I can’t believe this summer is nearly over! This month, I traveled from my home in Mississippi, where I’ve been working remotely, to our office in Klamath Falls, Oregon for a week to participate in fieldwork and see the streams I’ve been writing about up close.  The original plan was to remove brook trout (a non-native species threatening native bull trout) from several streams using backpack electrofishing, but nature had other plans.  A forest fire blazed through Fremont National Forest, including the streams we intended to sample.  As I’m writing this blog, the fire is still burning, and has covered over 400,00 acres including all of the bull trout occupied streams on the east side of the Klamath basin.  While the impacts of this fire will surely be felt for years to come, bull trout populations are still going strong on the west side of the basin. 

Because the fire shifted our fieldwork plans, I got to help with other USFWS field projects. I spent two glorious days surveying for western ridged mussels in the crystal clear waters of the Sprague River. There isn’t much information available for where this mussel species lives, so it was really cool to be able to document part of their distribution.  I also got to help collect two endangered species of suckers that were being held in a net pen in a nearby reservoir to be stocked into Upper Klamath Lake.  The suckers had been stocked in the net pen earlier this spring so that they could grow larger and increase their likelihood for surviving their eventual release into the lake.  We spent the final two days visiting stream rehabilitation projects and conducting site visits to several of the streams that are candidates for bull trout reintroduction.  The headwaters of these streams begin in the Cascade Mountains, which lie to the west of the basin, and flow down into the valley below.  As the streams cross different elevations, the habitat and appearance of the streams change from cold, swift, boulder-strewn streams to calmer water with fallen trees and undercut banks ideal for hiding small fish (see pictures above).  Both types of habitat were beautiful to see in person, especially after spending two months describing how bull trout use these habitats to spawn or forage.

Being able to help out with multiple projects has really helped me to see the breadth of the focus of USFWS. The work with multiple listed species (bull trout, western ridged mussels, suckers) all intersected with ecosystem restoration efforts that were installed to benefit both the landowners and the species at risk. At the heart of all of the projects I helped with, the focus was still on working with others to accomplish conservation. I am so grateful that I had the opportunity this summer to fully understand the mission of the Service: “working with others to conserve, protect, and enhance fish, wildlife, plants, and their habitats for the continuing benefit of the American people.”

Agency: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

Program: US Fish & Wildlife Service - DFP

Location: Klamath Falls Field Office

Last month, we had the stakeholder meeting for the Klamath Basin bull trout reintroduction decision making process, where the decision makers gathered together and formulated the fundamental objectives for the project: 1- maximize the persistence of the existing populations of bull trout; and 2- maximize the number of bull trout in at least one reintroduced stream.  This week we had our first “Tech-holders” meeting, where researchers and managers who work with bull trout in the Klamath Basin came together to pull together known information.  The goal for the meeting was to come up with a list of potential streams for reintroduction and to discuss which existing populations might serve as “donor” populations for the reintroduction effort.  We spent quite a bit of time discussing potential streams, and we ended up with a promising list of eleven possibilities. 

We focused on streams that reflect the four C’s: cold, clean, complex, and connected.  Bull trout typically do best in clear mountain streams (clean) that stay colder than 16°C ( about 60° F) and have plenty of gravel and woody debris (complex habitat) that the fish can use for cover.  We also looked for streams that are connected to existing populations that would allow migratory bull trout to move between populations.  Another important factor to consider was the presence of the non-native brook trout in many streams in the Klamath Basin.  Brook trout were widely introduced in the early 1900s to increase fishing opportunities, but they also compete with bull trout for food and spawning grounds.  As a result, most bull trout populations have become restricted to the headwater portions of creeks where the water stays colder then brook trout prefer.  Many of the researchers and managers were able to give current accounts of stream habitat and the status of brook trout removal and stream rehabilitation projects (such as the Sun Creek restoration project, pictured above). 

When the conversation shifted to potential donor populations, there was quite a bit more uncertainty in the conversation. Details about some populations are well known and have current data.  Others, due to access or funding restrictions, only have older estimates.  The uncertainty here illustrates the need for monitoring efforts, such as the monitoring plan that I am writing.  Monitoring give us a clearer view of the current status of a system, so we can model the system to try out different scenarios.  This is the goal of Structured Decision Making: use the information we have to predict how different management actions will affect the system, which then allows us to make the best decision for how to proceed.  It is a lengthy, iterative process, where new information is incorporated and considered at every step.  I look forward to seeing how the process plays out in the Klamath Basin over the next few years, and I’m excited to be a part of helping bull trout recover!

Agency: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

Program: US Fish & Wildlife Service - DFP

Location: Klamath Falls Field Office

Hello! Allow me to introduce myself: I am a 3^rd year Ph.D. candidate from Mississippi, and I am excited to be part of the 2021 Cohort of the USFWS Directorate Fellows Program (DFP)! This summer, I get to dive deep into exploring the mission of USFWS: “working with others to conserve, protect, and enhance fish, wildlife, plants, and their habitats for the continuing benefit of the American people.” Since starting my project a few weeks ago, I have been welcomed into the Klamath Falls USFWS office! My task is to write the plan for monitoring the success of reintroducing bull trout in the upper Klamath River basin. Bull trout are a federally threatened salmonid species endemic to the colder rivers and streams of Northwestern North America.  Bull trout have multiple life history forms including resident and multiple migratory patterns, which makes monitoring the status and trends of bull trout populations a challenge. 

 Although my task is writing the monitoring plan for the reintroduction of bull trout in the basin, I have been fortunate to join in the very beginning of the reintroduction decision making process.  There are many decisions that need to be made: where should fish be reintroduced? What life stage should we stock? How many? Which existing populations should be considered as potential donor sources? One tool that can help the Service to answer these questions is structured decision making (SDM).  SDM is a process that directly fulfills the Service’s mission of working with others to promote conservation.  Through SDM, everyone involved in making these decisions (i.e. the stakeholders) come together to discuss the objectives of the project.  The stakeholders for this project consist of more than just the Service: Oregon Department of Wildlife and Fisheries, the US Forest Service, the National Parks Service, several Oregon Tribes, and Trout Unlimited are all stakeholders in helping to recover bull trout in the Klamath Basin.  

Once the stakeholders are gathered together around a (virtual) table, the real work begins.  Everyone has a chance to explain what their goals are, what they think is important.  There is plenty of lengthy discussion about the terms we use.  What does population mean in a reintroduction context? How do we measure trends? By the end of the meeting, we have created a set of goals, which in SDM terms are called fundamental objectives: maximize the persistence of existing populations, maximize the abundance of bull trout in the Klamath basin,  increase redundancy by reintroducing at least one new population.  From here, there will be multiple meetings with scientists and researchers to pull together all of the information known about bull trout in the Klamath Basin that will help us to model how the system works. 

Agency: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

Program: US Fish & Wildlife Service - DFP

Location: Klamath Falls Field Office

Nicky grew up in Vicksburg, MS and is a STEM outreach success story. She attended a science and engineering camp hosted by USACE ERDC when she was in high school and  absolutely loved the biology and ecology activities.  This experience led to a part-time job working as a student lab technician for the Fish and Invertebrate Ecology Team in the Environmental Laboratory during school breaks and holidays over most of her college career.  Having been exposed to research early, she chose research in fish ecology as a career.  She graduated from Louisiana Tech with a Bachelor's in Environmental Science and earned a Master's in Aquatic Resources from Texas State where her thesis work included creating a tool for prioritizing fish species for inclusion on the Texas SGCN list.  She is now pursuing a Ph.D. in Forest Resources with a concentration in Wildlife, Fisheries, and Aquaculture from Mississippi State University as a member of the Mississippi Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit.  Her current research focuses on the effects of erosion and stream stabilization efforts on fish assemblages and stream habitat.