March

So March is a month of preparing for the spring and summer ahead of me. It is a time for renewal and energy. So naturally I found myself using Stream Team activities as an excuse to be outside in the woods, and by a river or stream. Of course I don't need an excuse to do so, but it feels like multi-tasking to me.

My last excursion doing Stream Team activities, I was in a beautiful pristine area that is known for the cleanliness and preservation of the land. I was in Labarque Creek testing the bugs and chemicals to see if it was up to par. Our net sets of bugs were shockingly empty. The diversity as well as population was lacking. And very close to where we picked the bugs happened to be two dead Sculpin fish, one mature and another a baby. We found two living minnows, but the Sculpins still disturbed us, especially since it seemed clear that it was a chemical change that killed them. However when we took chemical samples, everything was in the normal ranges. What we did notice was new filamentous algae thickly growing in places it had not been before.

Now we have the Labarque teams working hard to continue the testing and see if it gets better or worse, and possibly to determine the cause of change. But I am optimistic that it will get better so long as we all are conscientious about our actions and how they affect our ecosystem.