wes_von_papineäu
Our Roving Correspondent
THE COLUMBIAN (Vancouver, Washington) 13 April 08 Helping hands for herps (Michael Andersen)
The 200 net-wielding volunteers who joined Clark County’s annual “critter count” Saturday were more than nature hobbyists, Cory Samia said.
They were teammates in the race to understand how urbanization, climate change and invasive species are affecting the creepy-crawlies of the Pacific Northwest.
“Before all the herps disappear in Clark County because of pressure from habitat loss, it would be really nice to know what we’ve got,” said Samia, of the Vancouver’s Water Resources Education Center, using a biologist’s shorthand for reptiles and amphibians, “herpitological” animals. “We could have some wonderful reversal of development, right? And if we didn’t know what native species were here, we’d be at a loss.”
Standing at the edge of a pond at Battle Ground Public Schools’ Center for Agriculture and Environmental Education Saturday, Samia watched dozens of surrogate scientists, ages 5 to 50, dipping their equipment into the water to catch and tally wriggling tadpoles, snakes and newts.
A few hundred feet to her south, a morning breeze carried the smell of manure across an 1,000-acre agricultural area approved for industrial development last year as part of county commissioners’ urban growth plan.
“Especially with climate change, nobody knows how useful this data will be,” Samia said.
Take the ensatina, she said, a salamander that’s one of Clark County’s most common critters. Scientists know little about things as simple as how it breeds, she said — they haven’t had the time to find out yet.
“There’s just not enough field work in science to get a hold of the location, diversity, density of herps, much less answer some of the research questions,” she said. “That’s why citizen monitoring is so important.”
True, the volunteers’ data isn’t all that reliable, Samia said. Still, she said it will all be entered on a Web site maintained by the University of Washington and state Department of Fish and Wildlife. And it’s better than nothing.
The school’s wetland, constructed for research purposes six years ago, represents Clark County in an acre: its native species are threatened by chemical runoff, temperature swings and predatory bullfrogs, which humans introduced to the area for food in the 1920s or ’30s.
The ponds are monitored and tended by students at CASEE, a four-year, half-day high school science program.
“I’ve learned more this year than I have in any science class,” said Ethan Gallegos, a CASEE sophomore from Battle Ground who helped lead volunteers in Saturday’s count.
Michael Gunderson, a senior from La Center, said attending CASEE for four years was the best decision he’d made in high school.
Saturday’s volunteers were legally required not to re-release any of the ping-pong ball-sized bullfrog tadpoles they found. Irene Catlin, a CASEE instructor, said bullfrogs may be invasive predators, but they’re now so common in the area that it’s not clear how the ponds will respond if they disappear.
“This is a true hypothesis,” Catlin said, sitting next to a bucket of the tadpoles. “What will happen if we remove the bullfrog?”
Makayla Olsen, a serious, bespectacled CASEE freshman who decided last year that she wants to be a marine biologist, broke in.
“And I get to be part of it,” she said, almost singing in excitement. “It’s so much fun.”
http://www.columbian.com/news/localNews/2008/04/04132008_Helping-hands-for-herps.cfm
The 200 net-wielding volunteers who joined Clark County’s annual “critter count” Saturday were more than nature hobbyists, Cory Samia said.
They were teammates in the race to understand how urbanization, climate change and invasive species are affecting the creepy-crawlies of the Pacific Northwest.
“Before all the herps disappear in Clark County because of pressure from habitat loss, it would be really nice to know what we’ve got,” said Samia, of the Vancouver’s Water Resources Education Center, using a biologist’s shorthand for reptiles and amphibians, “herpitological” animals. “We could have some wonderful reversal of development, right? And if we didn’t know what native species were here, we’d be at a loss.”
Standing at the edge of a pond at Battle Ground Public Schools’ Center for Agriculture and Environmental Education Saturday, Samia watched dozens of surrogate scientists, ages 5 to 50, dipping their equipment into the water to catch and tally wriggling tadpoles, snakes and newts.
A few hundred feet to her south, a morning breeze carried the smell of manure across an 1,000-acre agricultural area approved for industrial development last year as part of county commissioners’ urban growth plan.
“Especially with climate change, nobody knows how useful this data will be,” Samia said.
Take the ensatina, she said, a salamander that’s one of Clark County’s most common critters. Scientists know little about things as simple as how it breeds, she said — they haven’t had the time to find out yet.
“There’s just not enough field work in science to get a hold of the location, diversity, density of herps, much less answer some of the research questions,” she said. “That’s why citizen monitoring is so important.”
True, the volunteers’ data isn’t all that reliable, Samia said. Still, she said it will all be entered on a Web site maintained by the University of Washington and state Department of Fish and Wildlife. And it’s better than nothing.
The school’s wetland, constructed for research purposes six years ago, represents Clark County in an acre: its native species are threatened by chemical runoff, temperature swings and predatory bullfrogs, which humans introduced to the area for food in the 1920s or ’30s.
The ponds are monitored and tended by students at CASEE, a four-year, half-day high school science program.
“I’ve learned more this year than I have in any science class,” said Ethan Gallegos, a CASEE sophomore from Battle Ground who helped lead volunteers in Saturday’s count.
Michael Gunderson, a senior from La Center, said attending CASEE for four years was the best decision he’d made in high school.
Saturday’s volunteers were legally required not to re-release any of the ping-pong ball-sized bullfrog tadpoles they found. Irene Catlin, a CASEE instructor, said bullfrogs may be invasive predators, but they’re now so common in the area that it’s not clear how the ponds will respond if they disappear.
“This is a true hypothesis,” Catlin said, sitting next to a bucket of the tadpoles. “What will happen if we remove the bullfrog?”
Makayla Olsen, a serious, bespectacled CASEE freshman who decided last year that she wants to be a marine biologist, broke in.
“And I get to be part of it,” she said, almost singing in excitement. “It’s so much fun.”
http://www.columbian.com/news/localNews/2008/04/04132008_Helping-hands-for-herps.cfm