Coho salmon (Oncorhynchus kisutch)

Earlier this month the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) released its long awaited draft Southern Oregon/Northern California Coast (SONCC) Coho Recovery Plan. Though we’ve hardly had a chance to penetrate the 1,400-page document, the first meeting is coming right up:

January 31 – Humboldt Area Foundation 5-8:30 p.m. 373 Indianola Rd. (between Arcata and Eureka)

We have asked NMFS to hold future meetings in Arcata or Eureka proper.

We encourage supporters of North Coast salmonids to attend this meeting, or one of the following:

February 1 – Willits
February 2 – Brookings
February 14 – Yreka
February 15 – Medford area (Central Point)

For more information on these meetings contact Julie Weeder at NMFS: 707-825-5168 or julie.weeder@noaa.gov.

The entire Recovery Plan can be viewed here.

As most of you know, Siskiyou Land Conservancy serves five counties in Northwestern California (Humboldt, Del Norte, Mendocino, Trinity and Siskiyou), representing some of the most important remaining Coho habitat in the West. In this region, the best remaining salmonid habitat by far is on the Smith River. In fact, the Smith River is the most pristine watershed its size on the West Coast of the United States.

However, what the Smith River chapter of the Coho Recovery Plan makes clear is that Coho numbers are plummeting on the Smith as well, veering toward extinction. The Recovery Plan lists the Smith River’s Coho salmon population as a “high extinction risk.” This despite the fact that the majority of the 719-square-mile watershed is in excellent condition, relative to other western streams. Where the Smith’s salmonid habitat is not excellent, according to the Recovery Plan, is at the estuary. And it’s the estuary that Coho salmon love the most. They spend a whole year in fresh water before migrating to sea, so they need the calm pools and abundant food production of an estuary.

The Coho Recovery Plan utilizes information generated by Siskiyou Land Conservancy, and its predecessor the Smith River Project, to illustrate one of the greatest potential threats to the Smith River estuary: Pesticides used to produce 90 percent of the U.S. production of Easter lilies.

The Recovery Plan also makes clear that Rowdy Creek, which feeds the Smith River estuary, is one of the two best remaining Coho streams on the Smith, yet Coho numbers are far lower on Rowdy Creek than they should be. The Recovery Plan offers just one paragraph on an elephant in the Rowdy Creek room: the timber giant Green Diamond owns almost all of the best Coho habitat in the watershed.

Siskiyou Land Conservancy is developing comments on the Coho Recovery Plan, which we will post here. Our supporters should try to comment as well, asking for reductions of pesticides on lily fields surrounding the estuary, and greater scrutiny of the clear-cutting and road building by Green Diamond that have diminished and eliminated Coho salmon habitat. (Green Diamond also uses pesticides in the watershed.)

Siskiyou Land Conservancy’s Contribution to the Coho Recovery Plan

Since 2004, and on a limited budget, Siskiyou Land Conservancy has been the only NGO, indeed the only organization of any kind to insist on a review and reduction of impacts to the estuary potentially wrought by pesticides.

The Recovery Plan notes that “restoration of the Smith River estuary … is imperative. … Agricultural run-off needs to be addressed to reduce the concentration levels of pesticides reaching the Smith River and its tributaries. … Of particular concern is the lily farming that occurs on the floodplain. One study showed that intense use of pesticides between 1996 and 2000 by lily farmers led to high levels of chemicals including carbofuran, chlorothalonil, diurin, disulfoton, and pentachloronitrobenzene. [The authors should also have listed metam sodium and 1,3-Dichloropropene. Also, pentachloronitrobenzene is no longer used on the Smith River.] Recent testing in the lower Smith River has revealed copper concentrations that may have acute toxic effects and impair olfaction and reproduction of coho salmon (North Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board (NCRWQCB) 2011). The current level of chemical contamination is a high risk for juvenile salmonids (Bailey and Lappe 2002).”

It was our Bailey-Lappe (CETOS) study that initiated scrutiny of pesticides at the estuary, and the “recent testing” noted above came only after several years of continual pressure by Siskiyou Land Conservancy on the State Water Board to conduct the tests. The Water Quality report on the testing, which revealed potentially devastating levels of copper in a stream leading to the Smith River estuary, notes that it was Siskiyou Land Conservancy that requested the analysis.

Siskiyou Land Conservancy supports farmers, lily growers included. If analyses of pesticide use and their effects on the Smith River estuary show a need to transition toward less chemically-intensive agricultural practices, then we are committed to assisting lily growers do so without impacting their livelihoods. Already Siskiyou Land Conservancy has inquired with Congressman Mike Thompson’s office about securing Farm Bill funding to assist with any such transition. Like the lily growers, many of whom can be found on their days off fishing the Smith, we are in this for the long haul. Together we can protect the Smith River’s vital salmonid habitat.

Humboldt State University master's student Vanessa Vasquez loads slash onto a burn pile.

Siskiyou Land Conservancy has completed Phase I of a planned multi-part effort to improve forest health and reduce the danger of catastrophic fire on private land along the South Fork Smith River.

Last June, Ashland, Oregon-based Lomakatsi Restoration Forestry completed most of the heavy work to thin and pile conifers and brush on 12 acres of the 148-acre parcel, which is surrounded by the Smith River National Recreation Area. Since then SLC personnel and volunteers have continued piling slash in the restoration area, and we have been busy pruning branches up to six feet on every tree in the project.

Lomakatsi Workforce Director Aaron Nauth measures tree diameters during restoration activities on the South Fork Smith River. Siskiyou Land Conservancy donated the larger boles to local residents for firewood.

Debris from restoration work was piled and burned in the six-acre “north unit” of the restoration project. SLC has opted to scatter the smaller material on six-acre “south unit” to decompose under the heavy rains of the Smith River, which can reach 200 inches per year in the Big Flat area. Decomposing material will provide important soil structure in the recovering forest, and will prevent carbon loading from burning piles. If the material breaks down quickly, as expected, then SLC may opt to maintain the practice throughout the life of the project. Most of the larger material, such as five-foot Douglas fir boles ranging from three to six inches in diameter, were removed from the site and donated to local residents for firewood.

“Before the current owners acquired this property it was held by industrial timber companies that clear-cut much of the landscape, resulting in densely regenerating conifers that are choking out wildlife and forest diversity and compacting and eroding soils,” said Greg King, executive director of Siskiyou Land Conservancy. “We’re really thrilled to be jump-starting the recovery of this forest.”

Thinning the densely packed conifers opened up the forest canopy to allow light to penetrate the forest floor, thereby diversifying plant growth and habitat structure. Added light will also allow the otherwise stifled conifers to grow at a normal rate and improve timber volume.

Siskiyou Land Conservancy holds a conservation easement that protects habitat and water quality on the property. The South Fork Smith River restoration effort will occur in several phases, eventually treating up to 100 acres of the 148-acre property. The rest of the property consists primarily of pristine meadows, white oak woodlands, and mature redwood groves. The property also contains the easternmost redwoods on the Smith River, and the largest privately owned flat along the South Fork. Rare stands of Port Orford cedar, which appear to be unaffected by the root disease (Phytophthora lateralis) that has devastated the species throughout much of its range, dot the landscape.

Burning piles at dawn (shown here on the north unit of the Smith River restoration site) is a great way to get warm in the morning. Fire is a safe and effective means of disposing of slash from restoration work, though it does contribute some carbon to the atmostphere.

Funding for the restoration effort was provided in large part by the a 50 percent grant from the U.S. Natural Resource Conservation Service. Lomakatsi, the landowners, the SLC general fund, and SLC contributors and volunteers provided the other half of the cost-share program.

Contributions in support of SLC’s restoration efforts may be sent to: Siskiyou Land Conservancy, P.O. Box 4209, Arcata, CA 95518. Donations are tax deductible and much appreciated.

A spray rig applies the fungicides copper hydroxide and chlorothalonil onto lily fields adjacent to Smith River Elementary School.

Scientists at the North Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board have discovered significant pesticide contamination in a stream leading to the Smith River Estuary.

In August 2010, a team from the North Coast Regional Water Quality Board visited the Smith River estuary and sampled water in two streams, two places in each stream (above and below pesticide use). It took a full year, but in August 2011 Water Quality released its chilling results: Copper levels in the sampled water were nearly 28 times higher than the California Toxics Rule allows for freshwater habitat, and “demonstrate evidence of chronic reproductive toxicity,” according to the report, which cites Siskiyou Land Conservancy as the organization that requested the testing. (Copper is a common ingredient in pesticides and is harmful to aquatic life.)

A ditch leading from lily greenhouses directly to the Smith River estuary.

For several years Siskiyou Land Conservancy has pressured Water Quality to test the Smith River estuary and surrounding streams for pesticide residues resulting from lily farming on the Smith River Plain. The recent results indicate that aquatic life in the Smith River, particularly its celebrated salmon and steelhead runs, may be at risk.

Christopher Pincetich, Ph.D., an expert on the effects of pesticides on aquatic organisms, said of the state’s test results, “The chronic toxicity result is very significant; I saw almost zero reproduction. That test uses Ceriodaphnia dubia, a freshwater invertebrate, the ‘water flea.’ It is very relevant to use as it is the base of the food-web. If Cerio can not reproduce in your watershed, you can technically extrapolate this to say that salmon habitat is likely impaired as their food source (small aquatic invertebrates) is impacted.” In late August, Pincetich and Greg King, executive director of Siskiyou Land Conservancy, co-led a panel on pesticides and salmonids at the annual Coho Confab, a statewide conference held this year at Rock Creek Ranch on the South Fork Smith River.

“With results like this, the next step is for Water Quality, state Fish and Game, the state Department of Pesticide Regulation, the National Marine Fisheries Service and U.S. EPA to take a serious look at pesticide use surrounding the Smith River estuary,” said King. “This means more monitoring of streams and soils, and monitoring of air quality as well to protect residents of the nearby town of Smith River. It also means working directly with lily farmers to reduce chemical use. The farmers themselves may hold in their hands the fate of the Smith River’s fabled fish runs.”

The town of Smith River (below-right, pop. 2,000) is surrounded by lily fields.

The Water Quality Board’s report is potentially bad news for California’s healthiest anadromous fishery. State and federal agencies list the Smith River as a “key watershed” for recovering the West’s salmon, steelhead and cutthroat trout populations. Pesticides can have slow, insidious impacts on aquatic habitat, reducing fish populations and other species over time. Alongside the Smith River estuary, highly toxic pesticides such as metam sodium and 1,3-Dichloropropene are used in per-acre amounts that are higher than anywhere else in California.

Other pesticides used near the estuary are equally alarming. In 2010 the National Marine Fisheries Service released its Endangered Species Act/Section 7 Consultation Biological Opinion for salmonids, identifying 12 pesticides that can directly reduce salmon populations. At least three of these 12 salmon-killing pesticides are used on Smith River lily fields.

Siskiyou Land Conservancy is seeking additional water quality monitoring and enforcement of the Clean Water Act, the Endangered Species Act and recent case law to protect Smith River salmonids. Although government action is slow in coming, the Water Quality Board’s recent monitoring would not have occurred at all had not Siskiyou Land Conservancy pressured the agency. Siskiyou Land Conservancy remains the only organization working to reduce pesticide use on lily fields surrounding the vital Smith River estuary.

Most importantly, Siskiyou Land Conservancy has initiated discussions with farmers in Smith River, who produce 90 percent of the U.S. crop of Easter lily bulbs. Siskiyou Land Conservancy supports working farms and ranches, including those on the Smith River. For many years Smith River lily farmers have explored alternatives to pesticides. Siskiyou Land Conservancy is committed to assisting the transition.

Here is the full Water Quality report:

WQ Testing results 8_11

Photos and story © 2011 by Greg King.

With greedy ears I learned the history of that murderous monster against whom I and all the others had taken our oaths of violence and revenge.

            Herman Melville, Moby Dick

In early summer she came, just two days after Solstice. The weather was fair for the time and place, in the mighty Klamath estuary, where summer fog can chill to the marrow if you are not active and acclimated. But this summer has been different. The foggy days are fewer, sunshine reigns in the land of moisture and tall trees. It was to this place, at this time, that the whale came.

She arrived alongside her baby. Here were the great gray whales, baleen cetaceans, filter feeders, makers of mystery and myths. They delighted so many. To enter such a river as the Klamath was not unheard of, it had happened twenty-two years before. But to swim as she did almost incessantly, almost always in the same place — below the Klamath River bridge, the one that carries the summer tourists and lumber trucks and long distance commuters along the highway called 101 — that was something new.

She could have been anywhere on the lower river, but she chose this place beneath the bridge, and she chose this crucial time of change. The Native Yurok people called her a messenger. To see her alone at the end of July, one month into her visit, was to welcome an ambassador from another world. The ocean space. The great mystery beyond human knowing, a spirit creature entrenched in our imagining and our lore and our tales of survival and death.

It was a visitation. Yes, she carried a message, even as her health waned. Eventually people came from across the West to see her and hear her message. Few listened closely, so she made up what was lacking in cognition by circling, turning, breathing, directly below the bridge. She was as visible as the sun in the sky. She circled, she surfaced, her tail fluked, her twin blowholes spouted routinely directly below the bridge.

She was patient, and as such she begged our patience as well. Humans stood for hours on the bridge, later shaking heads as they realized how long they’d been watching.

Tourists from Germany and Pennsylvania, workers from Eureka and Crescent City came to see the whales. Highway Patrol officers and Tribal cops did the dance along the paved bridgeway, admonishing viewers to stay off the road and restrict themselves to the narrow walkway subservient to that created for cars. When she swam under the bridge the masses passed back across the lanes, west to east, east to west, like a scene from a comedy. Drivers stopped to ask why so many people on the bridge? “A whale!” they said.

And still she circled. For hours and then days and then weeks she circled, sometimes turning on her side as if to feed, but always coming back, spouting, breathing. Breathing. Breathing.

You have called us gray whale. Sometimes you said “devilfish” because we fought so fiercely against your weapons. We never could understand why you hated us so. You are very clever, smelting your metals into boats and harpoons and great steel vats where you melted our skins to make lights and cosmetics. Long into the slaughter you stopped hunting us, and we have been forever grateful. But please listen. Listen, please. Slow down and hear my plea. There is little time.

Watch me move. You think I am beautiful, and I am flattered. I move my long body for you, under your great bridge that crosses an even greater river. Ah, our Klamath! Long we have known this river. Long have we ranged past its waters, a fecund river we have always known during our journeys from what you call Alaska to our breeding tides far in the warm south.

You watch my great tail fin stroking the stream. I propel. I move with grace because life is graceful. You, though, you move so quickly. I am so glad to see you out of your cars! Look upon me. I am powerful, yet I do not threaten. I am giant yet I am love. Can you understand? Do you know why I come here?

You too are beautiful! Look among yourselves, with your flowing hair, your fine skin and muscles. Your proud faces and smiling eyes. You see me and it is good, you see each other and it is also good.

We, all of us, of little more than air and water, fire and earth, and love. You come with violins and play for me along the shore. You float to me on your little plastic sphere.

You sing to me from the bridge. You have come in your boats and drummed for me. You have come in your powerboats too close to me, but I do not fear you.

Yes, it is dangerous for me here, and for my baby. You have tried to drive us back to the ocean, but that is not why I am here, to succumb to your wishes. I am here with a message.

You long to witness beauty and power, and you see these things in me. Many of you would possess me, but others understand that this is not possible. My beauty and power are already within you, within all life. You cannot possess me nor my beauty nor my power any more than you can possess the air, or a shooting star. We are not things apart. We are one. Destroy me and you destroy yourself.

Look at your work! You build great factories and these great factories create machines that make more machines. And your machines move you and move things, and they heal sickness and provide you with food and teach your children. I see you inside of machines, on top of machines, writing on machines, listening to machines. I see you with machines attached to your bodies, machines in your ears. Can you see me? Can you see how slowly I move? Can you hear this sound I make? Listen closely. Watch closely. Slow down. Please hear my story. Please understand that the hour is late. Listen.

We hear your sonic explosions across the ocean, a machine sound you use to test your military weapons. These sounds assault us. We can hear across oceans. We can hear across time. We hear you whisper. We can hear your wars. We have watched your great ships sinking to the bottom of the seas, your people struggling, shocked, grieving. We have heard your screams. We wanted to help you, but there was no helping you.

You no longer hunt us, yet we are hunted. We are haunted. Our ocean is dying. My baleen scrapes the ocean floor to scoop crustaceans, plankton, mollusks, squid and fish. I filter it all, disgorge the mud, and give thanks for the plenty from our glorious ocean. But today there is less food. What shall I feed my baby?

We find your machines at the bottom of the ocean. We eat your plastics. Our bodies contain mercury, lead, PCBs, pesticides. We are at the top of what you call a food chain, and so these things concentrate in us. Our food is sacred. All life is sacred. You call us “intelligent,” and we would agree. We are intelligent enough to leave well enough alone, to take only what we need, to revel in the purity of Earth and all she offers us, to give thanks for our meals and our home.

You have your laws. Laws to protect you. Laws to protect freedom. Laws to protect religion. Laws to protect murder.

You have laws to protect the environment! And yet what about these laws? We all know about laws and how they work, how they don’t work. The laws you made to stop hunting us seem to have worked, but mostly because you discovered petroleum. Your black oil, too, we find in our oceans.

Let us talk about beauty, about the beauty of life. See me turn in the water, right below you! You are in awe of me, I can feel that. Now look upriver, see the mountains, look downriver, see the sweet turn of the mighty Klamath, see the great forest standing even after you took almost all of it.

We remember the looming dark forest that once stood here, as this is not the first time we have traveled up this great river! Are you still in awe when you look away from me? Look upon this wild earth. I am no more grand than the forest, no more powerful than the river. I am a part of all, as are you. But it is almost too late. Please listen.

We feel the ocean acidifying. Carbon. Carbon is a great thing, but you are releasing it like locusts upon all life. Our ocean is dying. The polar ice is melting. Even the currents, the great currents that flow like blood through our seas — you are even altering the currents, and the weather. Your bombs are nothing compared to this.

Our food is disappearing, our beautiful home is changing. We know you care. We can see it in your faces when you look upon us. You love beauty, you love life. How is it, then, that this could come to be?

We are here with a message. Look upon us. Revel in our beauty, in our life. Our life is your life, but all life is in danger. Look upon us. Look upon the river. Look upon the sky. The eagle. The bear. The salmon. The children. Look upon your children, and their children. Look upon my child, swimming at the mouth of this great river while I turn and swim past you, turn and swim past, turn and swim past. Look. Look. Before it is too late.

Your scientists have told you there is a number, a number representing carbon in the atmosphere. That number is 350 parts per million. Today everyone knows that this number should not be exceeded, yet your scientists report that today the number has reached nearly 400 parts per million. How have your leaders responded? What have they done to save the precious life of Earth, for you and your children, for me and my child? Last year, a year when humans should know better, you put more carbon into the atmosphere than any year in history. A record! Humans love records.

It is almost too late. Your leaders want oil from Alberta tar sands and from the ocean, from my home in what you call Alaska, from this very shore! They want coal from the interior of this great continent shipped overland to the shores of North America to be put upon the great ships to power the factories of China, to make the plastic things whose last, and lasting, home is the ocean, our ocean, water that my baby filters to find her food. The great garbage gyres are now twice the size of your state of Texas! Another record.

Please listen. It is almost too late. Hear me as I travel your great river.

Slow down.

Stay out of your cars.

Keep watching the river.

Change your ways.

Help my baby.

Sit in silence.

We are friends. We are love. Now is the time. Now.

This is my message. I sow the message in my path, through this great river. Do you see me? Do you really see me? Why am I here? What could make me swim like this, far from my home, where my family now feeds, and I do not feed at all.

From awareness we must grow.

This is our home.

This is your home.

There is no other.

There is no other time but now.

Please help us.

Peace.

“Before-After” photos of SLC’s restoration work on a 148-acre property along the South Fork Smith River. (Click photos to enlarge.) Photos by Greg King.

Siskiyou Land Conservancy has contracted with Ashland, Oregon-based Lomakatsi Restoration Project to begin a major restoration project on a 148-acre property along the Wild and Scenic South Fork Smith River. Siskiyou Land Conservancy holds a conservation easement on this private parcel, which supports a rare diversity of species and several habitat types.

The Wild and Scenic South Fork Smith River runs below the property protected by Siskiyou Land Conservancy.

In June, Lomakatsi brought a crew of 12 workers to the site to begin the heavy task of clearing and piling brush and small trees on 12 acres of the property. The project is intended to improve forest health and reduce the danger of catastrophic fire in areas that were clear-cut 40 years ago by an industrial timber owner.

Lomakatsi's Aaron Nauth briefs the work crew during an orientation session in the dense confier forest that grew in following clear-cutting 40 years ago.

Siskiyou Land Conservancy’s South Fork restoration effort will occur in several phases, eventually treating up to 100 acres of the 148-acre property. The rest of the property consists primarily of pristine meadows, white oak woodlands, springs and seasonal wetlands. The parcel also contains the easternmost redwoods on the Smith River, and the largest privately owned flat along the South Fork.

Mature second-growth redwoods and meadow on the South Fork Smith River property protected by Siskiyou Land Conservancy.

Lush meadows and seasonal wetlands run throughout the large flat areas of the property.

The property also supports rare stands of Port Orford cedar, which appear to be unaffected by the root disease (Phytophthora lateralis) that has devastated the species throughout much of its range.

A healthy Port-Orford cedar tree grows alongside a meadow on the 148-acre Smith River property protected by Siskiyou Land Conservancy.

SLC’s restoration project is supported by the Smith River National Recreation Area, which is currently working on a similar fuels/forest health project on federal land adjacent to the SLC property. Funding for the initial 12 acres of work was provided in part by a $19,800 (50 percent) matching grant from the U.S. Natural Resource Conservation Service. Lomakatsi has also contributed to the project, while private donations have made up a small portion of the remaining 50 percent.

Dave Casey, of the National Resource Conservation Service, inspects the restoration site prior to work on the project.

If you would like to help see this important restoration effort to conclusion you may send contributions to: Siskiyou Land Conservancy, P.O. Box 4209, Arcata, CA 95518. Donations are tax deductible and much appreciated.

"Before": Dense brush growing on the property prior to work beginning.

"After": The same area shown in the photo above, after restoration work.

Photo point #3: "Before"

Photo point #3: "After"

A huge Darlingtonia fen on Siskiyou Land Conservancy's Stony Creek propery. Even this large, healthy population of the carnivorous pitcher plant will eventually be threatened by encroaching shrub species. Photos by Greg King.

During the first week of March this year, Siskiyou Land Conservancy teamed up with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and a team of seniors from Marin Academy High School, in San Rafael, to launch a restoration project aimed at protecting rare plants on land owned by SLC along the North Fork Smith River.

Siskiyou Land Conservancy’s 80-acre parcel is the gateway to the North Fork Smith River Botanical Area, a plant lover’s paradise. Botany enthusiasts from around the world make the pilgrimage to the North Fork to imbibe in the odd and wonderful plant worlds that thrive on the red-moon soils near the Oregon border.

Stony Creek enters the North Fork Smith River near the middle-right of this photo, where the red box illustrates the property lines of Siskiyou Land Conservancy's 80-acre parcel. The town of Gasquet is at right.

Yet most travelers on U.S. Highway 199, between Crescent City and Oregon, unwittingly slide past this international botanical treasure. If they stop at the Gasquet store, on the Middle Fork Smith River, they’re close. Moving due north just a half mile, those in the know park at the one Forest Service space reserved for a trail that enters another world, a landscape where botanists have discovered not one or two but three carnivorous plants living side by side. Also found in the region are the western bog violet and a dozen other rare plants, including the lovely McDonald’s rockcress, listed as Endangered under the federal Endangered Species Act.

The Siskiyou Land Conservancy property contains the confluence of the North Fork Smith River and its only roadless tributary, Stony Creek, where the Forest Service trail ends after a short half-mile.

Stony Creek runs through the middle of Siskiyou Land Conservancy's 80-acre parcel on the North Fork Smith River.

“The Smith River’s north fork is a country of sparse vegetation, serpentine barrens, and extensive soggy fens,” writes John Sawyer, a professor emeritus at Humboldt State University, in his seminal 2006 book, Northwest California: A Natural History. “This is the land of the Josephine ophiolite, which boasts the highest number of endemic vascular plants (70) of any outcrop of serpentine substrates on the continent. … The fens of this area are famous for the insectivorous California pitcher plant (Darlingtonia californica). … Growing with this remarkable plant is a diverse set of wet-adapted species, many associated with bog and fen conditions in Canada, including the insectivorous butterwort and sundew. … The botanically famous Stoney Creek Trail is an excellent introduction to the serpentine plants of the Josephine ophiolite.” (The creek name is alternately spelled with and without the “e,” depending on the source.)

Nick and Brett, seniors at Marin Academy High School, cut brush at Stony Creek. Note the Darlingtonia plants at left, all but engulfed by encroaching shrub species.

Sawyer is concerned about the health of the rare plants in the North Fork Smith River Botanical Area. While most of the land, including the parcel owned by Siskiyou Land Conservancy, is pristine, something is missing: fire.

Prior to European settlement, fire in the region of the North Fork-Middle Fork Smith River was a regular occurrence. Lightening fires often spread through the area, and native Tolowa Indians burned to maintain dominance of acorn-bearing oak trees. Now, said Sawyer, after a century without fire the North Fork’s rare plant communities are threatened by a “densification” of shrub species.

“What do you do about this?” Sawyer asked rhetorically. “Just leaving it alone is mismanagement.” Because the areas containing rare plants are relatively small, Sawyer recommends “reducing the number of trees and cutting the shrubs back” by hand in these regions, rather than using fire, which is less predictable.

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Botanist Dave Imper, an expert on the flora of the North Fork Smith River, explains the restoration plan to Marin Academy students.

Dave Imper, a botanist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, calls the Stony Creek parcel “the best jewel around” due to the diversity and numbers of rare plants that grow there. In March Imper directed SLC staff and Marin Academy students in cutting back shrub species that are engulfing rare plant habitat. The work is critical, he said, because fire has been absent for so long. He said that the carnivorous plants, which depend on year-round moisture, are particularly threatened by encroaching shrub species.

Gabe examines a healthy Port Orford cedar along Stony Creek. Siskiyou Land Conservancy's property on Stony Creek contains several acres of healthy Port Orford cedar that are unaffected by the pervasive root rot that is devastating the species.

“As these things close up [with brush] they dry up,” said Imper, “and there go the carnivores.”

Restoration work at SLC’s Stony Creek parcel will continue throughout the spring, and we’re looking for volunteers. If you’re interested call 707-498-4900 or write to siskiyouland@gmail.com.

The Marin Academy students, with teacher Bob Schleeter, take a break at Stony Creek.

Sponsors:

Lost Coast Communications (KHUM, KSLG, KWPT)

Wildberries Marketplace

American Hydroponics

Pierson Building Center

Northcoast Horticulture Supply

Donors, Supporters and Partners:

Matt Eakle Band

Rex Richardson

City of Arcata

Jacoby Creek Elementary School

Jacoby Creek Children’s Education Foundation

Bayside Grange

Russell Cole Sound Engineering

Brett Shuler Fine Catering

Violet-Green Winery

Cabot Vineyards

Moonstone Crossing Winery

Coates Vineyards

Greenwood Ridge Vineyards

Fieldbrook Winery

Robert Goodman Winery

Six Rivers Brewery

Lost Coast Brewery

Mad River Brewery

Cypress Grove Chevre

Coast Seafoods

Brio Breadworks

Humboldt Grass Fed Beef

Redwood Roots Farm

George Van Hook

Linda Parkinson

Alan Sanborn

Joyce Jonte

Carol Andersen

Holly Garbutt

Tomas Jewelry

Holly Yashi

Liscom Hill Pottery

Ali Freedlund

Fire and Light

Beautiful People

Jessie Groeschen

Patti Smith

Benbow Inn

Joan Dunning

River Country Rafting

Pacific Lotus Spa

The Tides Inn

Farmhouse B&B

Smith River Alliance

Chapala Cafe

Arcata Scoop

Belle Starr

Wildwood Music

Plaza Design

Art Center Framing

Finnish Country Sauna & Tubs

Lukes Joint

Ocean Minded Apparel

HealthSport

Northtown Books

Michael Evenson/Lost Coast Ranch

Ohana Organics

Global Village

Patagonia Inc.

Prana

Klean Kanteen

Jesse Maluchnik

Water Planet Garden Supply

Arcata Do It Best Lumber

Arcata Picture Framing

Living Earth Landscapes

Rose Foundation

Patagonia Foundation

Schulz Trust

Further Foundation

Trees Foundation

The South Fork Smith River below the private 148-acre property protected by Siskiyou Land Conservancy. Photo by Greg King.

Many supporters of Siskiyou Land Conservancy are aware that the organization grew out of the Smith River Project. Siskiyou Land Conservancy now serves five counties in Northwestern California, but our commitment to the Smith River has never waned.

Recently the Siskiyou Land Conservancy board of directors opted to ramp up our protection efforts for the Smith. The reasons for this are many. Most pressing is that California’s salmon and steelhead populations are facing an extinction crisis, and the Smith River holds the promise of being one of the few streams that may weather the disaster.

Disappearing Salmon

According to fisheries expert Peter Moyle and the U.C. Davis Center for Watershed Sciences (2008), two-thirds of the state’s salmon and steelhead runs are in danger of disappearing over the next 50 to 100 years. The extinction crisis is generally moving from south to north. At the apex of this reach, in Del Norte County, is the glorious Smith River: 400,000 acres of the best remaining fish habitat on the West Coast.

Yet the Smith River faces significant threats such as development on private lands, clear-cutting and herbicide use by a major timber company, and pesticide inundation on farmlands surrounding the Smith River estuary.

Analysis: The State of the Smith River

Fishermen ply the main stem of the Smith River in search of the holy 40-pounder. Photo by Greg King

At the same time, little is known about fish runs in the Smith. No broad overview of the Smith River exists, though we do know the Smith is a “seedbank” whose salmon and steelhead “strays” can recolonize recovering streams up and down the Oregon-California coast. Which makes protecting the Smith River more crucial than ever.

This year Siskiyou Land Conservancy began creating an important overview: The State of the Smith River. Complementing this research are two habitat restoration projects on Smith River properties protected by Siskiyou Land Conservancy.

The Smith River is a keystone watershed. Moyle insists that state and federal governments should “Provide immediate additional protection to ‘salmon strongholds’ where salmonid diversity is high and habitat conditions are still reasonably good, such as the Smith River. …”

Key to providing such protection will be a greater understanding of the Smith River as a whole. How are fish doing in the Smith? Where are weak areas in need of restoration, and strong areas requiring greater protection? How can we best sustain the Smith’s crucial salmon runs? Siskiyou Land Conservancy will attempt some answers in The State of the Smith River.

This is no small task, and our project is already underway. Since the organization was founded, in 2004, Siskiyou Land Conservancy has been dedicated to protecting the Smith River. Currently SLC Research Associate Vanessa Vasquez and Program Director Greg King are gathering information from current and past studies, and from sources such as recent salmon counts; past and ongoing research by the California Department of Fish and Game, the National Marine Fisheries Service, Humboldt State University, and the state and national park systems; anecdotal fish counts by local anglers; and tribal histories. We are also culling from 10 years of work by Siskiyou Land Conservancy and its predecessor the Smith River Project.

Restoration on the North Fork Smith River

The North Fork Smith reaches from the Kalmiopsis Wilderness in Oregon down to the town of Gasquet along the Middle Fork Smith River. Siskiyou Land Conservancy protects 80 acres of rare plant habitat at the confluence of Stony Creek and the North Fork Smith River. Stony Creek is the North Fork's only roadless tributary. Photo by Greg King.

In spring 2011 Siskiyou Land Conservancy, with the cooperation of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the California Department of Fish and Game, will begin a restoration project to protect 80 acres of rare plant habitat owned by SLC at the confluence of the North Fork Smith River and Stony Creek, both of which support salmon and steelhead. This is one of the most beautiful and biologically important private parcels on the North Fork, indeed on the entire Smith River: rare plant habitat at the gateway to 1 million acres of wild lands that stretch well into southwest Oregon.

When Siskiyou Land Conservancy purchased this property in 2004, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service plant biologist Dave Imper called the acquisition “one of the most significant conservation milestones over the past several decades in northwestern California.” Yet Imper is concerned that a lack of natural wildfire has allowed shrub species to overtake important rare plant habitat on the parcel. Our restoration work to thin some of the brush will be accompanied by a survey of the rare plants in the area.

Restoration on the South Fork Smith River

About half of the 148-acre riverside parcel that Siskiyou Land Conservancy protects on the South Fork Smith river is pristine. Photo by Greg King.

Much of the other half of this parcel consists of thick regeneration in need of thinning to improve forest health and prevent wildfires. Photo by Greg King.

At the other end of the Smith River, on the beautiful South Fork, SLC holds a conservation easement on a 148-acre riverside parcel. This land features the easternmost redwoods on the Smith River and the largest privately owned alluvial flat on the South Fork. Half of the parcel is pristine, but the other half is dense with small trees and brush that grew up after logging 30 years ago.

Siskiyou Land Conservancy is working with the landowner and state and federal agencies to improve forest health and reduce fire danger on up to 23 acres of this property. This project complements the adjacent Big Flat Vegetation and Fuels Management Project, a current effort by the Smith River National Recreation Area. SRNRA officials have voiced support for the SLC project, as it could prevent a wildfire from spreading from the private land to old-growth forests on adjacent public lands.

To donate to this work send your contributions to:

Siskiyou Land Conservancy

P.O. Box 4209

Arcata, CA 95518

Note “Smith River” on your check.

Thank you!

Here at Siskiyou Land Conservancy, we’re grateful for the work of the Center for Biological Diversity and other groups willing to trudge the long, arduous road of endangered species protection. The Center has gained first-time protection, through scientific petitions and legal action, for more than 360 species under the Endangered Species Act.

To see just how arduous it is to protect even a species as obviously on the brink of extinction as green sturgeon, check out CBD’s timeline detailing the petitioning and litigation history of getting the iconic fish protected.

The three original petitioners also included WaterKeepers Northern California, and the Environmental Protection Information Center under then Program Director Cynthia Elkins. Elkins served for the past six years as a director of Siskiyou Land Conservancy.

The Center’s press release on green sturgeon protection is below.

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For Immediate Release, June 3, 2010

Contact: Jeff Miller, Center for Biological Diversity, (510) 499-9185

Protective Regulations Finalized for Southern Green Sturgeon

SAN FRANCISCO— The National Marine Fisheries Service finalized Endangered Species Act regulations Wednesday to protect the southern population of green sturgeon from “take” and other harmful activities. The take prohibitions make it unlawful to kill or harm southern green sturgeon and could require changes in operations of dams and water diversions, commercial and recreational fisheries, dredging operations, and pesticide applications to protect the green sturgeon, an ancient and imperiled migratory fish species that has survived since the Jurassic era.

“The southern green sturgeon population has fallen to precariously low numbers, and these regulations should help protect the few remaining spawning sturgeon from the Sacramento River from harm by water projects, overfishing, and pesticides,” said Jeff Miller, conservation advocate with the Center for Biological Diversity.

The new regulations, created under section 4(d) of the Endangered Species Act, prohibit all unauthorized “take” of southern green sturgeon throughout their spawning and rearing range in the Sacramento, Feather, and lower Yuba rivers, as well as in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta and San Francisco Bay. Because of the similarity of appearance between southern and northern green sturgeon, any green sturgeon in marine environments, including the mouths of coastal rivers, estuaries, and marine waters in California, Oregon, and Washington, are protected from take.

The green sturgeon, Acipenser medirostris, is one of the most ancient fish species in the world, remaining unchanged in appearance since it first emerged 200 million years ago. Green sturgeon are among the largest and longest-living fish species found in freshwater, living for as long as 70 years, reaching 7.5 feet in length, and weighing as much as to 350 pounds. Sturgeon have a prehistoric appearance, with a skeleton consisting of mostly cartilage and rows of bony plates for scales. They have snouts like shovels and mouths like vacuum cleaners that are used to siphon shrimp and other food from sandy depths.

For more information about the green sturgeon, visit: 
www.biologicaldiversity.org/species/fish/North_American_green_sturgeon/index.html

Background

In response to a 2001 Center listing petition and a subsequent lawsuit, the Fisheries Service in 2006 listed the southern green sturgeon population — fish in the San Francisco Bay and Delta that spawn in the Sacramento River basin, but migrate along much of the west coast from Mexico to Canada — as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act. In 2009, the Fisheries Service designated broad areas of river, estuarine, bay, and coastal marine habitats in California, Oregon, and Washington as critical habitat for the southern population of green sturgeon.

Killing, injuring, harassing, hunting, capturing, or collecting green sturgeon without a federal permit under the Endangered Species Act are now activities considered “take,’’ as is harm from significant habitat modification or degradation that impairs sturgeon breeding, spawning, rearing, migrating, feeding, or sheltering. The 4(d) rule discusses specific activities likely to take or harm green sturgeon, including commercial and recreational fisheries, habitat-altering activities, impeded migration from dams and water diversions, entrainment during water diversions or dredging, application of pesticides and pollutants, and nonnative species introductions. Exemptions to the 4(d) rule allow for continued tribal fisheries, scientific research and monitoring activities, emergency rescue and salvage activities, and habitat restoration projects that are not considered to threaten green sturgeon.

In order to comply with the 4(d) rule, state commercial and recreational fisheries must submit fisheries management and evaluation plans to the federal Fisheries Service that prohibit retention of green sturgeon (zero bag limit), with measures to minimize incidental take of sturgeon. In 2007, California and Washington revised fishing regulations to prohibit retention of green sturgeon, and Oregon prohibited retention of green sturgeon in lower Columbia River recreational fisheries. For commercial fisheries, the retention of green sturgeon has been prohibited in the Columbia River since 2006 and statewide in Washington since 2007. California has prohibited commercial fishing for sturgeon since 1917. American Indian fisheries for green sturgeon will be required to develop tribal resource-management plans for sturgeon. The only tribal take of southern green sturgeon is as bycatch in salmon and white sturgeon fisheries conducted by the Quinault tribe in coastal Washington waters. In 2006, the Quinault tribe implemented zero retention of green sturgeon for their Grays Harbor fishery. The Yurok and Hoopa tribes harvest green sturgeon in the Klamath River in California, but most fish are believed to be from the northern population, which is not federally protected. Overall, the take of green sturgeon in tribal fisheries has been low compared to that of nontribal fisheries.

Like salmon, sturgeon are anadromous, migrating to the ocean and returning to freshwater to spawn. Only three known green sturgeon spawning grounds remain, in the Sacramento and Klamath rivers in California and the Rogue River in Oregon. Between four and seven spawning populations have already been eliminated in California and Oregon. The estimated abundance of green sturgeon in the Sacramento River plummeted by 95 percent between 2001 and 2006, with only an estimated 50 pairs of spawning fish remaining. Severe declines in both green and white sturgeon parallel the collapse of other fish species in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, such as delta smelt, longfin smelt, Sacramento splittail, threadfin shad, and striped bass, due to the combined effects of Delta water diversions and exports, pesticides and pollution, and introduced species.

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The Center for Biological Diversity is a national, nonprofit conservation organization with more than 260,000 members and online activists dedicated to protecting endangered species and wild places. www.biologicaldiversity.org

Siskiyou Land Conservancy added two new board members today, as the land trust continues to grow as a leading conservation voice in Northwestern California.

Frank Green, a veteran television journalist and documentary filmmaker, and Ali Freedlund, Forest Practices Program coordinator for the Mattole Restoration Council, joined the SLC Board of Directors to protect rare and threatened habitats on private lands in the five counties served by Siskiyou Land Conservancy (Humboldt, Del Norte, Mendocino, Trinity and Siskiyou).

Ali Freedlund has been a resident of Humboldt County since 1977, and has worked for the Mattole Restoration Council for the past 13 years. She created and now coordinates MRC’s Forest Practices Program, which monitors and comments on all timber harvest plans within the Mattole River watershed. She has also coordinated numerous restoration and conservation projects.

Freedlund is also a director of the Trees Foundation. She brings to SLC a well-honed expertise in evaluating forest practices and policies in northwestern California.

 “I’m thrilled to join Siskiyou Land Conservancy and its efforts to protect critical habitats on our precious North Coast,” said Freedlund.

 Frank Green has enjoyed a storied career. A former bureau chief and producer for NBC News, during the 1980s Green founded his own television company, Green TV. His environmental documentaries have won many international and national awards including two Emmy Awards, and have been shown on PBS and the Discovery Channel. Green’s 1990 film The Forest Through the Trees remains one of the finest examinations of Maxxam Corp.’s takeover of the Pacific Lumber Co. His 2004 production, Counting Sheep, documents the plight of the Sierra Nevada bighorn sheep and earned multiple film awards.

 A native of San Francisco, Green is well familiar with the rural counties of northwestern California. He has spent more than two decades covering news stories and making films in the area, and has had a lifetime connection to Mendocino County. Green has served as board president of a preschool in a disadvantaged neighborhood in San Francisco, and as a board member of his non-profit environmental production company. He is retired from filmmaking and currently manages a ranch in Mendocino County.

Freedlund and Green join SLC founder and President Greg King (Arcata) and Treasurer Ken Miller (McKinleyville) on the Siskiyou Land Conservancy Board of Directors.