Bio Survey Trip - 6/5/04
Last weekend, Biology spent the weekend with the Survey project and we
started getting some real numbers on our stream invertebrate populations.
Bill Gee and I found only a couple cavefish, but isopods and cavesnails
were abundant on manganese-coated, medium-sized rocks in gentle riffles.
An excellent place to do a complete count is Black Rock Falls, just
upstream from UR1. There on that shelf we counted 351 isopods in about
30 minutes. That's a density of 5.6 isopods per square foot at that
waterfall!
Bill pointed out that the edge of that shelf has been broken from people
standing there (i.e. and on the isopods!). Bill flagged the area in
hopes that we can eliminate trampling and damage at Black Rock Falls.
A full report will follow, and will be posted on the CCC website.
July's biology trip will focus on monitoring other sites in some
unobtrusive, repeatable way. We hope to soon be capable of watching how
animal numbers go up or down. Thereafter we can start to focus on
causes, whether seasonal, natural fluctuations, or decreases the result
of too much human traffic.
Please contact me if you're interested in a 6- or 8-hour trip with the
Bio project on July 10th.
Hasta luego,
Lawrence Ireland