Draft plan to protect coho outlines multiple options
February 16, 2012 Mark Freeman Mail Tribune
Improving side-channel habitat, curbing the urban influences on water quality and getting more beaver dams are all identified as steps for helping wild coho salmon reverse their trend toward extinction in the upper Rogue River Basin.
Ahh now that’s music to my ears! Mind you this is from the state where beavers are still classified as a predator on private lands so they can be killed without a paperwork burden. Well, let’s just say the state’s attitude towards beavers represents some ambivalence and conflict – although not as much nefarious conflict as California.
The plan states that upper Rogue wild coho face a moderate risk of extinction, with rearing habitat for juvenile coho as the biggest single obstacle for recovery in the upper Rogue.
Coho need cool, clean water outside of streams’ main channels to survive and thrive during their 14 months rearing in fresh water before they migrate to the ocean, the draft states.
Improving rearing habitat can be as simple as increasing the numbers of beavers whose construction efforts have proven to create excellent rearing habitat, according to the plan. They can also be as expensive as the multi-million-dollar WISE project meant to make irrigation water delivery more efficient in the Bear Creek and Little Butte Creek basins while adding more water to coho streams suffering from a lack of water in the fall.
The best way this has been described to me was by Michael Pollock while we were driving to Occidental. He said aptly that Coho need time to grow up so that “They fit in fewer mouths and more things fit in THEIR mouths on the way out to sea.” Now that’s an explanation that makes sense and could be right out of harvard business school!
Champagne and cigars all around! Now that’s a beaver promotion to be proud of! Of course all the usual folk wrote letters to the paper saying ACK beavers are RODENTS and cause problems that can’t possibly be solved with our limited brain cells! But if you’d like to add your voice to the argument go here and explain what smart solutions look like.
Tomorrow’s podcast will feature Mary O’brien of the Grand Canyon Trust. Wait until you hear what she has to say about ‘beaver ghost towns’.
