No Nature Walk Today

Day 118: See those little orange flags? They mark one possible route for a nature walk in Ohop Valley, but maybe not today. I thought I'd run down to check my site-steward "beat" since Ohop is notorious for flooding. In fact, that was what farmers were trying to combat when they got the bright idea to straighten out its bends and curves back when settlers first settled in the valley. Much to their chagrin, it wound up having the opposite effect: by ditching the creek, they sped up its flow, and the water didn't have a chance to sink into the soil (which, it must be said, is very clayey here). Flooding increased, cattle got hoof rot from being pastured on boggy land, and the farmers finally just gave up. The Nisqually Land Trust acquired this particular piece of Ohop Valley in 2001. In 2009, they partnered with several other area conservation organizations and together, began a major project to "re-meander" the creek into something approximating its original channel. Roughly a mile and a half of new habitat was created in the process and today, although flooding occurs in times of heavy rainfall, Ohop Valley is a much better home for critters and plants. I'll be guiding a group through the valley some time this summer when I don't need to load them into canoes.

Dam Ohop Creek

Day 312: Since my "Forest Succession" nature walk in the Ohop Valley, I have been puzzling over the aspect of human psychology which compels us to interfere. I can't claim to have come up with the rationale, but it strikes me that it is intrinsically linked to our insistence that others conform to what we consider "right," whether it is our religious belief, our political agenda, or even just our side of the nonsensical argument of whether the faces on our paper money should be centered or offset. This came up because one of the people attending my walk (someone not affiliated with the Land Trust) told me that when he sees a beaver dam blocking a creek, he opens a portion of it to allow fish easy passage, claiming that he used to work for Fish and Wildlife and by inference, that he knows better how to manage the ecology better than Mother Nature. I attempted to reason with him (asserting my side of the argument, and here I damn myself for committing the very offense which is the subject of my rant), explaining that the healthiest, strongest migrating fish will leap over a small dam such as this one, or that by the time the upstream migration occurs, high water will make passage much easier. The unstated and unjustifiable assertion that "fish are better than beavers" bothers me. Who are we to make that determination? What gives us the right? Why can't we just leave it alone (whatever "it" is), and let Nature follow her own course? She managed the balancing act quite well until we insisted on getting involved.

Naturalist-at-Large

Day 296: In the truest sense of the word, I was literally wearing a different hat today, although still functioning in my role as a naturalist. Today I conducted a small group of associates from the Nisqually Land Trust on an interpretive walk through my Ohop Valley stewardship property. The theme of the easy hike was "How Restoration Benefits the Critter Community," and covered topics including species-specific use of plants for forage and habitat, successes and failures in the restoration process, forest succession and the human history of the area. I devised a "nature bingo" and awarded wooden Audubon bird-calls to the first two participants who completed it, and handed out consolation prizes to the rest. I took guidance from an interpretive system called ACE ("Audience-Centered Experience"), and was happy to find that this group was easy to engage in discussion when I drew them out with questions. It was a bit of a change-up from my usual (and rather pedantic) recitation of scientific facts. The group's responses were well thought-out when asked to give their opinions on what constitutes "old-growth forest," an arbitrary human definition which varies from agency to agency but even moreso from a critter's point of view. The Nisqually Land Trust is a private non-profit organization, and therefore will not be affected by the prevailing anti-science sentiments in high-level government. Here, I can speak science freely, helping to educate people who, hopefully, will secure a future for our Earth.

They Dew It Well

Day 162: I had something a little different on my work schedule today: giving an introduction to lower forest zone plants to two young interns (rangers) from the Park's Education program and their immediate supervisor. Perforce, much of my discussion was about lichens, although I did cover the adaptations seen in both lichens and bryophytes with respect to being able to capture even the slightest moisture to good advantage. That said, these fine folk learned what it is to see the world through the Crow's Eye, and I doubt they'll ever look at a piece of bark or a mossy log in quite the same way again.