Upper Klamath Wildlife Refuge

7/17/19

Today I woke up around 7 am, today is the day we take a tour of the Klamath River. But first we meet at their research station just a 20 minute drive away. There we met Alex Gonyaw, he goes more into detail about the Klamath River basin. 1820 was the first contact of the native people, there are three tribes of the river basin the Modoc, the Klamath, and the Yahooskin. In 1864 the Klamath boundary was reduced by over 40% of the original size, He talked about the fish  in the lake and how they age them, the fish are almost like trees with counting their rings  you can age some of them by counting the amount of lines on their scales. Two of the fish in the upper Klamath and Lower Klamath are listed in the endangered species act, the people at research station believe they are listed because they are an endemic species and it is easier for this species to be affected because it is only found in one spot. There are 33 species found in the upper Klamath wildlife refuge and about half of them are introduced, they have to deal with many problems outside of the fish and water problems. They have been in court trying to free space for the species to survive and I feel like they are hanging on by a thread, it’s an ongoing battle with the ranchers who grow potatoes in the area.