The salmon of the Northwest are the stuff of legends.
Pioneers talked of rivers so thick that they were tempted to cross on the backs of the fish. When Meriwether Lewis led his band of explorers through the Northwest in 1805, he marveled in his journal of “almost inconceivable” numbers of salmon.
Salmon were once plentiful, but that was yesteryear. Now salmon abundance is a different story entirely. It is common knowledge that many of the Pacific Northwest salmon stocks are endangered due a variety of human caused sources including climate change, loss of habitat along spawning streams, ocean warming and acidification, pollution and over-fishing.
Related and equally distressing is that our local resident Orca population is also endangered due to many of these same factors as well as the lack of salmon which are their main source of nutrition. Human actions despoiling our waters are felt throughout the food chain.
I have reported before on a number of our local efforts at restoring salmon habitat in the hopes that every little bit helps sustain what we have left. (I have noted a number of previous buckets at the end of this post for those interested.)
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On St. Patrick’s Day, my son, my granddaughter and I joined a work party to continue our efforts to restore riparian habitat along one of our local salmon spawning waterways. In this instance we worked along the South Fork of the Nooksack River.
The Mt. Baker Wilderness Area and its surrounding territory creates the watershed for the Nooksack River system with its three branches that eventually converge before emptying into Bellingham Bay at the edge of the Salish Sea.
As you can see from the map, the south Fork is fed by snow melt from Mt. Baker and the Twin Sisters to the west. These icy clear and once pristine waters are prime spawning and rearing grounds for most of the salmonids that inhabit the PNW.
On our way to the work site, we were treated to a view of Mt. Baker (AKA, Koma Kulshan from the Nooksack Indians), that reminded us that it is the second most active volcano in the Cascade chain. And without it reaching its 10, 871 feet, we would not have the snow melt for the streams that nourish the salmon. From the mountain to the waters, to the salmon to the Orca, we are all one big interdependent family up here.
The work party was sponsored jointly by two local groups dedicated to maintaining our region and attempting to restore it to its former natural state. The land along the river that we worked on is owned by the Whatcom Land Trust that works to secure, restore, conserve and preserve land in our county.
The second sponsoring group was the Nooksack Salmon Enhancement Association (NSEA) whose mission is to enhance and preserve the rivers, creeks, and their riparian habitats to facilitate salmon recovery.
The day’s goal of our work party was to plant 300 trees and shrubs along the banks of the South Fork of the Nooksack River. Returning native vegetation to the riparian habitat along the river is critical to facilitate conditions for the salmon to spawn, incubate, hatch, and grow there. These salmon need a variety of conditions to thrive such as the water being clear, cold, clean and continuously flowing.
Restoring the native vegetation contributes to creating these conditions by providing shade to cool the water and to secure the river banks from rapid erosion which muddies the water and warms it. It also contributes to a healthy habitat for the many Macroinvertebrates that the fish feed on.
As noted above our task was to plant 300 native trees and bushes. We planted Big Leaf Maples, Western Red Cedar, Douglass Fir, along with some appropriately named native bushes such as Salmon Berry. These seedlings were all provided from the nursery operated by the NSEA.
On arrival at the meeting and registration site, we were bused out to the riverside property where we were given a “shovel safety lesson” before choosing our tools and marching across the field to the river bank. Reaching the river bank we saw the 300 pots of plants already distributed around where the crew wanted them planted. We just had to dig holes.
A number of local businesses donated refreshments for the work crew of about 40 people and since it was St. Patrick’s Day the Baglery supplied some green bagels. Starbucks provided the coffee and bakery treats.
It was a beautiful day that drew a great crowd of eager volunteers. We had the 300 plants in the ground by about 11:00 and the wire cages on by noon.
All of the trees and bushes needed to be protected from the wildlife. Voles and other rodent-like critters gnaw at the tree bases, thus the blue plastic cylinders. The Western Red Cedars needed wire cages in addition as their tender flat foliage is a favorite of the local elk herds that roam the area during the winter months.
I know other Bucketeers are doing similar volunteer work to restore and preserve your natural environments. Please add your experiences here so we can all share in the good works we are all doing.
If we don’t do it, who will?
"SPOTLIGHT ON GREEN NEWS & VIEWS" IS POSTED EVERY SATURDAY AT 5:00 PM PACIFIC TIME AND WEDNESDAY AT 3:30 ON THE DAILY KOS FRONT PAGE. IT'S A GREAT WAY TO CATCH UP ON DIARIES YOU MIGHT HAVE MISSED. BE SURE TO RECOMMEND AND COMMENT IN THE DIARY.
Some of my previous habitat Restoration Buckets: