We’re in high gear now that Spring is in full swing here in the Willamette river basin!
Board Retreat
We held our annual Board Member retreat on March 30th in Albany, OR. The objective of this annual meeting is to review the work of the past few months as well as upcoming projects and events, allowing for more in-depth discussions and presentations than our regular monthly meetings allow. Kristen Daly, Education Project Manager, recently attended a training for Environmental Educators to increase the Council’s understanding of the important issues of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI). Kristen presented on improving our understanding and implementation of DEI into our vision, community outreach and projects. Collin McCandless (our Executive Director) and Cris Salazar (Habitat Restoration Projects Manager) also led presentations and discussions that reviewed the Council’s current Strategic Plan (2017-2020) progress and developments.
After lunch, we all drove out to Bowers Rock State Park, the site of a habitat restoration project that has been almost fifteen years in the making! Now all the preparation and planning is nearing completion, the restoration work to remove large areas of invasive plant species, and create two side channels from the man-made lake to the Willamette river, is scheduled for this summer. The work itself should only take about a month, but will provide extremely important habitat for juvenile salmonids to rest and feed. The absence of such channels causes these young salmonids to be washed out to the main stem of the river before they are mature enough to survive. The side channels will provide important refuge and feeding grounds to allow maturation and improved survival for these endangered native fish. Visit the project page for more info.
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Education Project Developments
Spring is the busiest time of the year for our Education team. We hired a new seasonal staff member, Kate Potter, who brings a wealth of Outdoor School experience and energy to our Outdoor School (ODS) program which began mid-April. ODS provides hands-on environmental science exploration in a summer camp setting to Greater Albany Public School 6th graders.
The Urban Ecology program leads day field trips until the end of the school year in June, and our popular Snorkeling Program has expanded this year to provide a unique opportunity for students to explore the river close up and personal!
[divider_line] Fundraising
With just over half of all tickets sold, we’re optimistically hopefully that we will be able to find the lucky winner of our beautiful Canoe Raffle before summer’s end! We still have just over 100 tickets left to sell though so be sure you have your tickets and please spread the word near and far about this very special raffle for an important cause!
Other ways to give and support the Calapooia Watershed Council now includes the option of shopping through iGive or Smile.Amazon.com, as well as purchasing one of our “Fish Rising” T-Shirts, and making either a one-time or reoccurring donation through Donate Kindly!
The Council is grateful for the support it receives, enabling us to provide more resources to our Education and Restoration work. Donations are tax-deductible!
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Project News
Our survey technicians have been exploring the upper Calapooia river areas to perform counts of winter steelhead redds (nests), and their reports are extremely exciting and encouraging! When our team performed these surveys in 2017, the count for the whole season was 24. So far this year, the count is at 45 with a month left to survey, a 53% increase in just two years!
Habitat Restoration Manager Cris attended a training held by the Samara Group and Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife on how to survey and increase numbers of the native Western Pond Turtle, a species under review for listing under the Endangered Species Act. He learned more than he could have imagined thanks to turtle experts James Holley and Christopher Yee, and even managed to snap a shot of this small hatchling (reportedly the size of a quarter!)”
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Thanks for checking out our news! Here’s hoping you are able to enjoy some lovely Spring weather and our beautiful watershed!