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Podcast 1 - Thankful for Salmon and Beaver · Street Smart Naturalist

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Greetings and welcome to the podcast of my newsletter,
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_00: The Street Smart Naturalist,
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  SPEAKER_00: Explorations of the Urban Kind,
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  SPEAKER_00: which I began in 2021 as a way to share my observations about the human and natural
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  SPEAKER_00: world around Seattle,
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  SPEAKER_00: Puget Sound,
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  SPEAKER_00: and the Pacific Northwest.
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  SPEAKER_00: This podcast is simply an additional way to share those stories.
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  SPEAKER_00: Thanks again for joining me on this adventure.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_00: This is Podcast One of the Street Smart Naturalist.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_00: Thankful for Salmon and Beaver, the joys and gifts of the urban wild.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: Thanksgiving 2024.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_00: The last few weeks have been a challenge.
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  SPEAKER_00: Like many,
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  SPEAKER_00: I've been trying to balance the joy of community and friendship with the despair I
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  SPEAKER_00: feel over the people being nominated for what is better described as a junk drawer
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  SPEAKER_00: than as a cabinet.
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  SPEAKER_00: I am thankful, motivated and encouraged by the former and dumbfounded and depressed by the latter.
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  SPEAKER_00: As I've written previously,
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  SPEAKER_00: my better path to the future is to focus on what I care about,
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  SPEAKER_00: and for me,
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  SPEAKER_00: that is the natural world.
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  SPEAKER_00: This week,
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  SPEAKER_00: I was lucky to witness a beautiful,
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  SPEAKER_00: humbling,
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  SPEAKER_00: joyous,
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  SPEAKER_00: and energizing event,
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  SPEAKER_00: the amazing return of salmon to a small urban creek,
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  SPEAKER_00: and for that,
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  SPEAKER_00: I give thanks.
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  SPEAKER_00: I was privileged to see these salmon in Piper's Creek in Carkeek Park in northwest Seattle.
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  SPEAKER_00: Primarily chum,
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  SPEAKER_00: the fish had been born elsewhere and donated by the Suquamish tribe and brought as
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  SPEAKER_00: eggs and juveniles and reared in a small pond up Venema Creek,
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  SPEAKER_00: a tributary of pipers on the north side of Carkeek's main road.
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  SPEAKER_00: When old enough,
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  SPEAKER_00: the salmon,
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  SPEAKER_00: now imprinted on Venoma's unique chemistry,
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  SPEAKER_00: swam down Venoma to Pipers to Puget Sound.
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  SPEAKER_00: The chum then spent the next three to four years in salt water before tracking
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  SPEAKER_00: their way home chemically and magnetically and spawning and dying.
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  SPEAKER_00: I entered the park by my regular route at the upper end of the creek.
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  SPEAKER_00: The trail drops down into a ravine with many feeder rivulets and a forest of alder,
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  SPEAKER_00: big leaf maple,
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  SPEAKER_00: and black cottonwood.
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  SPEAKER_00: I pass by what I think is one of the biggest western red cedar stumps in the city, the Piper's Orchard.
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  SPEAKER_00: and the Carkeek pump station before I saw salmon or Venoma confluences Piper's Creek.
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  SPEAKER_00: A couple of fish swam in a small pool, slowly and quietly.
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  SPEAKER_00: Nearby were a few dead ones who I assumed had spawned.
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  SPEAKER_00: As I continued down the creek, I saw dozens and dozens of fish.
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  SPEAKER_00: Most looked beat up and ragged.
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  SPEAKER_00: It's not easy to swim up the creek,
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  SPEAKER_00: pass a massive beaver dam,
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  SPEAKER_00: under vegetation,
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  SPEAKER_00: and along the gravelly,
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  SPEAKER_00: rocky creek bottom.
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  SPEAKER_00: Alongside the creek were greater numbers of dead salmon and places so abundant that
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  SPEAKER_00: they smelled,
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  SPEAKER_00: well,
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  SPEAKER_00: of dead fish.
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  SPEAKER_00: Only a few had been scavenged,
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  SPEAKER_00: though coyotes,
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  SPEAKER_00: crows,
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  SPEAKER_00: and raccoons probably took advantage of the carcasses,
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  SPEAKER_00: and I wasn't seeing their work.
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  SPEAKER_00: I was also surprised to learn that mallards not only consume salmon eggs, but also their carcasses.
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  SPEAKER_00: I didn't mind the aroma of the fish.
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  SPEAKER_00: I didn't smell it as a sign of death,
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  SPEAKER_00: but as a sign of life that so many salmon have weathered the challenges of the wild
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  SPEAKER_00: to return to this small urban waterway and pass their genes on to a next generation.
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  SPEAKER_00: At the lower end of Pipers,
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  SPEAKER_00: I found another natural history phenomenon to be thankful for,
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  SPEAKER_00: beavers,
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  SPEAKER_00: which moved there in spring 2023 and began terraforming.
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  SPEAKER_00: Their dams and lodge created a basketball court-sized pond,
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  SPEAKER_00: or at least I could see the area where the pond had been.
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  SPEAKER_00: Rain in the previous week had apparently led to the breaching of the dam.
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  SPEAKER_00: When I was at the Knot Pond,
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  SPEAKER_00: I chatted with two biologists who told me that the dams bothered some people
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  SPEAKER_00: because the water killed trees and altered habitat.
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  SPEAKER_00: and the dams could block the salmon.
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  SPEAKER_00: Both of them,
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  SPEAKER_00: in contrast,
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  SPEAKER_00: expressed their excitement at the beavers,
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  SPEAKER_00: noting that what some considered to be messy and chaotic was a fully functioning,
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  SPEAKER_00: healthy ecosystem rich in diversity.
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  SPEAKER_00: Beavers were simply being the ecosystem's engineers they had evolved to be.
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  SPEAKER_00: The biologists also pointed out two beaver exclusion fences cut into the dam.
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  SPEAKER_00: They helped maintain the water level and facilitated salmon passage.
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  SPEAKER_00: Part of living in harmony and respect with nature not only requires tolerance of change,
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  SPEAKER_00: but also sometimes a bit of judicial management.
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  SPEAKER_00: As the biologist observed,
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  SPEAKER_00: the record high run of salmon illustrates that beaver and fish and people can coexist.
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  SPEAKER_00: We are slowly learning to be part of and not apart from the natural world we inhabit.
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  SPEAKER_00: It was clear the beaver's presence enhanced the diversity of Piper's Creek.
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  SPEAKER_00: Rising out of the former area of the pond was a snag drilled by biliated woodpeckers,
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  SPEAKER_00: and resting nearby on two downed trees were great blue herons.
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  SPEAKER_00: I also saw and heard a kingfisher, crows, gulls, and tree frogs.
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  SPEAKER_00: The pond and lodge also create additional structural diversity that will benefit a
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  SPEAKER_00: host of organisms from microinvertebrates to bald eagles.
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  SPEAKER_00: Seeing the return of Salmon to Piper's Creek and the work of the beavers,
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  SPEAKER_00: I knew that I was watching an ongoing natural history story that stretches back
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  SPEAKER_00: thousands of years in this inland sea.
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  SPEAKER_00: These animals were illustrating the power of place,
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  SPEAKER_00: of how the DNA of a landscape can embed itself in each of us,
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  SPEAKER_00: animal,
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  SPEAKER_00: plant,
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  SPEAKER_00: and human,
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  SPEAKER_00: and provide a tenacity and resilience to the challenges that we all face.
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  SPEAKER_00: And for this, I give thanks.
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  SPEAKER_00: I would be remiss if I didn't make a note about the community of people and
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  SPEAKER_00: organizations such as the Karkeek Watershed Community Action Project and local,
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  SPEAKER_00: state,
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  SPEAKER_00: and tribal government agencies who have worked tirelessly over the years to restore
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  SPEAKER_00: and nurture habitat at the park.
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  SPEAKER_00: Their work is helpful and inspiring.
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  SPEAKER_00: For more information about my work,
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  SPEAKER_00: you can always go to my website,
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_00: geologywriter.com,
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  SPEAKER_00: which has information on my books,
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  SPEAKER_00: walks,
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  SPEAKER_00: and talks,
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  SPEAKER_00: and a link to sign up for my newsletter.
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  SPEAKER_00: And don't forget to slow down, pay attention, and enjoy the world around you.
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  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.