KELP RESTORATION

Now in its second year, the Kelp Restoration project on Marrowstone Island, Washington State has some exciting news. Lots of people have been enjoying netting in the shallow waters to explore life in the former kelp forest. The kelp beds used to rim the entire northern end of the island. They created a dense tangle of sea plants growing as much as 50 feet or more in length each spring. Migrating salmon, whales, seabirds, and other sea life depended on the kelp forest for all or part of their life history. For unknown reasons, the kelp vanished entirely in the 1980s.

Coho salmon like this one landed by Ron and Dimitri grow to large size thanks to kelp forests. Juvenile salmon find shelter in the tangles of kelp and small fish and shrimp that depend on kelp become prey of adult salmon. Chances are good that you can find Ron casting a line for salmon most days in late summer and early fall. But he tries to help the kelp too.

Marine biologist and artist, Kirsten Carlson has begun helping with the kelp project. On a recent field trip to catch fish for illustrations, Kirsten, Ron, and Dalal, a visiting biologist from Kuwait made the observation of the year --- One adult kelp plant was seen firmly attached in the shallows along the north end of the island. The plant may well be one that grew from the 100 or so kelp plants artificially attached last summer. We will watch it grow and continue to transplant more kelp in hopes of restoring the rich sea forest.

See Kirsten and Ron's OCEAN SEASONS to learn more about the food webs and seasonal changes associated with kelp forests. Visit the Monterey Bay Aquarium website for further information and to explore west coast ecology and environmental issues. Be sure to check out their well researched list of seafoods to enjoy and those to avoid.

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WHALE WATERSHEDS AND BUFFALO TRAILS

If you stop along the path of any river or stream in America, you will find an amazingly complex water path. I call rivers "Whale Watersheds" in hopes of getting kids excited about water and the downstream path to the sea, and into the mouths of whales.

If you take a look at my school projects, you will see many of them are based on some moment or story shared with kids that relates to this river path. This journey a river takes might begin in the middle of America. In our Big Book project, Whalestreet, kids got excited about sea life when they realized their local stream, Walnut Creek, eventually made its way to the Ohio River and on to the Gulf of Mexico.

Working with kids in Wyoming, it was easy to generate excitement about the Snake River because elk and moose often roam right past the doors of Wilson Elementary where we worked. But the book, SNAKE TO THE SEA took on new life as kids explored the path of their river from the Rockies to the Pacific Ocean. There is magic in rivers and there is even more magic in the sea.

As an author and biologist, I've often been disappointed by major media productions that lead kids to think of an animal only in its fictionalized form. Turtles were tough to talk about for a long time due to those masked reptiles that appeared in the early 90s. But lately, kids seem renewed in their interest in sea life with the refreshing and positive portrayals of ocean animals in movies like Finding Nemo and March of the Penguins. As we work on ocean projects, they seem far more willing to do a little extra research to learn more about the actual life history and ecology of the "characters" they see on the screen.

One way I have of getting more kids interested in rivers and oceans is to continue the Big Book projects. I'll travel with the existing books and teachers from schools already involved with those books will "travel" the books too, sharing them within their districts and at workshops and conferences.

Another way I plan to get kids thinking about rivers and watersheds is to introduce them to the history of Buffalo in America. Like whales, buffalo, or bison, are iconic figures and there is probably no creature more symbolic of our country than the buffalo. Numbering up to an estimated 60 million in the early 1800s, they were driven to near extinction by 1900 when the few animals remaining were mostly roaming the high hills within Yellowstone National Park.

Like the rivers, buffalo etch trails in their wandering. Once, these trails crossed our country and often followed the banks of rivers and streams. I recently discovered that bison were once common along the banks of Salt Creek, a tributary to the Scioto River in Ohio. As they do in other places, the bison moved up and down the stream in search of salt. They would stop at "licks" to nourish themselves with minerals from the earth, then wander back to the open prairie habitats that were scattered throughout the otherwise forested Ohio landscape.

From Ohio to Wyoming, there is a trail I have talked about with kids for many years. You can see it as the ribbon of blue that forms the network of rivers and streams of the greater Mississippi - Missouri Watershed. Kids love to know they could, much like Lewis and Clark, follow that network of rivers and streams from one end to another.

Bison along the Yellowstone River, headwaters of the Missouri. July 2006.

There are even places you might visit where the continent divides, high in the Rockies. Here, the waters of the uppermost tributaries of the Mississippi - Missouri wed with those of the Upper Snake River. Buffalo Trails followed much of this pathway. Long before Lewis and Clark traced the path, Shoshone, Wyandot, Cheyenne, and other First Peoples had a harmonious relationship with these waters, the buffalo, and most other creatures living up and downstream.

If I can get students and teachers excited about whales, I think it will be as fun to start new projects based on these old Buffalo Watersheds. Take a look at my school project page to see some beginnings. Kids planting trees along a pond or stream help waters regain a healthier condition. Maybe they won't be bringing buffalo back to Ohio, but kids will help restore Rocky Mountain wild lands and waters where buffalo, wolves, and cougars can flourish more widely, more freely.

For inspiration in your own work along rivers and streams, see Jean Giono's THE MAN WHO PLANTED TREES. See also river organizations such as American Rivers at www.americanrivers.org and local stream helpers such as the North Olympic Salmon Coalition at www.nosc.org or take up your fishing pole and head out to catch a fish while learning more about fish and their aquatic habitats with guides like Doug Rose. Stream and ocean study need not be so rigorous and burdened with expensive equipment. Those who read or see the movie, A River Runs Through It by Norman McLean are often drawn to help protect waterways as readily as any scientist. And by all means, check out the way in which First Peoples in your area have worked with water for centuries. Tribes often have websites with current scientific studies that may need volunteers. See the Point No Point Treaty Council and member Tribes as an example at www.pnptc.org

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JUVENILE SALMON AND TROUT STUDIES

My friend and colleague, Dr. Thomas Doty and I have worked for quite a few years to learn more about how juvenile salmon and trout make use of small estuaries of Hood Canal and the eastern reaches of the Strait of Juan de Fuca. A paper has been written about our early findings and is available from Port Gamble S'Klallam Fisheries. A more complete report is in the works.

We often work with community groups or organizations such as Washington State University's Extension office in Jefferson County, Washington to help educate realtors and others about the special needs of juvenile salmonids. And we are always happy to take kids on field trips to share our knowledge gained during our studies and other work such as Tom's many years leading his biology students on field trips out of his offices at Roger Williams University in Rhode Island.

Tom and I will get everybody wet and his good humor and vast knowledge of aquatic life will inform and inspire you. We can take you to some of the least spoiled places in western Washington where you might see a net full of hundreds of tiny silver fish ≠ baby coho, Chinook, pinks, and chums along with sea run cutthroat and other fish that have adapted to life where fresh meets salt. Small estuaries are wonderful places. They are fragile and some become part of our other work, such as saving Nick's Lagoon and other coastal waterscapes.