps spring training.
About 53 of us AmeriCorps Watershed Steward Project interns gathered in the Mattole Watershed, near the lost coast, for “career building” and other get-together stuff. It was fun – it’s super rural there. Only ~40 miles from Fortuna and Eureka (fairly large towns in Northern California), it takes around 2 hours to get there because the road is windy, tight, and full of blind curves. You also get to drive through the (largest?) oldest stand of old growth redwoods in
Mattole Salmon Group's screw trap for smolt trapping -
go to March 22nd entry to read about SPAWN's
smolt trapping project.
go to March 22nd entry to read about SPAWN's
smolt trapping project.
Measuring chinook, steelhead, and the occasional coho
caught in the Mattole Salmon Group's screw trap.
caught in the Mattole Salmon Group's screw trap.
WSP members climbing a large in-stream structure installed
by the Mattole Restoration Council made of woody debris and rocks,
put in to decrease erosion, create pools and habitat for salmon.
by the Mattole Restoration Council made of woody debris and rocks,
put in to decrease erosion, create pools and habitat for salmon.
The mouth of the Mattole River.
This smelly dog that decided to hang around during training.
Eventually his owner showed up to bring him home. Picture
by Bob Atwood.
On the drive home, Kristin, Heidi and I decided to stop at those giant redwoods we drove through on the way to Petrolia. Coincidentally, this is where Creek Days was held two weeks later (read on).
----------------
After a week back at SPAWN, I went back up to those old growth redwoods to camp and work at an outdoor environmental education fair, Creek Days, organized by our education team leader, Karen.
My first night getting to the campground and there are only a handful of us there. Karen, who has been there since the day before, tells us how the park ranger saw a black bear cub down the road (5 miles) at the site where we were having our education event and it was the youngest she had ever seen alone before and was NOT afraid of humans. Usually with black bears, you make a lot of noise and act really big and they take off. They want berries and trash, not people. Karen also tells us that she went to the bathroom mid-dinner prep the day before and returned to find claw marks in her boxes of food... and of course there's recent bear scat ~30 feet from the outdoor kitchen set up.
*I want to insert here that I am unable to sleep through the night, almost any night. I usually wake up 1-2 times to pee. Also, there are flush toilets at our campground but they are a ~3-4 minute walk, making a pee break 10+ minutes. And it's cold at night.*
Needless to say, I spent a large part of the first night (Sunday) composing a fan letter in my head to Stephen Colbert about how I now agree with him that bears are the #1 threat to America.
Tuesday night I wake up around 1 am needing to pee, of course, and I can hear something in the kitchen. It sounds like something rooting around.
I'm freaking out. I'm so goddamned sure it's a bear, and now that I'm worried I'm unable to make myself sleep. I have to pee more. So once I hear the last noise, I give it 30 minutes, then pop out of my tent, clapping a little and scanning with my headlamp to see if anything's out there, and just pee right outside the tent.
Phew, safe!
Wednesday, my coworker Tambra caught me on my way to the shower and asked if I wanted to drive her to Arcata and sleep on her couch - no bear, free shower, food, plus internet and cell phone charging! HELL YEAH! NO BEARS!
*Also, it turns out it was probably a raven or raccoon I heard, not a bear. No damage was done, though a wooden spoon was missing.*
So Friday was our last day of kids at Creek Days and there are only 3 groups (instead of 11 or 12). I have one with 10 3rd graders and 6 adults (parents, teacher). We go to our first booth, stop and chat, then walk a bit and I stop to talk to them about redwood tree rings and tree structure. Another AmeriCorps WSP-er, Jen, down the trail is looking at me as I'm trying to get the kids to quiet down etc and giving me the weirdest look... Either she looked behind me or the kids saw it first, but I turned around and behind me, a bit above my head, is a black bear cub. Maybe 5 or 6 feet away from my head.
Holy shit... I just freeze - this is the one that the park ranger contemplated putting down because of the potential danger it was to humans. I look at Jen, she starts clapping and shouting at the bear, and I just start trying to herd my kids back down the trail. Of course, all the parents have to stop and take pictures, and I just want these kids to keep moving.
I'd never seen a bear in the wild before. It was pretty awesome, especially being so close. The whole rest of the day I kept trying to contain questions to what we were learning about and NOT the bear ("I thought it was fake or a trained bear that you guys put there..." I must've heard that from one 3rd grader 40 times), but as soon as the kids were back on the bus, my excitement was boiling over and all I could talk about was the bear.
Hopefully one of the parents will send me a picture, because I didn't take the time to get my camera out.
Other pictures from Creek Days (I'm a poor photographer so most of them didn't turn out well):
Sharah has the kids smell a fish carcass
The work days ended fairly early (3 pm) so we entertained
ourselves with games including nails, a hammer, a stump, and beer.
Cheers.
Tambra takes a swing.
Kids doing some macroinvertebrate sampling.
Matt the sustainability pirate.The day after I returned from Creek Days I started a second job. I’m working at a catering company based out of the
I’ve been thinking a lot about after August when my internship ends. I would really like to do a second term at IFR, but there is some question as to whether or not that will continue to be a site. Well, that’s not really putting it right – the AmeriCorps Watershed Stewards Project has undergone some budget cuts and that means that some positions will be cut next year. That will include some positions at sites with more than 2 members and will also probably include some sites in their entirety. One of the things that the board that makes the decision will look at is how much “Watershed Assessment” time is logged at each site. IFR is all policy – watershed assessment generally refers to time spent in the field. So it’s a safe assumption that IFR is in danger, though is has been a site for 13 years, since WSP’s inception, so that should give it some gravitas, as it were.
WSP will know about IFR’s status in a couple weeks and at that point I’ll start applying or I’ll start a massive job search. I’d like to stay in at least the Bay Area, preferably moving to the city. It takes a while to establish roots and meaningful friendships in a new area, and I’ve just gotten that. I don’t want to give it all up so fast. However, I do want to have housing, etc, so I plan on looking back in
We’ll see what happens.
A bear! I saw a black bear cub!Thursday, April 19, 2007
Photos
I created a flickr account and have uploaded the majority of my California photos and a smattering of photos from before that.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/nataliehg/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/nataliehg/
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
Spawning a Trout
On Thursday I went to a fish hatchery to participate in Steelhead spawning.
When steelhead trout and salmon are born, they are imprinted with the smell of their home stream. So when they're out in the ocean deciding to come back to the freshwater streams to spawn, it's the smell of that stream that guides them and results in them spawning in the exact stream they are born.
So the Warm Springs Hatchery is at the head of Dry Creek (or at least, right before it's dammed off to create a lake or reservoir) and all these trout, imprinted with the smell, are just waiting to get inside, not realizing that they will herded into pools and then spawned by CA Dept of fish and game employees.
It all went down like this:
We all put on waders, rain jackets, and gloves even though we're working inside. About 150 fish are waiting in this channel, and a button is pressed and a gate starts moving from one end of the channel to our end, herding the fish into a much much smaller space, maybe 8x8? Basically, about 30 fish at a time are herded into a basket filled with water and CO2, which makes them slower. Relatively.
After about 25 or so fish have fallen into the basket, the elevator drops and the gate moves back - the fish can swim the whole channel again. Meanwhile, the trapped fish are slowly being doped, becoming more passive by the second (relatively more passive). After 4 or 5 minutes, the basket raises and dumps the fish into a counter top, where I (and two DFG employees) sort them into male and female. 3 ready females go into one bin, with more CO2'd water, and then about 7 males into the one next to it (also with spiked with CO2). The rest of the fish go down a hatch into a pool (not the channel).
Doped up or not, the fish are thrashing around wildly, and pretty big at that - 18 to 36 inches, I would guess. Big and thrashing while you're trying to sex them and grab them... Mostly I stood there trying to keep them from jumping off the table or from smacking me. My face was soaked, quickly. So were my sleeves under the raincoat. Thank god for waders and a heavy rain coat (mostly).
Anyway, so, now we have 3 females, getting more doped (again, relatively) and 7ish males. First we deal with the gals. Grab one, hold in this weird way, while another person sticks a needle in her belly, depressing it and releasing air into the belly so the orange eggs spew into a cloth-lined colander. Then the female goes into another bin where the water isn't spiked so they can recover.
I tried to hold a female like this, so that someone could get eggs out. She trashed. Too much. I dropped her. Visitors (parents with kids on spring break) were standing on a balcony above, watching, much to my embarrassment. Awesome. 36 inch female steelhead trout flapping and flipping and flopping all over the floor.
On to the males (this I could do successfully, probably because they were drugged much longer). I grabbed the guy, fin in right hand, resting his head on my left hip, running my left hand along his belly so the milt (sperm) spew out onto the washed eggs.
Then the males went down the hatch, into the pool, where the other, unused fish, went.
Back to the females. So the females' bellies are full of air and they're swimming upside down while they're recovering. They need to be grabbed, held upside down and rubbed on the belly so the air comes out, then carried over to the hatch and down they go.
But, of course, they're recovering from being drugged.
Yeah, I dropped one of these too. Embarrassing, again.
We repeated the whole thing until all 150 fish had been gone through and were back in the pool.
Once all the fish are out of the channel, thrown down the hatch, and into the holding pool, we moved them back into the channel, drug them, and then the head lady counts males and females and we move them into a truck with a water tank on the back. One of the DFG guys and I drove to the Russian River, well upstream of the Dry Creek mouth so they wouldn't get respawned that year to release them. We backed the truck up to the side of the river (we're about 20 feet above the water), attached a big metal tube to the back, then opened it up - fish went flying into the river - really - just this stream of water and fish shooting into the river.
Pretty awesome.
I have no pictures, get over it.
-------------------
The weekend before was Easter weekend, Heidi and I went to the Bring Your Own Big Wheel race down Lombard St.
A really far away picture of Lombard St.
The race was down the really curvy part.
My friend Zack was racing, if you can call it that. It was a lot of people crashing into each other, into walls, it was hilarious and awesome.
When steelhead trout and salmon are born, they are imprinted with the smell of their home stream. So when they're out in the ocean deciding to come back to the freshwater streams to spawn, it's the smell of that stream that guides them and results in them spawning in the exact stream they are born.
So the Warm Springs Hatchery is at the head of Dry Creek (or at least, right before it's dammed off to create a lake or reservoir) and all these trout, imprinted with the smell, are just waiting to get inside, not realizing that they will herded into pools and then spawned by CA Dept of fish and game employees.
It all went down like this:
We all put on waders, rain jackets, and gloves even though we're working inside. About 150 fish are waiting in this channel, and a button is pressed and a gate starts moving from one end of the channel to our end, herding the fish into a much much smaller space, maybe 8x8? Basically, about 30 fish at a time are herded into a basket filled with water and CO2, which makes them slower. Relatively.
After about 25 or so fish have fallen into the basket, the elevator drops and the gate moves back - the fish can swim the whole channel again. Meanwhile, the trapped fish are slowly being doped, becoming more passive by the second (relatively more passive). After 4 or 5 minutes, the basket raises and dumps the fish into a counter top, where I (and two DFG employees) sort them into male and female. 3 ready females go into one bin, with more CO2'd water, and then about 7 males into the one next to it (also with spiked with CO2). The rest of the fish go down a hatch into a pool (not the channel).
Doped up or not, the fish are thrashing around wildly, and pretty big at that - 18 to 36 inches, I would guess. Big and thrashing while you're trying to sex them and grab them... Mostly I stood there trying to keep them from jumping off the table or from smacking me. My face was soaked, quickly. So were my sleeves under the raincoat. Thank god for waders and a heavy rain coat (mostly).
Anyway, so, now we have 3 females, getting more doped (again, relatively) and 7ish males. First we deal with the gals. Grab one, hold in this weird way, while another person sticks a needle in her belly, depressing it and releasing air into the belly so the orange eggs spew into a cloth-lined colander. Then the female goes into another bin where the water isn't spiked so they can recover.
I tried to hold a female like this, so that someone could get eggs out. She trashed. Too much. I dropped her. Visitors (parents with kids on spring break) were standing on a balcony above, watching, much to my embarrassment. Awesome. 36 inch female steelhead trout flapping and flipping and flopping all over the floor.
On to the males (this I could do successfully, probably because they were drugged much longer). I grabbed the guy, fin in right hand, resting his head on my left hip, running my left hand along his belly so the milt (sperm) spew out onto the washed eggs.
Then the males went down the hatch, into the pool, where the other, unused fish, went.
Back to the females. So the females' bellies are full of air and they're swimming upside down while they're recovering. They need to be grabbed, held upside down and rubbed on the belly so the air comes out, then carried over to the hatch and down they go.
But, of course, they're recovering from being drugged.
Yeah, I dropped one of these too. Embarrassing, again.
We repeated the whole thing until all 150 fish had been gone through and were back in the pool.
Once all the fish are out of the channel, thrown down the hatch, and into the holding pool, we moved them back into the channel, drug them, and then the head lady counts males and females and we move them into a truck with a water tank on the back. One of the DFG guys and I drove to the Russian River, well upstream of the Dry Creek mouth so they wouldn't get respawned that year to release them. We backed the truck up to the side of the river (we're about 20 feet above the water), attached a big metal tube to the back, then opened it up - fish went flying into the river - really - just this stream of water and fish shooting into the river.
Pretty awesome.
I have no pictures, get over it.
-------------------
The weekend before was Easter weekend, Heidi and I went to the Bring Your Own Big Wheel race down Lombard St.
A really far away picture of Lombard St. The race was down the really curvy part.
My friend Zack was racing, if you can call it that. It was a lot of people crashing into each other, into walls, it was hilarious and awesome.
This video was stolen from Tony Chang (Zack's roommate - was in grad school at UIUC while I was there, we met on the bus to the March for Women's Lives).
The end, for now.
The end, for now.
Wednesday, April 04, 2007
Tide Pooling and Bike Riding
These past few days have been fantastic - probably some of my favorite times here thus far. A lot of it has to do with becoming better friends with people, even those I haven't known very long.
Saturday was Cesar Chavez day and AmeriCorps WSP required us to volunteer for at least 4 hours. Heidi and I decided to host a nursery day in SPAWN's native plant nursery and invite other semi-local AmeriCorps WSP members. So the John and Brock at the Dept Fish and Game in Hopland (about 1.5 hours north) and Nate from Institute for Fisheries Resources in SF (the place I want to be next year) visited and a ton of seeds got planted. Hundreds.
After the nursery day, the guys and I went tide-pooling on Tomales Point. 20 miles away!! Who knew you could do that so close to where I live? The red circle is where we went, the green is where I live.
I saw (and touched) starfish, crabs, sea anenomes, mussel beds, some weird cockroach-y thing, and a sea urchin (I didn't touch that one). It was absolutely amazing. Our trailhead was actually in the Tule Elk Refuge and the elk were hanging out at the parking lot on our way back to my house.
Brock, John, and I accidentally got our feet wet at one point, as we were staring at starfish, assuming we were out of wet-foot danger but then the water crept up and BAM! I screamed, we all jumped back, Nate up the rocks immediately above us but Brock and John and I were not so quick.
Shells!!
This tiny guy had a funky shaped shell with this crazy curve in it.
John with a crab
Brock
Nate
Sea Anenome! The fingery things feel really, really weird. We fed the crab to a different anenome.
John and Me, looking down on the ocean and crashing waves.
Me, Nate, John... rock scrambling.
It was amazing.
I want to do it again.
---------------------
On Monday I went to San Francisco and went to a seder with Zack, who also went to U of I for a little while. Zack lives with Tony, who I met at U of I while he was in grad school. Anyway, I took Tuesday off of work, slept on their couch, and borrowed Tony's bike to take advantage of the free admission at SF's Museum of Modern Art.
I'd never ridden a bike in a big city before and I was a little nervous - I'm not really the most excited motorist when it comes to passing someone on a bike, even if they're in the bike lane. But it's really not as frightening being on the bicycle side of it. I didn't die, get hit, or get in any kind of trouble (except I walked so much my foot really hurt).
It was actually really difficult being at the museum. I spent an hour beforehand waiting for it to open by window shopping and the weather was absolutely beautiful. Once I got back to MOMA I felt, firstly, really tired, secondly, somewhat lonely, but third and most of all, cooped up. I wanted to get back outside and back on the bike.
So I left. Eventually I made it back to return the bike and home before crazy traffic.
Saturday was Cesar Chavez day and AmeriCorps WSP required us to volunteer for at least 4 hours. Heidi and I decided to host a nursery day in SPAWN's native plant nursery and invite other semi-local AmeriCorps WSP members. So the John and Brock at the Dept Fish and Game in Hopland (about 1.5 hours north) and Nate from Institute for Fisheries Resources in SF (the place I want to be next year) visited and a ton of seeds got planted. Hundreds.
After the nursery day, the guys and I went tide-pooling on Tomales Point. 20 miles away!! Who knew you could do that so close to where I live? The red circle is where we went, the green is where I live.
I saw (and touched) starfish, crabs, sea anenomes, mussel beds, some weird cockroach-y thing, and a sea urchin (I didn't touch that one). It was absolutely amazing. Our trailhead was actually in the Tule Elk Refuge and the elk were hanging out at the parking lot on our way back to my house.
Brock, John, and I accidentally got our feet wet at one point, as we were staring at starfish, assuming we were out of wet-foot danger but then the water crept up and BAM! I screamed, we all jumped back, Nate up the rocks immediately above us but Brock and John and I were not so quick.
Shells!!
This tiny guy had a funky shaped shell with this crazy curve in it.
John with a crab
Brock
Nate
Sea Anenome! The fingery things feel really, really weird. We fed the crab to a different anenome.
John and Me, looking down on the ocean and crashing waves.
Me, Nate, John... rock scrambling.I want to do it again.
---------------------
On Monday I went to San Francisco and went to a seder with Zack, who also went to U of I for a little while. Zack lives with Tony, who I met at U of I while he was in grad school. Anyway, I took Tuesday off of work, slept on their couch, and borrowed Tony's bike to take advantage of the free admission at SF's Museum of Modern Art.
I'd never ridden a bike in a big city before and I was a little nervous - I'm not really the most excited motorist when it comes to passing someone on a bike, even if they're in the bike lane. But it's really not as frightening being on the bicycle side of it. I didn't die, get hit, or get in any kind of trouble (except I walked so much my foot really hurt).
It was actually really difficult being at the museum. I spent an hour beforehand waiting for it to open by window shopping and the weather was absolutely beautiful. Once I got back to MOMA I felt, firstly, really tired, secondly, somewhat lonely, but third and most of all, cooped up. I wanted to get back outside and back on the bike.
So I left. Eventually I made it back to return the bike and home before crazy traffic.
Thursday, March 22, 2007
pictures will appear... someday.
I'm so bad at posting on here.
I went to spring training and it was fantastic. Sitting in the sun all day watching baseball... what can be better? I'm going to create a flickr account and post some photos, eventually. Maybe this weekend.
Immediately after driving back from Phoenix (with a night spent on a couch in Santa Barbara, thank you Anthony), I left for a conference about an hour north of home, in Santa Rosa, CA. The conference was the Salmonid Restoration Federation, full of presentations and lectures about salmon and, well, restoration focused on salmon-bearing creeks. I did work trade in the kitchen to go for free (and AmeriCorps paid the rest).
Now that I've returned to SPAWN from vacation and conferences, a new, big project has begun: Downstream Migrant Trapping.
In the life cycle of the coho salmon (and the steelhead trout), the eggs are laid and a year and a half later the juveniles (smolts) migrate downstream to the ocean, where they'll live for a year or two (or more, if they're steelhead) before heading back to the creek to spawn. They actually migrate at night, facing upstream. Meaning they're floating to the ocean facing backwards in the dark... smart move.
We have a trap in San Geronimo Creek set to trap migrating smolts (and anything else that gets caught there, including newly hatched salmon/trout fry). We mark the smolts and from the recapture percentages we can estimate population. Each morning the trap needs to be checked, and while I'm not there every single day, it's a lot of them. I know it's significantly warmer here than it is in Illinois, but the stream at 8 or 9 AM is COLD. I thought my hands were going to fall off this morning! So did Paola, so I know it's not just me being a wimp. The sun doesn't hit the spot we do the data collection at until around 10:30 or so, and half the time we're out of there before that happens.
In the morning we arrive (8 AM if I'm with Todd, 9 AM if I'm with Paola) and fish everything out of the trap - smolts and larger fish in one bucket, fry and smaller fish in another. We dope the smolts with an organic sedative (clove oil), measure, weigh, identify, and clip their tails. We measure 25 fry of each species and all of the other species we catch (california roach, stickleback, juvenile lamprey eel, signal crayfish). The other day one of the crayfish we caught had eggs on her underside - that was really neat. We began late last week, getting around 400 fry in the trap. Now that number is down to less than 100, which is interesting.
We've also put a smaller trap in one of the small tributaries (Larsen Creek) that leads to San Geronimo Creek. This is likely not to catch smolts at all, even though it is a salmon-bearing stream. In the summer, the small tributaries often dry up and SPAWN does fish rescue, bringing volunteers out to catch the fry in the drying pools and moving them downstream, away from certain death. These streams are not historically intermittent, so while it's an unsustainable practice, it's a result of development and rescue is really the only option. So there aren't smolts left in Larsen Creek because as fry they were all transferred out or they died.
Instead, that trap is meant to catch fry that might be migrating out of Larsen Creek before the really hot season begins. This will help us figure out what percentage of fish we're rescuing and whether the program is worth it. The trap went in the water yesterday, but there were no fish caught when we checked it today.
------------
SPAWN partnered with the College of Marin to create a display creek/garden for the San Francisco Flower and Garden Show, taking place this week. Tomorrow Heidi and I get to work at the show and finally see the display (we weren't part of the project). I'm excited, though it means I need to get up early again tomorrow (and again, Saturday, for smolt trap checking).
But Sunday, Sunday I will sleep forever.
I went to spring training and it was fantastic. Sitting in the sun all day watching baseball... what can be better? I'm going to create a flickr account and post some photos, eventually. Maybe this weekend.
Immediately after driving back from Phoenix (with a night spent on a couch in Santa Barbara, thank you Anthony), I left for a conference about an hour north of home, in Santa Rosa, CA. The conference was the Salmonid Restoration Federation, full of presentations and lectures about salmon and, well, restoration focused on salmon-bearing creeks. I did work trade in the kitchen to go for free (and AmeriCorps paid the rest).
Now that I've returned to SPAWN from vacation and conferences, a new, big project has begun: Downstream Migrant Trapping.
In the life cycle of the coho salmon (and the steelhead trout), the eggs are laid and a year and a half later the juveniles (smolts) migrate downstream to the ocean, where they'll live for a year or two (or more, if they're steelhead) before heading back to the creek to spawn. They actually migrate at night, facing upstream. Meaning they're floating to the ocean facing backwards in the dark... smart move.
We have a trap in San Geronimo Creek set to trap migrating smolts (and anything else that gets caught there, including newly hatched salmon/trout fry). We mark the smolts and from the recapture percentages we can estimate population. Each morning the trap needs to be checked, and while I'm not there every single day, it's a lot of them. I know it's significantly warmer here than it is in Illinois, but the stream at 8 or 9 AM is COLD. I thought my hands were going to fall off this morning! So did Paola, so I know it's not just me being a wimp. The sun doesn't hit the spot we do the data collection at until around 10:30 or so, and half the time we're out of there before that happens.
In the morning we arrive (8 AM if I'm with Todd, 9 AM if I'm with Paola) and fish everything out of the trap - smolts and larger fish in one bucket, fry and smaller fish in another. We dope the smolts with an organic sedative (clove oil), measure, weigh, identify, and clip their tails. We measure 25 fry of each species and all of the other species we catch (california roach, stickleback, juvenile lamprey eel, signal crayfish). The other day one of the crayfish we caught had eggs on her underside - that was really neat. We began late last week, getting around 400 fry in the trap. Now that number is down to less than 100, which is interesting.
We've also put a smaller trap in one of the small tributaries (Larsen Creek) that leads to San Geronimo Creek. This is likely not to catch smolts at all, even though it is a salmon-bearing stream. In the summer, the small tributaries often dry up and SPAWN does fish rescue, bringing volunteers out to catch the fry in the drying pools and moving them downstream, away from certain death. These streams are not historically intermittent, so while it's an unsustainable practice, it's a result of development and rescue is really the only option. So there aren't smolts left in Larsen Creek because as fry they were all transferred out or they died.
Instead, that trap is meant to catch fry that might be migrating out of Larsen Creek before the really hot season begins. This will help us figure out what percentage of fish we're rescuing and whether the program is worth it. The trap went in the water yesterday, but there were no fish caught when we checked it today.
------------
SPAWN partnered with the College of Marin to create a display creek/garden for the San Francisco Flower and Garden Show, taking place this week. Tomorrow Heidi and I get to work at the show and finally see the display (we weren't part of the project). I'm excited, though it means I need to get up early again tomorrow (and again, Saturday, for smolt trap checking).
But Sunday, Sunday I will sleep forever.
Monday, February 26, 2007
It's hard to find pierogis here.
I'm seriously considering a second term in AmeriCorps. Part of me may be thinking "oohhh... don't have to worry about real jobs for another whole year!" But most of me is thinking about how much the experience could do for me.
If I did another term in the AmeriCorps Watershed Stewards Project, I would absolutely want to stay in the Bay area. I really don't want to go through another big move - making friends can be a pain, especially when you're broke as a joke. If I were to look for a real job, though, I'd prefer to look in, again, the Bay area or back in Chicago. I have friends in both places (I feel like I'm actually now starting to really develop more than superficial friendships here, and it would be annoying and difficult to just drop those), I know Chicago and I'm getting to know Marin and SF.
Basically, that boils it down to another year at SPAWN (which I love, and is perfect) or at IFR, the Institute for Fisheries Resources. IFR is a non-profit in San Francisco that is entirely entrenched in policy. Little to no outreach or field work. I'm really interested in finding out if I am interested in policy. Did that make sense?
I think policy is neat and I'd like to learn more about it. But I don't know if I'm really interested in policy for a career. I took the LSAT a couple years ago; obviously I've had some interest in environmental law at one time or another.
So, yeah, I've been considering IFR. This past wednesday I visited the AmeriCorps WSP interns there to check it out, see what they did, where they worked, etc. None of their mentors were there, unfortunately, so I did not meet anyone except the part time accountant. (I stopped and ate pastry at the Headlands on the way, that was fantastic).
We went to a salmon fisheries meeting with the department of fish and game (DFG). Mainly, the point of the meeting was for DFG to present last year's catch numbers to salmon fishermen, suggest ideas for next year, and get public comment and input from the fishermen so that they could better make up the allowed catch etc for this upcoming season. Tensions were high. CRAZY high. Commercial fishermen were pissed off about last season and this season, in part because last year, after all these meetings and an eventual DFG decision, at the 11th hour the governor-appointed commission decided to scrap the whole season. So their anger, paranoia, and distrust in the government has a very clear foundation.
Luckily, not all IFR days are spent at meetings that stressful or annoying (a lot of people being mad), because if it were, I'd say "HELL NO" to policy. I'm still undecided, though definitely more interested.
--------------------------
In other news... I leave for Arizona on Wednesday! I'm going to Cubs' Spring Training! (and I'm going to see Kerry and Vince!)
If I did another term in the AmeriCorps Watershed Stewards Project, I would absolutely want to stay in the Bay area. I really don't want to go through another big move - making friends can be a pain, especially when you're broke as a joke. If I were to look for a real job, though, I'd prefer to look in, again, the Bay area or back in Chicago. I have friends in both places (I feel like I'm actually now starting to really develop more than superficial friendships here, and it would be annoying and difficult to just drop those), I know Chicago and I'm getting to know Marin and SF.
Basically, that boils it down to another year at SPAWN (which I love, and is perfect) or at IFR, the Institute for Fisheries Resources. IFR is a non-profit in San Francisco that is entirely entrenched in policy. Little to no outreach or field work. I'm really interested in finding out if I am interested in policy. Did that make sense?
I think policy is neat and I'd like to learn more about it. But I don't know if I'm really interested in policy for a career. I took the LSAT a couple years ago; obviously I've had some interest in environmental law at one time or another.
So, yeah, I've been considering IFR. This past wednesday I visited the AmeriCorps WSP interns there to check it out, see what they did, where they worked, etc. None of their mentors were there, unfortunately, so I did not meet anyone except the part time accountant. (I stopped and ate pastry at the Headlands on the way, that was fantastic).
We went to a salmon fisheries meeting with the department of fish and game (DFG). Mainly, the point of the meeting was for DFG to present last year's catch numbers to salmon fishermen, suggest ideas for next year, and get public comment and input from the fishermen so that they could better make up the allowed catch etc for this upcoming season. Tensions were high. CRAZY high. Commercial fishermen were pissed off about last season and this season, in part because last year, after all these meetings and an eventual DFG decision, at the 11th hour the governor-appointed commission decided to scrap the whole season. So their anger, paranoia, and distrust in the government has a very clear foundation.
Luckily, not all IFR days are spent at meetings that stressful or annoying (a lot of people being mad), because if it were, I'd say "HELL NO" to policy. I'm still undecided, though definitely more interested.
--------------------------
In other news... I leave for Arizona on Wednesday! I'm going to Cubs' Spring Training! (and I'm going to see Kerry and Vince!)
Tuesday, February 20, 2007
del.icio.us
If you're on it already, add me into your network:
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Real updates coming soon!
http://del.icio.us/NatalieHG
Real updates coming soon!
Wednesday, February 14, 2007
As promised:
Photos from Alcatraz! Just as a heads up, they give you a free audio tour, so some of the pictures show people with headphones on. The pictures show Heidi (my field partner), James (her friend from St. Louis), and a very dork-tastic Me.
James and Heidi on the Larkspur Ferry (to San Francisco).
San Quentin: maximum security prison, right here in San Rafael!
....maybe Heidi's future home? No, just kidding.
She's totally straight.
Just in case there weren't tickets left for Alcatraz,
I took a picture from the Larkspur Ferry.
Prisoner intake! (bye Heidi)
James takes a shower. Like, a jailhouse shower.
At a cellular level.
haha.
Heidi examines her future home. I mean, a jail cell.
Recreation yard! Where you can do ... things.
The view from the rec yard - the Golden Gate
bridge is in the background.
I look too happy to be in jail.
Heidi looks a little mad. More appropriate
for her future home... I mean, jail.
View of the city from Alcatraz.
I like that you can see the roads.
Chatting on the phone with one of my jailhouse visitors.
A certain cell block name bears a resemblance
to a certain Chicago street.
I have no clever commentary for this picture.
They paint black where the knives are supposed
to go so it's easy to tell if one is missing.
They went missing anyway.
Guard apartments? I think... I can't really remember.
The windiest road ever... but really far away.
We stumbled upon this view on accident while
walking to Chinatown from the Alcatraz ferry.
Heidi and James on the ferry back to Larkspur
(and the rest of the North Bay).
Angel and... idiot*?
The End.
*He's not really an idiot
James and Heidi on the Larkspur Ferry (to San Francisco).It rained and misted almost all day.
San Quentin: maximum security prison, right here in San Rafael!
....maybe Heidi's future home? No, just kidding.She's totally straight.
Just in case there weren't tickets left for Alcatraz,I took a picture from the Larkspur Ferry.
Prisoner intake! (bye Heidi)
James takes a shower. Like, a jailhouse shower.
At a cellular level.haha.
Heidi examines her future home. I mean, a jail cell.
Recreation yard! Where you can do ... things.
The view from the rec yard - the Golden Gatebridge is in the background.
I look too happy to be in jail.
Heidi looks a little mad. More appropriatefor her future home... I mean, jail.
View of the city from Alcatraz.
I like that you can see the roads.
Chatting on the phone with one of my jailhouse visitors.
A certain cell block name bears a resemblanceto a certain Chicago street.
I have no clever commentary for this picture.
They paint black where the knives are supposedto go so it's easy to tell if one is missing.
They went missing anyway.
Guard apartments? I think... I can't really remember.
The windiest road ever... but really far away.We stumbled upon this view on accident while
walking to Chinatown from the Alcatraz ferry.
Heidi and James on the ferry back to Larkspur(and the rest of the North Bay).
Angel and... idiot*?*He's not really an idiot
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