Extension hosts noxious weed education
B y L e slie M itts
Spilyay Tymoo
OSU E xtension at W arm
Springs hosted an educational
forum recendy to inform people
about weeds.
According to Jon Valley, a
D eschutes County employee
available to answer questions
and speak to community mem
bers, educational tools like the
“weed wagon” help people to be
able to identify weeds and learn
about types o f noxious weeds
that should be removed.
Noxious weeds can be difficult
to control because seeds can re
main viable for years and have
extensive, root systems.
However, they can be con
trolled if people report weed
sightings and take steps to prevent
their spreading.
The weed wagon was parked
in the community center park
ing lot during the forum, mak
ing its first appearance in Warm
March 13, 2 0 0 8
Spilyay Tymoo, Warm Springs, Oregon
Page 6
Leslie Mitts/Spilyay
Rico Thompson browses brochures in the “weed wagon” as Owen Danzuka Sr. looks on.
Springs since being purchased
for use by the Interagency Weed
Management Team.
The event also included pre
sentations and speakers, with
topics ranging from common
weeds o f the range, seeding for
fire rehabilitation, local range
treatm ents plots, grazing for
weed management, and how to
recognize invasive species.
P articipants included the
Oregon Department o f Agricul
ture, the county weed depart
ments, Central Oregon Agricul
ture Research Station, the BIA
and Fire Management.
Biomass transmission line
project assessment released
The Resource Manage
ment Interdisciplinary Team
recently approved for pub
lic review a project assess
m ent pertaining to the pro
posed Biomass Transm is
sion Line.
The project would develop
85 acres in a narrow swath
running from Warm Springs
Forest Products Industries to
Round Butte Dam.
T he Resource M anage
ment Interdisciplinary Team
(RM ID T)
unanim ously
passed a motion to release the
project for public review and
comment during a February
28 meeting.
■ The transmission line will
cover a distance o f 15 miles.
The poles carrying the line
will be 80 feet tall and they
will be spaced 350 apart.
A 12-foot wide mainte
nance road will be used to
access the line.
T he line will tran sp o rt
electricity generated at the
W arm S p rin g s b io m ass
power plant to the Round
Butte switch yard, where it
will be sold to Portland Gen
eral Electric.
The project assessm ent
followed a process outlined in
the In teg rated R esources
Management Plan.
Resource professionals
gathered com m ents from
tribal members, planned the
development and analyzed
for its potential impacts.
Tribal members have 30
days to comment on the Bio-,
mass T ran sm issio n Line
Project Assessment.
Copies o f the document
are available at the Warm
Springs Power Enterprises
office.
Biologists find challenge in supporting both kokanee and bull trout
(AP) - The 228 tiny kokanee
swam in a white plastic bucket
only a few days after hatching
in the Metolius River.
O n their way downstream to
Lake Billy Chinook, they ran into
a detour: an 8-foot-high fish
trap, and, eventually, the bucket,
as part of an effort to track the
number of kokanee making the
trip.
Trapping that many kokanee
this early in the season was re
ally unusual, noted Megan Hill,
a fish biologist with Portland
General Electric.
But it's a welcome turn for
fisheries managers, who have
Clackamas River basin to help
populations there, said Peter
Lickwar, a fish and wildlife bi
ologist with the U.S. Fish and
Wildlife Service.
And Ratliff sees a connection
between the high bull trout num
bers and the. peak o f the ko
kanee numbers. After the ko
kanee population reached its
high around 2000, the number
of bull trout soared.
“They went through the roof
in 2002,” he said o f the bull
trout. “We all wondered if it was
a sustainable population, and it
looks like it wasn't.”
That's because last fall, the
propriate at this time.
That's especially the case be
cause things are about to change
in Lake Billy Chinook, said
Lickwar, with the U.S. Fish and
Wildlife Service.
The Confederated Tribes of
Warm Springs and PGE are in
the process of installing a fish
passage facility at Round Butte
Dam to collect fish that people
will truck to downstream por
tions o f the Deschutes River.
But it will also change the water
currents and temperatures o f
the reservoir, Lickwar said, and
so the agency wants to see how
that affects bull trout and ko
I se e n th e k o k a n e e p o p u la tio n . n u m b er o f bull tro r ^ s p g w ning
decline iii te c e n f years.
in the Metolius River ’a fbpped
kanee and oth er fish populations
b e fo re c h an g in g th e m an a g e
The fish are pulled in many
directions: federally protected
bull trout prey on them, anglers
seek to snag them and biologists
are about to try to coax some
o f them to migrate past the
Pelton and Round Butte dams
to the ocean.
And with these multiple pres
sures, plus uncertainty over
what's going to happen when an
add-on to the dam changes wa
ter currents and temperatures,
biologists are keeping a close eye
on the kokanee, to make sure
the p o p u la tio n can rem ain
healthy.
“We're putting a lot o f de
mands on this kokanee popula
tio n ,” said B rett H odgson,
Deschutes District biologist with
the Oregon Department of Fish
and Wildlife. “The question is,
how can we best manage the
situation to try to meet those
three demands?”
The kokanee population has
been up and down since scien
tists started monitoring it closely
about 15 years ago.
Kokanee, a landlocked ver
sion of sockeye salmon, quickly
became the biggest game fish in
Lake Billy Chinook after the
reservoir filled in 1964 upon
completion o f the Pelton Round
Butte dam complex, said Don
Ratliff, senior aquatic biologist
with PGE. The population has
declined rapidly since then, he
said. While anglers normally
catch an average o f 70,000 ko
kanee a year, and caught
135,000 in 2000, last year they
only pulled in 16,000.
One of the reasons for this
decline, Ratliff said, is bull trout,
and the predator-prey relation
ship it has with kokanee. Bull
trout, a larger species that eats
both kokanee and small bull
trout, is listed as threatened un
der the federal Endangered Spe
cies Act.
But the bull trout population
in Lake Billy Chinook is robust,
and there's even talk of trans
ferring some o f them to the
But when that happens, the
fisheries managers will have a
better handle on what direction
to go in, and how to balance the
risks and benefits to the differ
ent species o f fish.
While there are no plans at
the moment to cut back on how
many bull trout are munching
on kokanee, the state and tribes
are cutting back on how many
kokanee people can catch.
With the kokanee population
down, and the bull trout popu
lation up, anglers are casting
their lines for bull trout in the
spring months instead, Hodgson
said.
kanee population increasing,”
Hodgson said.
The Warm Springs tribes and
PG E are also keeping a close
eye on the kokanee population.
As p a rt.. o f the federal
relicen sin g process fo r the
Pelton and Round Butte dams,
the dams' co-owners are required
to bring back the chinook, steel
head and sockeye that used to
return from the ocean to the
upper reaches o f the Deschutes
Basin, but are now blocked by
the dams.
“We would utilize the robust
stocks o f kokanee in Lake Billy
Chinook to jump-start a sock-
Mike G auvin, fisheries m anage
“I th in k th ro u g h a red u ctio n
eye rim ,” said G auvin,-w ith the
ment Supervisor with the tribes'.
“The reality is, until this thing
turns on in 2009, we really don't
know how the fish are going to
respond to it,” he said.
o‘f the harvest, and adjustment
of bull trout numbers through
just natural predator-prey rela
tionships, hopefully, optimisti
cally, we're going to see the ko
tribes. “The key for us is to find
a balance between how many
fish can go out, and how .many
fish need to stay in that lake.”
noting that populations without
either anglers or predators still
cycle up and down.
And, a previous study found
that bull trout actually eat more
insects than they do kokanee.
‘We're trying not to move too
quickly to a conclusion and pro
gression of action that might not
necessarily be the best to pur
sue,” Lickwar said. “W hat I
guess we've tried to support is a
little bit o f patience in trying to
watch how things develop.”
There are many unknowns
about the interaction between
kokanee, bull trout and their
ecosystem in the reservoir, said
by more than a third, from 974 ment of bull trout.
to 601. So the bull trout popu
And there are other things
lation now appears to be declin that could prey on kokanee, or
ing, following the pattern o f its affect their population, he said,
kokanee prey, he said.
“It's kind of a slingshot ef
fect that echoes through the
ecosystem,” Ratliff said.
T he kokanee p op u latio n
seems to be on a slight upswing
now, he and Hodgson agreed.
“What it appears we have is
a normal predator-prey cycle,
and there appears to be a trend
where the two populations are
starting to adjust and normalize
to each other,” Hodgson said.
But the question, he said, is ;
w hether fisheries m anagers
should try to stem any increase
in the numbers o f bull trout to
let the kokanee take off to meet
these dem ands, or if they
should just let it be, Hodgson
said.
“I think there is agreement
that there is a predator-prey re
lationship between bull trout and
kokanee,” he said. “Where the
uncertainty lies, is whether there
needs to be more aggressive bull
trout management.”
What adds another layer of
debate is the bull trout's threat
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runs o f the fish in the country
that people can catch, and al
lowing anglers to catch and keep
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O verniijht p a d re s available
R atliff said he would like
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federal fishery managers to ap
prove a recovery plan for the
bull trout, so that once they hit
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catch and keep more so the bull
trout population could become
more stable.
‘W e have more than we need
spawning, and they appear to be
$5,000 Fridays, March 14 and 28 with
affecting other species in the
$1,000 every hour, Spm-midnight
lake,” Ratliff said.
But Hodgson said the state
wildlife department is taking the
“wait and see” approach, and
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