Wildlife Management & Conservation
Columbia River Basin
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Columbia River Basin
Angela Sondenaa
Interim Nez Perce Wildlife Director
Alison M. Jones
NWNL Director and Photographer
Barbara Folger
NWNL Expedition Member and Photographer
This “Voice on the River” interview with Angela clearly frames wildlife management issues and responsibilities to be considered by anyone interested in a conservation career. Our conversation focused on management objectives determined by the Nez Perce in Idaho’s Columbia River Basin, while also highlighting the sweep of intertwined general and global challenges that are faced – from the Endangered Species Act and California condors facing lead poisoning, to migratory monarch butterflies wintering in Mexico dying in their winter habitat of Oyamel pines due to illegal deforestation.
Realizing how much our conversation reveals about environmental conservation, NWNL has shared it with college students and others curious about this career. Angela’s broad grasp of the intertwined needs of ecosystems and species is critical when facing today’s issues. Her story offers a useful template for future wildlife and natural resource managers. As well, this discussion and Angela’s tales of Nez Perce environmental values and actions in the Snake River Basin is a useful guide for all of us everywhere who value our wildlife and ecosystem issues.
MITIGATION in GRANDE RONDE RIVER BASIN
WOLVES in a TROPHIC CASCADE
WOLVES v. ELK HERDS
CRP LANDS & CORRIDORS for WILDLIFE
CONSERVATION EASEMENT PARTNERS
SNAKE RIVER DAMS
LAMPREY
MANAGEMENT CHALLENGES
ENDANGERED SPECIES
CLIMATE CHANGE & HABITAT FRAGMENTATION
PROMOTING ENVIRONMENTAL AWARENESS
ENVIRONMENTAL EDUCATION for YOUNG CHILDREN
Key Quotes Lamprey are part of the ecosystem. We must respect them and let them continue performing their ecological functions. They’re just as important as salmonids in this ecosystem. – Angela Sondenaa
People must see ecosystem conservation as essential to them and their everyday lives. It’s challenging for our audiences understand the language we scientists use regarding our resources. Audiences have various levels of education and understanding of scientific terms. Our job is to explain our terms and put them in context. Finding a common language to do so is a challenge. – Angela Sondenaa
If we’re to be successful in protecting threatened and endangered species, I think we need to intervene much, much earlier. We must do a better job of looking and providing the basic needs of species within their ecosystems – their needs for reproduction, for rearing their young, for movement and migration, and for interacting from a genetics conservation standpoint.
– Angela Sondenaa
All images © Alison M. Jones, unless otherwise noted. All rights reserved.
NWNL / ALISON JONES Thank you for making time for us to chat. It’s great to be back in the Columbia River Basin. Our first NWNL expedition documented the Columbia River by following its main stem from its Canadian source down through British Columbia, Washington and Oregon to its Astoria terminus across from the Chinook Nation with whom we met. I was immediately fascinated by how the Columbia Rive starts as a big river and stays big. So many of the great rivers—including the Mississippi – start as just a trickle.
And now, 7 years later we are here documenting the Snake River, the Columbia’s longest tributary. Barbara has been a great help in organizing this expedition, by setting up this interview and others with you and fellow dedicated stewards. She’s a great colleague and has done most of our Snake River Basin research. And so, Barbara, you should start.
NWNL / BARBARA FOLGER Hi Angela. Let’s start with telling us about your background in stewardship in the Nez Perce Nation and how you developed your interest in tribal government and wolf recovery.
ANGELA SONDENAA I’ve been with the Nez Perce tribal program for almost 16 years working in natural resources.
I grew up in Oregon on the Siletz reservation since I’m a tribal member there. My childhood was spent in the outdoors, playing in the forests, rivers and streams and watching salmon come back to spawn while riding my horse. From the beginning, I had a keen interest in natural systems. In college I pursued a wildlife biology degree at Oregon State University. Then I came to Idaho in the late ‘80s working for the Forest Service; became interested in botany, at that time. As a land management agency, the Forest Service focused on plant management. I returned to school at University of Idaho to receive a Doctorate in Botany, in 2000. Then a friend told me about a job opportunity with the Nez Perce tribe, if I could get my application in within 2 days.
I did and thankfully was hired to work in their mitigation program. So, for 16 years I’ve worked on a wildlife project designed to mitigate impacts of the Lower Snake’s hydro-dam system – part of Federal mitigation under the Power Act of 1980.
NWNL / BARBARA FOLGER What were your first responsibilities in the mitigation area?
ANGELA SONDENAA My first responsibilities when hired was to begin management of a 16,000-acre wildlife area in the lower Grande Ronde River, by improving its fences and access and by starting a weed-control program. My first big project was to develop a management plan to address resource concerns we found and determine our priorities of this effort to improve habitat for wildlife, fish and plants.
NWNL / BARBARA FOLGER Have you covered all tributaries to the Snake from the Grande Ronde regarding mitigation, or has your focus just been on hotspots?
ANGELA SONDENAA Mitigation within the Columbia River hydro-system is a cooperative effort between Northwest Power Conservation Council, Bonneville Power Administration, and key agencies and tribes within the Columbia Basin. From a tribal perspective, we’re like the States. We work within a specific area, which in the Nez Perce case is the area defined by the ICC boundary for territory ceded by treaty.
From a wildlife perspective, our 2 projects mitigate for hydropower in the Snake and Clearwater Rivers. One project is the Lower Joseph Wildlife Area, or “Precious Lands” as we call it. We also have mitigation properties in Idaho associated with the Dworshak Dam next to Orofino.
NWNL / BARBARA FOLGER What species do you focus on in your wildlife mitigation?
ANGELA SONDENAA Our project specifically emphasizes elk and deer on their winter range, because when the dam reservoirs were filled, most habitat for wintering elk and deer populations was inundated. Thus, they lost access to those rich riparian areas and refugia covered by water behind the dams. So our target for mitigation is replacement habitat for elk and deer.
Each hydro system has target species to benefit from our mitigation. In riparian areas we target yellow warblers, downy woodpeckers, and California quail – an introduced species in this area, selected during the initial assessment period.
NWNL / ALISON JONES I saw several quail coming on road nearing the Snake’s confluence with the Palouse.
NWNL / BARBARA FOLGER And we saw some nice dove last night too. Before the dams were put up, there were also a lot of grouse in that area. Has there been any success in building up the grouse population by addressing their habitat?
ANGELA SONDENAA Our grouse populations continue to struggle, yet some species are doing better than others. The ruffed grouse seems to be holding its own better than blue grouse. That’s more specifically related to forest management than the hydro system, but they do continue to struggle. Their numbers can fluctuate widely, especially during cold, wet springs. Often the first clutch of eggs won’t survive, and chicks that are born in the next clutches later in the season are very small going into winter, which affects their survival. It’s a pretty rough life if you’re a grouse.
NWNL / BARBARA FOLGER I’m glad to hear that as I understand the ruffed grouse are not doing as well further east. Especially in South Dakota, they’re having a terrible time.
NWNL / BARBARA FOLGER The wolf recovery program is also a concern. It’s certainly rouses Idaho’s government. I read the recent Idaho State of the State by Gov. Butch Otter [Idaho Governor 2007-2019]. He wants to keep the wolf as a bounty animal to preserve the elk population and the streams. He doesn’t seem to realize the three are connected in what scientists call a trophic cascade.
ANGELA SONDENAA Yes. The Nez Perce tribe became involved in wolf recovery early in the 1990s. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service proposal to reintroduce wolves to Idaho was controversial; and Idaho Fish and Game officials were told not to get involved. Fish and Wildlife decided it was appropriate because Idaho has vast public lands and our remote wilderness areas are great habitat for wolves to restore their natural breeding population.
The Nez Perce tribe stepped up and said, “We’ll help you reintroduce and monitor the wolves with radio callers; report on their success; track their denning sites; count pups and do all that’s required to get the program going.” For the Nez Perce, it was a scientific endeavor as much as it was a cultural endeavor, since value wolves for their maternal instincts and cooperative raising of the pups. They set a great example for other parents, including human parents. It was an appropriate action for the tribe to be involved in, and we’ve stayed involved ever since.
NWNL / BARBARA FOLGER One pack was eliminated by the State of Idaho.
ANGELA SONDENAA Well, as wolves became established in Idaho, more active management became important. As wolves interacted in a negative way with livestock, we had “kill incidents” and people losing their livelihoods due to wolf packs moving in, taking their calves and attacking the cows. There was a need for some aggressive management action. Unfortunately, wolves are very smart, so they learn that cattle and sheep are quite easy prey.
Once a pack starts to predate, they often will not stop; and they teach their young to prey on livestock. Thus, unfortunately it’s become necessary to actively manage wolves as their populations increase. In some cases, the decision has been made to remove entire packs. It’s always a hard decision to make. But, in some cases, we must work to keep a balance between wolf recovery and what’s socially tolerant within Idaho.
NWNL / BARBARA FOLGER What impact do wolves have on the riparian plant?
NWNL / ALISON JONES Ah, that gets back to the trophic cascade.
ANGELA SONDENAA One reason the Nez Perce were so supportive of wolf reintroduction is that they are a keystone species on this landscape. They are pivotal in maintaining ungulate populations and restoring a balance of herbivores and carnivores on our landscape and in the ecosystem.
In doing so, elk populations become more active on the landscape, rather than hanging in the valleys as much. They move around much more and browse less on the riparian vegetation. So, we see a renewal of riparian shrubs—willows and other species. Before, they’d just kind of hang out in those lovely environments and eat without fear of predation. But wolves keep the elk moving a lot more, keep them more aware, and reduce their populations in some places. So, we’re seeing a renewal of riparian areas, and thus a renewal of beavers. Beavers need something to eat, just like the elk. Without healthy shrub and tree cover in riparian areas, beavers cannot reestablish and then we lose Nature’s dam-builders.
These cascade effects throughout the ecosystem are a result of the presence of wolves.
NWNL / ALISON JONES Also wolves along the river protect riparian vegetation which reduces riverbank erosion and thus sediment in the river.
ANGELA SONDENAA Yes, the recovery of riparian areas, as herbivores are less focused on riparian areas, renews the entire hydrology. Rainfall is captured and retained by thirsty roots of increased riparian growth along the banks. The bank stability increases; therefore, there is less sedimentation into the stream. When you have your high flows in the spring, those banks are more stable. There’s less erosion and downcutting of banks . There’s also that vegetation that also supports a tremendous invertebrate population that then fall into the stream and feed the fish as they raise their young.
And so, again, it’s another trophic cascades where one simple change – the reintroduction of a predator – has a ripple effect through the entire system, and its hydrologic processes.
NWNL / BARBARA FOLGER I hear the streamside overgrowth also helps cool the rivers.
ANGELA SONDENAA Yes, shade is an added benefit to the great recovery of the riparian vegetation is shading of the stream. It directly blocks sunlight and keeps temperatures down. Shade also allows organic matter to fall into the system and feed the nutrient cycle within the stream itself. Branches, leaves, insects and bird droppings falling from overhanging canopies into the water column feed that rich stream ecosystem. There are many benefits in having a rich and vibrant riparian area.
NWNL / BARBARA FOLGER Do you have large wolf pack populations between the Clearwater and Salmon Rivers?
ANGELA SONDENAA As wolves re-colonized Idaho, they found the best habitats and recolonized those areas as they expanded from their introduction into Yellowstone and central Idaho. We now have wolf packs in the Idaho Panhandle’ across the Clearwater Basin; and into the Boise/Payette area. The back country’s wilderness areas support wolf populations and packs. especially the Clearwater where we have several successful packs.
NWNL / ALISON JONES How would you compare the reintroduction of wolves in Idaho to that in Yellowstone?
ANGELA SONDENAA Wolf populations are recovering in many areas in the west, particularly in Yellowstone N. P. where they’re protected. Yellowstone, as a park, bans any hunting, and so wolves there could recover in a natural system with abundant game there, and no pressures by the top predator—humans. They have the luxury of a natural recovery in Yellowstone.
Outside of Yellowstone is an overlay of social intolerance on wolf recovery efforts. There are clear conflicts between economic use of the landscape—i.e., grazing, outfitting and guiding hounds for cat hunting and other businesses that create growing pressures on wolves. They face more human threats outside the park, but they’re still quite successful. Wolves are very good at rearing their young and being pack predators. They’re very efficient at gathering food for themselves and their young. But they’re limited where there’s a lack of social tolerance by humans sharing the landscape with them.
NWNL / ALISON JONES Is social intolerance stronger outside Yellowstone than in Idaho?
ANGELA SONDENAA Well, inside the park wolves are fully protected from human predators, and so they are able to be naturally caring. Outside of their protected area in the park, their caring capacity will probably never be reached, because humans also use that landscape. Thus, there are conflicts, and unfortunately human use typically outweighs the needs of wolves, so the wolves involved are removed from the landscape. Sadly, in Idaho they’re actively hunted as a game species.
NWNL / ALISON JONES Wolves are now off the Federal Endangered Species List and thus dependent on individual state’ management. Is that wise?
ANGELA SONDENAA As wolf numbers increased, folks petitioned to delist wolves from federal protections since their populations are fine from a biological standpoint. We do have enough reproducing packs biologically speaking, so it’s probably appropriate they be delisted. Once that occurs, the states manage the wolves, but, as another game species. Since they’re classified as predators, it’s easier to hunt or kill them for coming into your livestock areas. So, in some cases, it’s ok to delist them. But that means working with state agencies instead of U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to find a balance between rules on ecosystems and on maintaining wolves at a socially acceptable level.
NWNL / ALISON JONES How best can ranchers protect livestock from wolves economically? Is use of fencing, flags or noises a solution?
ANGELA SONDENAA Social tolerance of wolves involves teaching people to coexist with wolves. There’s been much work with ranching families on how to change management to minimize wolf conflicts. Each pack is a different, but some clearly respond “fladry,” a fencing with flagging that disturbs the wolves, keeping them away from ranch animals.
Other changes in husbandry including bringing cattle in to calve, so birthing doesn’t attract predators with smell or sounds of calving. Ranchers are now burying dead animals or removing them far away to avoid pulling in wolves . There are other ways to minimize interactions with wolves, but ultimately the operator decides what works most effectively in their landscape. It is a changed landscape – and thus more work for the livestock owners.
NWNL / ALISON JONES As NWNL documented the Mississippi Basin, we visited the Yellowstone River which runs into the Missouri River. In North Yellowstone Park, I observed the Lamar wolf pack. Half are now gone, since they wander past the park boundary and are then immediately shot. It’s a very divisive situation, with folks saying, “This trophic cascade nuts. It doesn’t exist. We’re losing elk. The elk population is going down, because of wolves.”
NWNL / BARBARA FOLGER Yet in Idaho, I hear the elk population is increasing, even though there are more wolves. What do your statistics show?
ANGELA SONDENAA Another part of the wolf recovery is their interaction with ungulate populations. Idaho is well-known for large and robust elk and deer populations, so there’s a perceived, direct conflict, between having elk available to hunters and wildlife watchers and elk needed to feed growing wolf populations. There are claims that elk are being decimated by wolves. In some of our tribe’s early studies, we tracked wolf kills. We followed packs, and when we found a wolf kill, we took statistical information about the carcass. We found that wolves consistently removed sick, old, or injured elk from the population. And so mostly they were removing animals in herds that already compromised. From that perspective they’re making elk populations more robust and productive, because older animals have been removed by wolves.
That scales back age distribution so you’d expect the elks to be more fecund and have more babies. Thus, wolves can benefit elk populations. Of course, there may be localized effects by wolf populations on specific elk herds in certain areas. But there are other issues facing elk herds in Idaho in addition to wolf reintroduction. For instance, the tremendous elk herds people became used to were due to large fires renewing browse that was more easily digested and accessible for elk. Since we’ve suppressed fire over the decades, those shrub fields have gone through natural succession and are now forested. Or at least, they’ve grown up and are large and woody – not readily available to elk for browse. So, we have habitat issues affecting our elk populations as well.
We must look at the entire picture. It’s not just wolves decimating elk populations. Their decline is a very complex issue that needs a very thoughtful approach and management scheme.
NWNL / BARBARA FOLGER What do you know about the elk hoof issues? There’s evidently a disease that deforms elks’ hooves by curving and deforming them. The Washington State Fish and Wildlife contact told us there’s a serious issue with elk hooves. They don’t know the cause or if it’s viral or bacterial.
ANGELA SONDENAA I’m not aware of that.
NWNL / BARBARA FOLGER Many animals were forced out of the Snake River Basin when dams went in, including burrowing owls. Evidently with more dryland farming, ground squirrel populations have gone down, and in some areas are totally extinct. Are you involved in these issues?
ANGELA SONDENAA In the Columbia Basin, new hydrodams created a tremendous new source of cheap electricity. They allowed for large ships and barges taking products down to the Portland area. They also provided tremendous amounts of water for irrigation.
There are also secondary impacts from this hydro system. Dams opened new areas to farming and ranching never before heavily utilized by humans for food production. As a result of that, we negatively impacted some unique, native species – in particular burrowing owls and pygmy rabbits. The latter 2 species suffer from the loss of sagebrush in the Columbia Basin. As agriculture moved in, livestock grazing took over lands converted to pivot-irrigation agriculture. Those habitats became diminished, lost or highly fragmented. The result of these negative impacts on habitat specialist like burrowing owls and pygmy rabbits is that they are in significant decline, and we’re likely to lose them.
NWNL / BARBARA FOLGER Could establishing wildlife corridors help establish such passageways? Perhaps they could be formed by farmers donating of bits of their land?
ANGELA SONDENAA Yes! As agricultural interests moved into the Columbia Basin, habitats became more and more fragmented. So, now sage grouse are on the verge of being listed as Endangered Species. A renewed interest in saving them entails identifying remaining habitat patches; assessing their quality and threats; deciding how to connect remaining habitat patches so wildlife species can interact with each other genetically for reproductive purposes; and then exploring how to expand the habitat where appropriate.
There’s good interest now from private, State, Federal and Tribal landowners to create corridors to connect fragmented habitats to ensure viable populations of impacted species. Corridors would help recover these species so we retain them for our children or our grandchildren to enjoy. Corridors can help keep threatened species from being listed as endangered species. Socially, EPA tagging is effective as restrictions are enacted immediately, so species and humans benefit.
NWNL / BARBARA FOLGER Conservation Reserve Program [CRP] land I’ve known has in the last few years received less funding. In some areas of the US, predominately South Dakota [where I know some farm owners], certain farmers are now not putting their land in CRP. How effective has the CRP program been in habitats you study?
ANGELA SONDENAA Part of our Dworshak Dam mitigation project has been building a land base. Our target is to acquire 10,000 acres over the years. We currently have 7,000+ acres under management. A full 1,000 acres of that was in annual agricultural production before the tribe acquired it. We have enrolled all those acres in the CRP/Conservation Reserve Program. CRP has tremendously supported us in restoring properties into a native plant community by allowing us to get matching funds for planting native grasses, trees and shrubs. We are now actively converting those areas back to natural plant communities for the benefit of fish, wildlife, and hydrology. It’s been a tremendous program.
My only reserved comment is that with cut budgets, the opportunity to do that into the future may decline. That would be unfortunate.
NWNL / BARBARA FOLGER Are you getting funding from Nature Conservancy or any other groups to help you establish this land as a conservation easement?
ANGELA SONDENAA Most of our funding comes through the Farm Bill and the CRP program. We also get base funding from Bonneville Power Administration through a trust fund established for the Dworshak Mitigation Program. So, we largely fund our project with those sources. We’ve not reached out to funders like Ducks Unlimited or Nature Conservancy, since Federal programs are paying for our work.
NWNL / BARBARA FOLGER The Nature Conservancy has done much in eastern Oregon to help ranchers and get easements – especially ranchers in the Joseph area (sort of the Grande Ronde area.
ANGELA SONDENAA As part of the hydro-mitigation program, Bonneville Power [BPA] will contract or work with many different partners, including nonprofits. One of BPA’s partners in the Columbia River Basin, is the Nature Conservancy. They manage several projects for wildlife and fish mitigation via the Bonneville program. One interesting project they’ve initiated is the Zumwalt Prairie Project up in Wallowa County, which drains into the Tenaha, which drains into the Snake River.
In this Zumwalt Prairie system, they’ve acquired a large parcel of land to use as a base of operations. They purchased some of that land outright, and now they’re working with neighboring landowners to change management of that area to benefit fish, wildlife and rare plants. It’s a tremendous partnership, based on Bonneville Power Administration help in purchasing that initial land base on the Zumwalt. The impacts are rippling out to local landowners and livestock operators, helping them improve their ecosystems. It’s amazing.
NWNL / ALISON JONES What impacts would removal of the 4 Lower Snake River dams have on wildlife?
ANGELA SONDENAA Dams going into the Columbia system have changed the river systems, the fisheries, and the direct aquatic ecosystem. Impacts spread completely through the entire ecosystem. When you dam rivers and impede passage of salmon and lamprey, you restrict and impede nutrient flow across the entire ecosystem. Research shows that nutrient flows from the ocean up to the Upper Snake and Clearwater River Basins, were tremendous before the dams; and it shows the fishery was decimated by commercial fishing and canning operations earlier in the century.
There are clear ripple effects between aquatic resources, salmon and upland communities, in terms of protein resources for predators and carnivores, and riverbank species moving fish nutrients out of the stream and onto the land as they feed, drag carcasses, and defecate. They move those nutrients into plant communities as well. The entire land base benefited tremendously from those earlier salmon populations. So, if you modify or remove dams on the system, you’d enjoy a greater return of salmon, and hopefully start recovery on the lamprey returning into the ecosystem. You’d then see a big ripple effect through the entire ecosystem, benefitting wildlife and fish.
NWNL / ALISON JONES A colleague, and great conservation photographer, Amy Gulick, wrote Salmon in the Trees – a great children’s book about bears taking salmon up into the trees — then defecating and nourishing the ground around the tree. The salmon story is an amazing story to tell. The question I ask my audiences is: “Without the dams, how big would the salmon run be?”
NWNL / BARBARA FOLGER Alison was at the Elwha Dam ceremonies.
NWNL / ALISON JONES I was at the decommissioning weekend there when I also attended and taped a speech by Yvon Chouinard (of Patagonia, Inc). He spoke to an overflow of college students in a local gym. We all shared tears of joy at this great celebration. They even bottled local red wine for the occasion and toasts – called “Dam Good Wine.” I bought a bottle for my daughter, who designs colonial dam removals in New England, bringing lamprey back 100 miles upstream from the Atlantic for the first time in over 200 years!
NWNL / BARBARA FOLGER That Elwha Dam removal left us all celebrating how quickly the salmon returned up above the old Elwha Dam.
NWNL / ALISON JONES Yes, they came back in one year!. Scientists didn’t know whether they’d return to their natal streams – or if so, how long it would take? Where does that genetic memory come from?
ANGELA SONDENAA I’m not a fisheries biologist. Folks looking at dam removal issues, particularly the 4 Lower Snake River dams, say dam removal would significantly change salmon populations in the Snake, Salmon, and Clearwater sub-basins. Millions of acres and thousands of miles of fish-bearing streams would benefit from those dam removals. The magnitude’s hard to predict, because there are many factors, like ocean fishing and changing weather, climate change and all those things. But folks who’ve analyzed this issue say the most productive action to take to boost salmon recovery in this area is to remove those 4 Lower Snake River dams.
And the Nez Perce tribe has maintained that position for quite a long time now and have pushed for moving in that direction.
NWNL / ALISON JONES Interestingly, those comments on impacts apply not only to salmon – but also bears, plants and the health of the forests.
ANGELA SONDENAA So let me repeat: If the 4 Lower Snake River dams were removed, it would benefit salmonid populations and lamprey that migrate to the sea, plus their spawned nutrients would benefit the entire ecosystem. As more and more fish return to these headwater streams, the landscape and all animals that live there would benefit.
NWNL / BARBARA FOLGER What do you wish had happened in the last 16 years that hasn’t happened yet that would have enhanced wildlife populations and diversity, forests and plains?
ANGELA SONDENAA In the last 16 years, one issue ignored by policymakers, and agencies, is the plight of the lamprey. Lamprey are very important to Native Peoples within the Columbia River Basin and along the Pacific Ocean. However, modern management of the river system has decimated those populations. Sadly, because there’s no strong commercial interest in recovering lamprey, lamprey have been largely ignored by the policymakers. I think it’s a travesty, and as a Native Person and someone working for a Native American tribe, I think it’s just as important to recover the lamprey as it is the salmon.
NWNL / ALISON JONES While lamprey have been an important resource to local Tribes, many who’ve never known them look at my photos of lamprey behind the glass window at the Bonneville Dam and ask, “Why would we ever want to save something so ugly?” For people back in New York and elsewhere, please describe what’s unique and valuable about lamprey? Why should we care about them?
ANGELA SONDENAA Pacific lamprey are anadromous, like salmonids. They go into the ocean for part of their life cycle. Then they return to freshwater streams to spawn and rear their young, and then they die, as do salmonids.
Historically, lamprey were a very rich source of protein and fats for Native Peoples. They’re very rich in oils, and thus a tremendous food source for Tribes along the Pacific Coast and the Columbia River system. Lamprey were important in ceremonies and during seasonal changes. Lamprey are part of the ecosystem. We must respect them and let them continue performing their ecological functions into the future. They’re just as important as salmonids in this ecosystem.
NWNL / ALISON JONES I understand they also, like salmon, return nutrients from the ocean up into the upland, upstream forest.
ANGELA SONDENAA Yes, that key ecological role benefits headwater streams, and uplands. Salmon and lamprey are very rich food sources for humans – and many species, from grizzly bears to otters, many animals depend on salmon returning to the freshwater areas.
NWNL / BARBARA FOLGER I spoke with the Corps about their new attempt to reintroduce lamprey. But, their former passageways now include dams. Fortunately dam passages have new metal linings. They put these metal passageways in so they could oxidize and thus be rough enough for the lamprey to attach onto. Do the Nez Perce lamprey specialists think this approach will be successful?
ANGELA SONDENAA I’m not aware of that so I don’t really know.
NWNL / BARBARA FOLGER Also, because they’re bottom fish and oily, lamprey are more susceptible to holding heavy metals. How is the testing going for that issue? Also, I hear the sludge held behind Brownlee Dam is deathly. How toxic is that to lamprey?
ANGELA SONDENAA This upper part of Idaho’s Columbia Basin is mostly forested Federal land, thus it lacks intensive agriculture. We have no industrial pollutants entering our streams. We are fortunate we don’t have the heavy burden of pesticides, heavy metals and other pollutants in the lower drainage.
Yet, we people are ingesting the contamination that fish and lamprey bring here from the ocean. That valid concern prompted current studies of fish consumption rates among our populations. They’re determining how much of the heavy burden of metals and other contaminants that salmon and lamprey consume is safe to eat.
NWNL / BARBARA FOLGER Maybe lamprey carry metals more than salmon, because salmon are top feeders in the stream, and lamprey at the bottom where everything sinks. Also the oiliness of lamprey could be a further problem, since oil holds contaminants better than water.
ANGELA SONDENAA Lamprey also spend part of their life cycle in stream sediments before they migrate to the ocean. So, it’s critical that they have fresh, clean water and sediments for their young in their first years of their life.
NWNL / ALISON JONES What do you see as your biggest challenge to managing habitat, mitigation and mediation?
ANGELA SONDENAA As a wildlife biologist, ecologist and program manager, my biggest challenge is ensuring the public understands our management decisions and has enough general knowledge about ecosystems and species’ needs to grasp the decisions we face.
We want the public to know our decisions are not based on misinformation or emotions; but that they are grounded in science and thus clearly defensible. Our challenge is to educate the public, and to understand, weigh and consider their needs as we manage the natural environment and Native populations. The challenges of working with the public and social tolerance face most ecologists and biologists these days.
NWNL / ALISON JONES It’s the conversation I’m constantly having. I was a panel with John Cronin, Co-founder of the Riverkeepers Association with Robert Kennedy, Jr.
John said, “Environmentalists have a problem unlike other big causes that have succeeded, such as civil rights or women’s right to vote. The language of environmentalists is a language of science. It’s clunky and includes terms people don’t understand.”
Do you find it challenging to explain ecosystem needs and values, mitigation and words that are often confusingly scientific and esoteric? If so, how do you get around that?
ANGELA SONDENAA People must see ecosystem conservation as essential to them and their everyday lives. It’s challenging for our audiences understand the language we scientists use regarding our resources. Audiences have various levels of education and understanding of scientific terms. Our job is to explain our terms and put them in context. Finding a common language to do so is a challenge.
We have had success with early and frequent interaction with people. So, we often do programs with school children. We recently did a presentation on how pollinator conservation helps maintain native wildflowers and prairie ecosystems, now so endangered in this area. The more you get people excited and understanding the natural world that they live in, the better you are at getting them engaged in the issues so that we can find common ground and come up with good solutions to the problems.
NWNL / ALISON JONES You referred to the Endangered Species Act as sometimes being clunky. Certainly, it’s better for us and for those specific species not to have that label.
ANGELA SONDENAA One challenge is that some endangered species become completely dependent on humans and how we interact with them for their continued existence.
When the Endangered Species Act was passed, it was a recognition that we as humans control and influence the survival of certain species. Part of the language in the Endangered Species Act that I believe is overlooked and not emphasized enough calls for “conservation of species and the ecosystems on which they depend.” Too often I see that we wait too long to address ecosystem needs of an animal until is on the verge of extinction, with literally a handful of individuals left in the wild before we become worried and try to do something about it.
If we’re to be successful in protecting threatened and endangered species, I think we need to intervene much, much earlier. We must do a better job of looking and providing the basic needs of species within their ecosystems – their needs for reproduction, for rearing their young, for movement and migration, and for interacting from a genetics conservation standpoint.
One of the big challenges with the Endangered Species Act is the way it’s been implemented. It’s been used as a stopgap emergency measure to keep animals from literally falling off the planet. Instead, it must intervene much, much earlier and conserve meaningful habitat so we don’t get to that crisis point.
In the case of the California condor, we captured the last remaining individuals and had to spend millions of dollars rearing them in captivity. Yet in reintroducing them to the landscape, they still faced lead poisoning. We’re great at hatching chicks and rearing the birds, but we then return them to an ecosystem with lead contamination that will kill them. We need to reorganize that law to be more successful and more efficient.
Everyone wants condors on the landscape, but our society may not support that $2 billion price tag. We need to think smarter about it.
NWNL / ALISON JONES So you feel the language of the Endangered Species Act is fine, but we don’t interpret it fully, and thus we don’t move in soon enough.
NWNL / BARBARA FOLGER It seems priorities should be reversed: the Act should address habitat first in order to save the species.
NWNL / ALISON JONES Perhaps it should be recast as the Endangered Ecosystems Act instead of Endangered Species Act.
ANGELA SONDENAA Yes, the Florida Everglades is the perfect example. That entire ecosystem needs to function to retain the manatees and its other species.
NWNL / BARBARA FOLGER Now the Antarctica Shelf is falling off.
ANGELA SONDENAA Climate change is very scary and we’re looking what it will do to some of our ecosystems here on the Nez Perce reservation and in this Columbia River Basin. It is difficult to predict the changes and how species will respond, but we’re already seeing changes. They’re subtle, yet over time they may become very significant, especially vis a vis resource availability.
For example, our songbirds are returning to their northern nesting areas earlier and earlier, as documented in scientists’ data. Can they utilize the resources that they need to survive and start rearing their young on this earlier schedule? How has that shift also changed in native plants, for example,? Are they also blooming earlier to provide nectar sources or seed sources so birds can feed their young? There are many unanswered questions that challenge us in how we work with that so that we’re not on a collision course with disaster.
NWNL / BARBARA FOLGER Those studying monarch butterflies are encouraging all of us to support the monarch butterfly migration, by planting milkweed and other plants they rely on.
ANGELA SONDENAA A combination of events have decimated them.
NWNL / ALISON JONES Yes, I had the chance to document deadly environmental and habitat impacts on monarchs from east of the Rockies wintering over in Mexico. Illegal logging and gun warfare are ruining Michoacan’s forests where all monarchs east of the Rockies over-winter
ANGELA SONDENAA They recently had another huge die-off because of cold winter weather events. Does climate change or that logging and associated ecosystem changes contribute to the magnitude of that recent die-off?
NWNL / ALISON JONES The logging causes climate change there. I witnessed such a die-off. It was incredibly sad to walk across a forest floor one-foot deep in folded wings of dead monarchs.
ANGELA SONDENAA That’s what I’ve heard. That’s awful. How do you recover after seeing something like that.
NWNL / ALISON JONES We stood there crying. Dr. Lincoln Brower, a monarch specialist, was there explaining the uniqueness of that Oyamel pine forest. For ages that mere 10 acres of forest have provided just the right environment for millions of monarchs. It’s stunning.
ANGELA SONDENAA That’s a tiny habitat.
NWNL / ALISON JONES Tiny, unique and critical. It’s just the right height and just the right moisture. It’s perfect for those wintering monarchs. It was dense forest, until Asians went illegal to do “selective logging.”
But that ruined the tight 10-acre cluster of pines. It was like cutting holes in a quilt. Such a quilt can’t keep you warm if there are holes in it. Foreign timber companies paid off Mexican governmental authorities and fought their way in with automatic weapons. It’s a sad story.
But that monarch butterfly crisis is due to logging, not due to colder winters. It’s that the forest has been cut up. And, since the milkweed’s gone here; the monarchs are greatly threatened.
ANGELA SONDENAA Their habitat’s been compromised. It’s habitat fragmentation. A migratory species must have food sources and habitat all along its route. We’re seeing that with our birds. A developer may not think twice about bulldozing a 30-acre patch of hardwoods, but that patch – now wiped off the map – might have been a key stopover spot for some of our migratory songbirds. The critical interconnectedness of such sites is amazing. We don’t know enough about them. We need much, much more research.
NWNL / BARBARA FOLGER In Oregon’s countryside near Corvallis, anyone can do what they want with trees on their land, whereas one mile away in Corvallis, nobody can touch a tree without permission of the State. Yes, outside of the city, folks can wipe out 35 Oregon native white oaks because they don’t want to pick up the leaves! I keep asking why states don’t put in more regulations. There seems to be a divisive issue between regulation by government versus free enterprise and personal rights.
How do you balance regulations versus freedoms here in Idaho, which is very much an individual-rights state?
ANGELA SONDENAA There are challenges in working with diverse groups of people and different populations. Individual world views and how one sees oneself within the natural world. If you see yourself apart and separate from the natural systems – versus as a ruler of the natural systems – you’ll have a very different perspective than someone feeling part of the natural world, and part of the planet’s citizenship – which includes all species. That’s one challenge in grasping and working with different perspectives.
Working towards a more holistic view of humans and our place in the environment is critically important. If we see ourselves as separate, we have no incentive to protect and conserve and perpetuate the natural environment – even though our lives depend on it. Thus, we need to change our views of our role on the planet to be successful in protecting Nature.
NWNL / ALISON JONES Martin Buber’s 1923 book I and Thou addresses that connection you just described. When asked to talk about No Water No Life to a high school “History of Religion” class, I reverted to that book which was assigned reading for my high-school class in existentialism and religion.
Martin Buber wrote that to engage with the world we must change our individual psychologies by changing our language from “I and It” to “I and Thou” to stop verbalizing separation. We need to change our terms and stop holding nature as separate. For instance, when we look at the river over there, we must realize that our water connects to that river over there – which connects with other rivers and then with the ocean, sea or bay. We must learn to integrate all of this, and that includes integrating it into our language.
ANGELA SONDENAA It’s a real challenge to teach people how their actions affect, interact and depend on our natural environment. Moscow, Idaho – just north of the Nez Perce reservation – has started spray-painting their storm drains with little symbols of fish. Most people walk by those every day without a second thought.
But if we start telling people, “Hey the garbage you throw in here goes to the stream where fish swallow it. It’s a subtle awareness, but slowly people become more thoughtful in their actions. It’s important for us to continue to work on promoting such awareness.
NWNL / ALISON JONES In Santa Barbara, California, environmentalists and those worried about climate change came up with a proposal that almost got through – until the realtors heard about it. They wanted to draw the blue line showing the high tide line to come with climate change in 50 years or 100 years.
A New York City map shows the blue line along Canal Street.
NWNL / BARBARA FOLGER There’s a blue line map for San Francisco…
NWNL / ALISON JONES … and for many other cities. But those blue lines aren’t painted on the streets – yet!
NWNL / BARBARA FOLGER How much education is there in lower elementary schools to connect the kids to their environment? Having raised six children, I pushed their involvement with the environment at a very young age – even fascination with potato bugs! Do you get involved, or is there a group in this area that gets involved with pre-school children?
ANGELA SONDENAA Early education is critical for raising aware citizens to talk about and understand how their livelihood and their lifestyle affects the natural environment, and vice versa. In addition to formal education in our schools, I think that kind of awareness begins at home and by interacting with children in parks, forests and while fishing. The Nez Perce tribe is culture is very alive and vibrant, so children fish with their uncles, and gather roots with their aunties and their siblings from a very early age. Yet in other populations and other cultures that many children aren’t getting that. They sit in front of televisions or are on their iPhones.
That disassociation between their life and the natural world is very real. We need to reconnect children to the natural environment, so they understand those relationships. Otherwise, they’ll have no incentive to protect the waters, restore the streams and care about fish and birds. If there’s no personal interaction there, why should they care? That is a great challenge for us as parents and community members. We must instill and reinforce their understanding and appreciation for the water, air, earth and all species that live here.
NWNL / ALISON JONES I couldn’t agree more. That’s why No Water No Life’s first challenge is to establish the value of our freshwater resources.
The beauty, the spiritual value, the connection of the water and the animals, the zebra drinking from a puddle, the yellow warbler building its nest – whatever it is, we’re all connected. We all need the same resource. We’re all cousins to each other. There are many ways to say it, but we must establish the value, importance, and specialness of water.
ANGELA SONDENAA And we must share how water systems work! Many just turn the tap on and get fresh water. Well, how does that happen? Many don’t know where our municipal water sources are. Does our drinking water coming from deep wells or out of a river? Is it treated for us to drink? Does it come from a watershed up on the mountain that feeds into a reservoir somewhere? Most of us couldn’t answer those questions if asked. We need to be smarter about this stuff.
NWNL / BARBARA FOLGER And every single person you can educate helps with that.
I was on a bus in San Francisco and saw kids with water bottles. I asked if they knew where that water came from. One said, “It comes from Hetch Hetchy.” The others asked, “What’s Hetch Hetchy?” Hetch Hetchy is the big reservoir that supplies all San Francisco’s water and most of the Bay Area’s water. They didn’t know where Hetch Hetchy was and had never heard of the name. Now they know! And hopefully they’ll remember that talk on the bus. Every little, tiny connection helps.
NWNL / BARBARA FOLGER You’ve been more than generous with your time, and we really appreciate your wonderful descriptions.
NWNL / ALISON JONES Thank you, Angela, for sharing your experiences and knowledge. You are a great model for upcoming watershed and wildlife stewards.
Posted by NWNL on November 06, 2024.
Transcription edited and condensed for clarity by Alison M. Jones.
All images © Alison M. Jones, unless otherwise noted. All rights reserved.