1/15/13

Biologists are gaining new information about the winter movements of endangered Puget Sound killer whales by tracking the daily activities of one orca by a satellite tag.

Since scientists attached a transmitter to a 21-year-old male orca named as Scoter two weeks ago, they've watched as he sprinted more than 1,000 miles — from the Seattle area to north of San Francisco before curiously reversing course over the weekend and heading north.

The whale, known as K-25, is traveling with other members of his group and was spotted near Crescent City, Calif., on Tuesday morning.

"One thing that has struck us is it seems to be directed movement. They haven't paused very long in one place," said Brad Hanson, a wildlife biologist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Seattle who is leading the satellite tagging project.

"How did they decide once they got to Point Reyes (California) to turn around?"

The satellite tag is helping scientists better understand where the black-and-white mammals go during the winter.

"It's definitely providing new information," said Ken Balcomb, senior scientist with the Center for Whale Research in Friday Harbor, Wash. He recently traveled to California and spotted the orca five times from shore. During the past week, he has helped researchers sight the animals so they could collect samples of whale scat and fish scales left behind after feeding to understand what they're eating.

The endangered orcas — which hang out in three groups known as K, L and J — spend a bulk of the summer months in Puget Sound, but scientists aren't certain exactly where they spend the rest of their time.

Visual sightings, ship surveys and acoustic reports have shown the animals travel as far south as Monterey, Calif., and as far as the north coast of British Columbia during winter, but the information has been spotty, Hanson said.

Tracking the animals in the winter would reveal their range and rate of travel, how far offshore they go, where they loiter and the timing of their activities, Hanson said. The information could lead to designating new critical habitat areas for the animals.

The tag is about the size of a 9-volt battery attached by barbs to the orca's dorsal fin. It doesn't provide real-time tracking but sends out about three or four good locations in a day. It'll likely fall off the animal after about 30 days.

Hanson, who has a permit to tag up to two orcas per pod a year, said he initially thought they would forage near the Farallon Islands off the coast of San Francisco or head south from there to Monterey.

"They didn't go as far as I thought they were going to go," said Balcomb. "Everything you find out leads you to ask another question. ... I'm wondering if they're on a scouting trip."

Balcomb has raised concerns about whether the tags could needlessly injure the animals but said Scoter is "doing fine, he's sprinting right along."

NOAA Fisheries announced last November that it is reviewing whether Puget Sound orcas should keep their protected status under the federal Endangered Species Act.

The review was prompted by a petition from the California-based Pacific Legal Foundation seeking to delist the killer whales. The petition asserts that orcas aren't in danger of becoming extinct because they're part of a larger population of thriving whales.
Whale advocates say the orcas are still endangered and should be protected.
____
For more on the NOAA satellite tagging project: http://is.gd/hnyry7

Read Original Article

PG&E Workplan for Sediment Sampling and Analysis Prior to Dredging
Fisherman’s Channel and Residential Canals
King Salmon, California

November 2012

A workplan has been prepared for the collection of sediment samples for laboratory analysis of constituents in preparation for proposed dredging within all or part of the project site.

The project site consists of Fisherman’s Channel and the King Salmon residential canals (hereafter referred to as the project site). The project site is adjacent to PG&E's Humboldt Bay Power Plant  and includes navigable waters of the main Fisherman’s Channel, as well as residential canals that provide water access to the community of King Salmon. Proposed dredging activities
within the project site are planned to occur in 2013/2014.

This Workplan for proposed sampling is intended for submission to the California North Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board (NCRWQCB) and United States Army Corp of Engineers (USACE) for regulatory review and concurrence prior to implementation of sediment sampling and analysis.

To download a copy of the workplan, click HERE.

Hikshari’ Trail undergoes a makeover and now it shines with amenities

1/6/13

Down at the foot of Truesdale Avenue in southwest Eure­ka, beyond Marie Callender’s, Best Western, Shamus T Bones and Ray’s Food Place, stands a sign at the Truesdale Vista Point. The sign identi­fies the Hikshari’ Trail and explains that Hikshari’ is the Wiyot place name for the coastal area west of Broadway where the Elk River flows out into Humboldt Bay.



Eureka resident Thomas McCutchen and his family visited the newly refurbished trail recently and highly rec­ommend it to folks who like a flat, paved place to walk or bike.



“I’m a family hiker, our kids have bikes, so flat paved trails are our preference,” said McCutchen, who works at Cypress Grove Chevre in Arcata. “I’m a big fan of the Headwaters Trail and Ham­mond Trail, and just really impressed that Hikshari’ came up to that level.” The trail, McCutchen said, has always been there, but it “could not be counted among the best Eureka had to offer. as it has in recent years been well attended by home­less campers and was always somewhat trash-strewn. The trail was dirt, winding through rubble and weeds, but still boasted a great look at the bay.” Over the course of the last six months, McCutchen said, the city of Eureka, Redwood Community Action Agency and Humboldt Trails Council “have done something great out there.” He said the finishing touch­es are still being applied, with strategically placed boulders near the picnic tables, raked gravel and new plantings readied along the river bank where, in spring, they’ll “burst forth and make it all better still.” But don’t expect to find it on any local or online maps yet.



“It is all literally brand spanking new,” said Mc-Cutchen. “Google Maps doesn’t even show the com­pleted access lot at the end of Truesdale Avenue as of yet, though it does reveal 1.5 miles of winding asphalt that I had no idea was there until of late.” Truesdale Vista Point, he said, is “a small marvel unto itself ... something new under the sun,” although at this time of year he admits that, perhaps, “sun is too strong a word for Humboldt sensibili­ties.” In fact, his family’s first visit to the new-and ­improved trail last month was a rather soggy one.



“As luck would have it, I opted to revisit this trail a week ago, with my wife and four small children in tow, and was pleasantly surprised to find a new parking lot at the trailhead (23 spaces) and a beautiful new paved walk­way,” said McCutchen, whose wife, Rose McCutchen, owns Children’s Cottage Preschool in Eureka and has lived in the area all her life.



“This was to be a short December hike, honestly, as the sky decided not only to open its vaults of rain but also offered us a rare onslaught of battering hail pellets. Imagine us wet and cold and then being literally attacked by the sky, my infant daughter narrating the adventure with her terrorized wails. Even as we made our miserable retreat I made plans to return and I have been there twice since.”

He says the area is perfect if you like “leisurely walks with your dog, your kids, your best friend from Albuquerque or just by your lonesome, and you like to do that same walk­ing somewhere with a view and a nice, paved trail and park benches to rest on.”

After some investigative work, McCutchen found that the groundbreaking for the site improvement project took place in June and was attended by Eureka Mayor Frank Jager and 4th District Supervisor Virginia Bass.

He also learned there was a photo opp with the usual cer­emonial golden rakes, along with food, music and the unveiling of signs that would soon be posted along the new trail. “Who knew? I didn’t,” he said.

McCutchen believes the trail improvement bodes well for the area in general, what with several relatively new businesses located nearby, not to mention the shopping and dining opportunities nearby.

“That whole corner itself is poised for more commerce,” he said.

McCutchen’s photos, which accompany this story, will give readers a good overview of what they’ll see on the trail — some of which has always been there but unable to be properly appreciated.

“The pilings sticking out of the water with a view across to the Coast Guard station out on Samoa Peninsula are a treat for any amateur photog­rapher,” he said.

“Birds of all kinds are aplenty, and frog song and flora would fill the bouquet for your senses as you strolled. Still, the issues of safety and a lack of mainte­nance sullied the experience.”

Now that it’s been rehabili­tated, the public will hopeful­ly make good use of it.

“Eureka is a small town and as such does not see much rapid change,” said McCut­chen, who has lived in the area for about a decade. “It is rare to find something new in our midst of any scale. It then behooves us to run out and see what’s afoot when a grand and sweeping renovation occurs. This is that.”

Eureka’s new jewel should make it a better place to live and a nicer place to visit, he said. “Whether or not we can keep it that way has little to do with the fact that it is there right now. Go and see!”

And when you’re there, keep an eye out for the McCutchens, with daughter Quinn, who turns 18 months on Tuesday, along with her sister Kahri and brother Neiko on their bikes.

Read Original Article

NOTE: This overview of the 5 Counties Salmonid Conservation Program was published in 2009 in the final edition of California Coastal COnservancy's magazine, California Coast & Ocean.

In 2001, a small miracle occurred in a stream south of the city of Arcata: the salmon came back. Lots of them. The stream, called Morrison Gulch, flows into Jacoby Creek, which empties into Humboldt Bay. Biologists knew it had once been spawning ground for salmon, because for several years they had counted hundreds trying to make their way upstream to mate--600 in one winter alone. But an old culvert under Quarry Road blocked the way; not one fish could make the jump into it from the pool below. Faced with such a barrier, some fish will try to find other places to spawn; others will die of exhaustion from their futile attempt to reach historic spawning grounds.

Then, in August 2001, the County replaced the Quarry Road culvert with a wider one and regraded the stream above and below to raise the channel, allowing the fish to move freely through the new culvert. With the barrier gone, the salmon moved right back into the stream. That winter, biologists counted 70 coho returning to spawn, and the following winter they observed 238 adults and 116 redds (spawning nests).

What happened in the Jacoby Creek watershed is happening, or beginning to happen, in many watersheds along the coast from Del Norte County to Monterey. In the past ten years, through collaborative efforts by counties, state and federal agencies, private landowners, and nonprofit organizations, almost 300 miles of streams have been reopened to salmon and restored to conditions favorable to the fishes’ survival. At a time when everything else seems to be going wrong for West Coast salmon, this achievement is a ray of sunshine.

Locked Out

Culverts and other small stream barriers may seem trivial compared to the large and intractable difficulties salmon face--drought, water diversions, hydropower dams, changes in ocean productivity--but there are so many of them that they have effectively locked fish out of huge areas of spawning habitat. A 2004 report by the Coastal Conservancy identified more than 19,000 barriers in California’s coastal watersheds, at least 1,400 of them severe or impassable.

Even obstacles that are not completely impassable to adult salmon can exhaust the fish before they reach spawning grounds, or keep juveniles, which can’t jump as high as adults, from reaching tributaries that serve as safe havens during floods. “It’s a huge problem,” said Tom Weseloh, North Coast manager for California Trout. “If you’ve got a barrier at the mouth of a watershed, the whole watershed is impaired.”

Long before people knew about the life cycles of anadromous fish, they understood that salmon needed to be able to move freely up- and downstream. In his 2003 book King of Fish: The Thousand-Year Run of Salmon, geologist David R. Montgomery wrote of a 12th-century English statute requiring that English rivers “be kept free of obstructions so that a well-fed three-year-old pig could stand sideways in the stream without touching either side.” Pigs were not at issue; the purpose was to protect salmon.

Despite many such laws and restrictions over the centuries, the needs of fish have rarely been considered when roads and other structures were built, until recently. In California’s early days, many coastal roads were cut right next to creeks for the logging industry, and streams were constricted and blocked by pipes and culverts. In 1935, federal fisheries biologists surveying streams in the Klamath and Shasta National Forests reported that culverts were cutting off salmon from the Klamath River and other main streams, and recommended that small bridges be used instead. They were ignored.

Those roads, usually built quickly and cheaply, have eroded over the years, spilling sediment into the creeks and causing creekbanks to fail. During heavy rains, the old culverts block water and sediment flow, causing floods. But quick fixes cost less up front than bringing back a more natural streamflow, and because there are so many barriers, removing any one of them seemed a waste of time and money--until 1996 and 1997, when coho salmon on the North and Central Coasts were listed as threatened or endangered under the Endangered Species Act (ESA).

Read More