Wednesday, October 14th
Today we attended a presentation about the habitat needs of salmon and lamprey in the Northwest. The talk was sponsored by the Luckiamute Watershed Council as part of their Sips and Science series. It was scheduled to begin at 6:30 and would feature a modest free buffet (!) starting at 6:00. We got ourselves into the little red car and set off at 5:30. The event was held in Independence at Divine Distillers. The place was a little hard to find. Somewhat ironically, Divine Distillers shares the main premises of the Inferno restaurant.
We got some food and a couple glasses of beer. E had a stout, which was so good that it attracted a couple of fruit flies who got into her glass hoping for a taste. She gently shooed them away, remembering something she had heard long ago. “Don’t mind little bugs in your drink. They won’t take very much.”
The speaker was excellent and we enjoyed the talk even though some of it was rather sad. We learned about the history of salmon and lamprey populations in the Northwest, the main point being that today’s populations can only be very small fractions of what they once were. The decline is easy to explain, given the many ways that the local human inhabitants have (unintentionally) made things tough on salmon. For one thing, they made dozens of dams that prevented salmon from reaching their breeding grounds. In the beginning this was a complete disaster and salmon populations plummeted. Fortunately, this problem has been partially addressed by adapting some of the largest dams to create ways for migrating fish to get past them. And some smaller dams are being removed.
Less fortunately, the disappearance of critical habitat is harder to address. Over the last five million years, salmon have become very well adapted to the river system as it used to be. In the upper reaches, where adults come to spawn and young salmon are born, the natural streams were once full of fallen trees and other natural obstacles. They flowed relatively slowly, were full of nutrients, and contained a mix of rapids and pools. In the lower reaches, the natural rivers created extensive flood plains and wetlands. Things changed, of course, when the Europeans moved in. They had their own needs. They wanted big, fast, obstacle-free rivers to float their logs on. They wanted dams that would control floods so that multi-channel (braided) rivers could be turned into single channel rivers. Floodplains and wetlands could then be transformed into productive agricultural land.
These days, people are working to undo some of those changes and replace some of the lost habitat. Impressive as these projects are, they can only go so far. Regenerating thousands of acres of wetland and floodplain would require the relocation of thousands of acres of roads, bridges, houses and farms. That would take some doing.
Both salmon and lamprey are anadromous–living in fresh water when they are young, migrating to the sea as they are become adults, and then coming back up the rivers to spawn at the end of their lives. And both depend on the natural conditions described above. Their life cycles, however, are very different. When lamprey are born they are tiny wormlike creatures who live by filtering out microbes and organic detritus from the water that makes its way through the silt of the river bottoms. They live this way for five to seven years.
After that they begin a metamorphosis that enables them to swim downstream and prepares them for life in the sea. For a lively and non-technical description of the life of a lamprey, click here. Fully adult lamprey average about 24 inches long and may reach a length of 36 inches. The adults remain in the sea for a relatively short time, three years at most, and then return upriver to spawn.
Lampreys are native to the coastal areas of Europe and the Black Sea. In the eastern U.S. they are thought to have been native only in the Connecticut river system. These days, however, they are thriving in both Lake Champlain and the Great Lakes. They likely got there via the Erie and Welland canals. In the areas where they are invasive they have few predators and are a major nuisance. Although we often call them lamprey eels, fish biologists are adamant that they are NOT eels. For one thing, eels have bones but lampreys don’t. So there. Also of note is the fact that lamprey have a very high caloric content. Native tribes like the Wiyot and Yurok have traditionally fed them to babies and young children. While salmon have lived on earth for about 5 million years, lampreys have been around for 450 million years.
Friday, October 16th
Today we went up into the mountains where the tall trees grow. E’s cousin Ross Chambers–recently deceased–accompanied us on the way up. Ross loved big trees and had expressed his wish to have his ashes scattered somewhere among the ones he had seen in the Oregon Cascades. This provided us with an excellent reason to go for a forest hike on a beautiful fall day. Besides trees, Ross loved horse racing, craft beers and cats. We were unable to arrange to have a racehorse on hand, but we did manage the other three.
After the ceremony we did some more walking through the big firs and hemlocks. Despite the dry fall, there were a few fungi here and there.
Sunday, October 18th
What does Corvallis have in common with Egg Harbor NJ, Phoenix AZ, East Moline IL, Braintree MA and a whole bunch of other U.S. cities? Greek Fest!
Our festival, which is put on by the St. Anne Orthodox Church, has been happening for many years now, always around this time of year and always running from Friday to Sunday. This year we went at noon on Sunday with a group of friends. What a feast: a three entree meal with your choice of spanakopita, fusolia, dolmas, braised lamb, pork souvlaki, Moroccan chicken, pasticcio, dolmas and falafel, all these accompanied by greek salad, rice pilaf, humus and pita bread. The drink selection included cider, wine, retsina, and ouzo. For dessert there was baklava and a number of other sweets, some Greek and some not so Greek. Besides the meal, there was live Greek music and dancing.
Greek coffee was also available, but we’ve been skipping that and inviting friends to our house where M makes Turkish coffee, which comes to the same thing. This year it was warm enough to have the gathering on our back patio. As usual, people brought along the desserts they’d purchased at the Festival. Were there enough sweets for everyone? Somehow, that never seems to be a problem.
Monday, October 26th
We’re getting some rain this week, finally. Most of October has been dry and sunny. Nice weather, of course, but a little too sunny and a little too dry. The earth is thirsty, with deep cracks appearing here and there in the clay soil. A day or two of rain isn’t much, but the sun-bleached colors of the garden already seem richer.
Tuesday, October 27th
We’re leaving next Monday for a nine-day stay in Mexico City. As the date approaches, it’s getting harder and harder to concentrate on anything else. A person should never travel.