You And Fish And Flowing Waters Can You Answer

you and fish and flowing waters can you answer these questions. 1. what is a watershed? 2. what watershed are you living in

You and Fish and Flowing Waters
Can you answer these questions.
1. What is a watershed?
2.
What watershed are you living in?
3.
What does a healthy river look like (What is growing on the banks?
What lives in the river? What does the water look like? What shape
does the river have?).
4.
What do fish need to be happy?
5.
How is wildlife dependent on rivers and the area next to rivers?
6.
How are forests important to the rivers the health of the rivers
that run through them?
7.
What is the riparian area and how is it important to fish and
wildlife?
8.
How do humans affect the health of streams (forest harvest,
agriculture, building and living near rivers)?
9. List 2 ways you can shrink your footprint?
I.
What is a watershed? How does a river change from headwaters to
mouth?
*
For a fish, a watershed is the continuous stream of water that it
can swim through starting at the lake or ocean through the mouth
of a river, and the river to all of the streams, brooks, and
wetlands connected to it without having to go across any land.
Healthy watersheds collect water from precipitation and slowly
release it into streams. Watersheds naturally undergo continuous
changes each season and over the centuries. The changes, which
result from human activities, are very different and broader in
scope than naturally occurring changes. When we cut forests, clear
and cultivate land, build towns, and withdraw water for irrigation
we cause rapid and often irreversible changes. These changes have
local effects and affect everything downstream also.
*
The headwaters of streams are usually in the mountains around here
and the gradient is steep. As first order streams connect into
larger streams and rivers (order 3-5) they change. The water
becomes warmer and the speed decreases.
*
Habitat features of Streams
Next class we will talk a lot more about the riparian area (located on
the bank of a waterbody) of a stream and the importance of the
vegetation growing there. This vegetation is important in many ways
but for now think about the shade it offers, the cover for fish and
bugs to hide under, and how it provides the large woody debris (large
trunks of trees that have fallen into the river) to the stream. Large
woody debris helps to stabilize channels, provides safe habitat for
small and large organisms, and traps both sediment and organic (dead
plants and animals) matter.
II.
How are salmon the canaries of our watersheds? Why is their health
important to our health even if we don’t eat fish?
*
Life stages of salmonids. Some species go out to the ocean after a
winter in the river as eggs and then fry. They grow into adults in
the ocean and return to the river to lay eggs. Others live in the
river and lakes as young fish for 1-3 years and then go to the
ocean as adults and return later to lay eggs. Still others remain
in the fresh water system their entire life. Each life stage has
different food and habitat requirements. Make notes below;
Upstream Migration (Adults)
Spawning (Adults)
Incubation (eggs)
Rearing (juveniles or fry)
Seaward or lakeward migration (smolts)
The Horsefly runs come up the Fraser, into the Quesnel River, through
Quesnel Lake, and into the Horsefly River and the tributaries. If the
fish aren’t making it and their numbers go down it tells us there is
something wrong with their habitat. They sing out like canaries in
mines when the river isn’t healthy for them. List below 2 or more
changes that could affect their health and what might cause those
changes. Also state how you might be responsible for that change.
IV. What do fish eat? What do the bugs in the stream tell us about the
health of the stream?
*
Bugs eat plants and the organic matter in the stream. Fish eat
bugs. No bugs, no fish.
*
Shredders, collectors, scrappers, and predators all play an
important role in different parts of the stream
*
Different bugs are tolerant of different stream conditions. By
counting the number of each kind of bug found in a sample of
stream water a biologist can judge the health of the stream
III.
How does the sun provide a stream ecosystem with the energy to
keep it going?
*
Food Web
*
Streams get energy from two main sources: photosynthesis by
aquatic plants in the stream and decomposition of organic matter
imported from outside the stream. We will talk a lot more about
this next class.
*
List some of the sources of energy from outside the stream below
Homework
Think about these concepts and then list two ways you can act at the
LOCAL PERSONAL LEVEL RIGHT NOW so that your footprint is smaller and
our watershed healthier for the non-human species like fish.
Everywhere is somewhere so when you let something go down a drain or
throw out garbage it ends up in some part of the watershed where other
organisms have to deal with it.
Think Globally, Act Locally