07-13-23 Day 6


Today has been a very long day we woke around 6 for breakfast and getting ready. We set up the breakfast/lunch line packed up everything we’re taking and put up every that a bear might want away. We met Alex at the Sister's ranger station I was able to get a eagles and chinook salmon pin for my backpack which is awesome. There we learned a bit about Alex and Lorene, Alex is the partnership program manager at Deschutes National Forest he has 20 years of fire management in his background and been at Deschutes for 12 years. Lorene on the other hand is environmental coordinator at Deschutes National Forest. She does a ton of work with NEPA review before project start, she also responsible for organizing field team. She has a master in forestry and been at the Sisters for 2.5 years they took us out to Indian ford creek. Where we met John a wildlife biologist, he took us to see Glaze meadow which used to be wetlands before the beaver population disappear from unknown reason. In 2009 was the last known sighting of a beaver in the area. With the restoration project the team built 26 analog dams in Black butte swamp the hope are beaver return to the area and until they do the analog dam are repaired by the team once a year. After we met up with Ian and Andrew and learned about prescribed burning in the area was a ton of ponderosa pine which are very fire resistance. So to get a healthy state in the forest like it was in the past they say they need to do about 50,000 acres a year but only managing ~3,000-5,000 a year we also learned that the natural fire interval is 7-15 Deschutes interval is 15-20 years. Our last educational stop was at Wizard Falls fish hatchery where we met Rain. She explained to us the basics of the hatchery as we walked around. We learned cool things like they opened in 1948, and how their waterways all come from springs and the east side spring comes from underground. They also have five species of fish like Brook trout, Tiger trout, Brown trout, Kokanee salmon, and spring chinook. another cool fact is they can speed up and slow down the development of the fish using the temperature of the water. Another thing about the job i didn't know was the importance of genetics in the field like for example to make a tiger trout its actually the mix of Brown trout female and male Brook trout. After all this fun our day wasn't over after getting back to camp for a good dinner and some chores. We started the water experiment we been working on. So where we left off was, we isolated a colony of bacteria and cultured it in a nutrient agar. Then that night we took that bacteria and heat fixed it to a slide where we did a stain gram on the slide so we could find out if our bacteria is gram positive or gram negative. But that's to find out tomorrow cause today a long day and we can barely focus till tomorrow.



Before pic of Black Butte Swamp
Beaver Analog Dam
Black Bute Swamp
Group rest and learning
Beautiful scene right outside Wizard Fall Hatchery
Fish

More fish







Feeding frenzy 


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