Oregon Field Guide Education Program; Focus on Organisms; Part 1

Hello, I'd like to welcome you to the Oregon Field Guide Education Program. I'm your host, Steve Amen. Our hope is that we've designed a program that will not only entertain but enlighten. This portion of the program focuses on organisms and should be viewed as a journey of sorts. We'll be looking at Oregon's past and ending with a view towards the future. The video segments are just 1 part of the program. We worked with some of the leading educators around the state to provide additional background information and suggestions for extending the experience through classroom projects. But these are only suggestions. This is your program. You can follow it to the letter or completely modify it to fit your style. The outdoors is meant to be enjoyed and so is this program. Our hope is that the reports on the lost animals of Oregon, the marbled murrelets, opossums, amphibians, Kiger mustangs and the like are not only fun to watch, but they give you and your students a much better idea of the complex nature of the various ecosystems and many forces that affect them. And with that in mind, what do you say we get started? Throughout this segment, we'll be taking a look at a number of Oregon animals that are

endangered, and it's crucial that we do focus a lot of our attention on them. But first, in order to show you why it is so important, we're going to look back in time at several species that used to thrive here but are now gone. Hopefully, as John Tuttle reports, we can avoid some of the mistakes of the past if we just take time to study it. Once Oregon had its own buffalo, not these, but a distinct and different species. The native buffalo of southeastern Oregon were bigger animals with straighter horns. Scientists believe Oregon's buffalo were hunted into extinction 200 years ago before the first white explorers found their way into the area, but after the nomadic tribes had acquired horses. Horses made the Indians so much more efficient hunters, that by the time the whites arrived, the Oregon buffalo were gone. The end of the Oregon Buffalo is the first recorded instance of an Oregon species

wiped out by advancing technology. That puts it first on our list of lost animals of Oregon: species that have disappeared in relatively recent times, eliminated or pushed out of the way by people. Indians and Europeans working the Oregon coastline were equally efficient with the sea otters. These animals were photographed in California waters, not Oregon. Oregon has no sea otters. Russian fur traders sailing the Pacific and buying hides eliminated Oregon sea otters, all of them, about 100 years before the earliest immigrants came down the Oregon Trail. In turn, our immigrant forebearers eliminated the wolves. Wolves were common in Oregon when the white settlers first got here. And from the best records we have, the last wolf disappeared in the 1930s was, uh, was taken by white men.

Bill Haight, who works with threatened and endangered species for the state of Oregon. Every once while somebody sees a large canine, a large dog type animal in the backwoods of Oregon, we're not sure what those are. And we've never had one of them in hand to determine what they are. Once Oregon had Northwestern Timberwolves and Plains Wolves. Now it has rumors of wolves and zoo wolves. And zoo grizzlies. At the turn of the century, there were still grizzly bears in the Wallowas and at least a single survivor in the south of the state. Ironically, the last one that we're aware of was one that was named Real Foot that was killed in- outside of Medford in southwestern Oregon in the early 1900s. And there's an animal, too, that just was not too compatible with man's activities in the settled parts of Oregon.

The wolves and grizzlies fell prey to a belief that, at the time, there was one too many species in Oregon. Other species were wiped out almost without notice as their habitat gave way to expanding farmlands. To the list of lost Oregon animals, add these: the California condor; a wingspan of nearly ten feet makes it the biggest bird in North America. There are references to California condors in Lewis and Clark's account of their expedition to Oregon. The explorers killed two of the birds in what is Clatsop County today. They killed a third near present-day Portland. The last reported condor in Oregon was in Lane County in 1851. Also shot and killed. Today, there are no California condors in Oregon, and only 40 of the birds in the world, all of them in zoos. Then there was the fisher, a marmot-like animal pushed out of its Oregon habitat. This is Fish and Wildlife's stock photo of a Fisher.

Like all Oregon fishers, this animal is dead. After it was stuffed, it was posed for this photograph. And the lynx. As a species, there are still lynx in other states. But to use the biologists' word, they have been extirpated, eliminated in Oregon, trapped until there are none left. Another lost bird: the sharp-tailed grouse. Habitat modification was the big problem there, as we converted so much of that habitat into rangeland and agricultural land. And also it, just like the bighorn sheep, it was ready prey for the ranchers or the homesteaders that moved into those areas. It was common in the draws and so forth and very, very good to eat. So it was readily hunted. So habitat modification and overhunting were the two main factors that drove it out of existence. A cousin to the prairie chicken, there were still sharp-tailed grouse in eastern Oregon as late as the 1950s. There is a tendency to think of these stories as distant history and

to dismiss the eradication of whole species as the work of people somehow less enlightened and far different than the kind of people we are today, which is why there is reason to remember an odd and ugly little fish known to scientists as Lampetra minima. About the only place you see specimens of minima today is in the basement of Nash Hall on the Oregon State University campus in Corvallis. Minima, or as they are better known, Miller Lake lampreys, are no longer found in Miller Lake. Now they are only found in jars. Carl Bond is our guide. And as a young fisheries biologist, Professor Bond was coauthor of the paper that first described the minima. They're the smallest parasitic or predatory lamprey known, and they are extinct. The end of the lampreys was recorded in a series of black and white photographs. We were, that is the old game commission, was attempting to

manage Miller Lake for Brook Trout. The problem was that the lamprey found them as ready prey to parasitize. [Bill Haight talks in background] The problem was that for at least the last 6 to 7 thousand years, this Klamath County Lake already had a native fish: the lampreys. But the Oregon State Game Commission wanted to stock Miller Lake with brook trout, and it regarded the minima as trash fish. If they were in the way and causing a problem, we tried to eliminate them. So in spite of the fact that the Miller Lake lamprey was very unique, it was causing a problem, and that was the judgment of the old game commission to get rid of it. So we used toxaphene to treat that lake, which is a very hard pesticide, a poison. A poison, yes. Did you pour it into the lake? It was poured into the lake. It was spread around with equipment that distributed it throughout the water. And not only killed the lampreys, it kept that lake hot for about seven years. That is toxic for that period of time.

And we were very effective. We eliminated the lamprey. Today, Miller Lake is known as a trout lake. Biologists have searched the neighboring creeks for surviving minima, but Oregon's eradication effort was apparently a 100 percent success. I recognize them as being different, and I talk to people about the inadvisability of removing them because they were different from anything else we knew about. But there was no really organized effort to stop this. There may have been a few letters written, but the worth of the fishery was deemed to be greater than the worth of the unique lamprey. The last of the lampreys, a total of perhaps 100 specimens, are pickled in jars of alcohol.

Well, in those days we lived in a different world with different attitudes, and there was really no way to discourage it. Carl Bond is being kind, but he is probably also repeating the epitaph for all the lost animals of Oregon. From the Oregon buffalo to the minima, the excuse has always been that what happened was part of a different time and different attitudes. One sign of these times is that the state of Oregon is now drawn up a list of species it regards as sensitive. Species on their way to the threatened or endangered lists. [fishermen cheer] The sensitive species list includes several runs of Coho, spring and fall Chinook salmon, birds like the pileated woodpecker, and the Townsend's big-eared bat. It is a list of a little over 100 species of animals that are declining in the state, in addition to those that are on the threatened endangered species list.

And our whole idea here is that we want to make people aware of this list. And if land managers out there can do anything to turn around the decline in that population and keep those from someday becoming listed, we're well ahead of the game. What else do you find on the list of sensitive species? Bull trout and coastal cutthroats, nine varieties of salamanders, six species of frogs, plus lesser species of owls, woodpeckers, voles, snakes and rabbits. A total of 107 in all. This sensitivity list can be taken as a positive sign that Oregon times and attitudes have changed. Though, if this story were being told by a wolf or a grizzly instead, it would probably end with a forecast that more animals will move from the sensitive list to the threatened list to endangered to lost. [kids talk in background] The record shows this isn't a different world with different attitudes. Yet the only proven difference so far is that ours is the generation

that makes lists. Only knowledge can help prevent making the same mistakes. You can obtain the current list of sensitive species by calling the Portland office of the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife. All along the West Coast, concern is growing about a little seabird called the marbled murrelet. The concern is that the bird may be having serious trouble adapting to man- caused changes in its habitat. Habitat that's miles inland in the coast range forests. Jim Newman has the latest on an investigation of the elusive bird, research that could have a big impact on logging. Out beyond the breakers, the seabirds ride the gentle swells to feed on fish and crustaceans. They find anchovies and sandlings and capelin within a half-mile of shore. But the open water habitat helps make some birds a mystery to interested humans. Feeding, sleeping, mating off shore as they do,

the seabirds live their lives well beyond the limits of casual observation. Yet scientists have more than a casual interest in one robin-sized bird making its home on the surface of the Pacific. The behavior of the marbled murrelet may have significant impact on regional logging practices, and researchers are studying the bird as carefully as can be. [scientists talk in background] Kim Nelson of Oregon State University and one of her staff are at a city park in Yachats on Oregon's central coast. They are conducting a sea bird count. They will diligently record sightings of rhinoceros auklets and murres and puffins and other birds living on the ocean. But their true purpose here is to determine the population of the marbled murrelet. In the 1930s, ornithologists reported the marbled murrelet was a common bird on Oregon's coast. Now the bird is rarely seen in much of its former habitat.

Yet marbled murrelet research is in an early stage in Oregon. A survey, just getting underway, to gauge the bird's decline and learn how to reverse the trend may take years to complete. Just the fact that they are so camouflaged and their whole behavior is centered around not being detected, it makes it very difficult for collecting information. To study the marbled murrelet is to track an entire lifecycle at the outer perimeter of the human environment. The bird leaves the ocean to nest and produce its young in Coast Range forest miles inland. And for Kim Nelson, looking for a tiny bird in the forest is like looking for a needle in a haystack. Ornithologists have been trying to figure out what the murrelet's been doing since the late 1800's. They fly 60 miles an hour and most of their activity is at dawn and dusk when light levels are very low. [Kim Nelson talks and laughs in background] The time is 5 o'clock in the morning and we are 9 miles inland from the coast.

It is the Trout Creek drainage at the edge of the Drift Creek Wilderness area. Kim's crew of researchers deploys along a logging road at strategic intervals, clipboard in hand. We end up doing observations from openings like roads or openings in the forests, just because it's easier for us to see. We need to see what's going on. Tracking the marbled murrelet in the forest will help scientists learn more about what kind of forest it needs to survive. But this morning will not be good for bird watching. Kim gets a flickering glimpse of just one murrelet. The team's primary contact with the bird this morning will be audio only. [birds call]. Just hear them give their typical keer call. It's keer keer keer. Sounds like a gull. Within the tapestry of morning sounds, the delicate thread of the murrelet's distinctive call reveals some birds about 200 meters away.

[murrelets keer call] Such faint contact is frustrating, but it does confirm there are marbled murrelets nesting in this part of the forest. Indeed, as daunting as Kim's work is, it has already produced results. This remarkable video of an adult brooding a newly hatched chick is the product of the team's efforts. And Kim's research allows her to generalize with confidence about some aspects of the marbled murrelets' behavior. We know that these birds nest in old-growth trees, all the nests have been found only in old-growth trees. We know that they're found only in mature and old-growth forests. Eventually, Kim's investigation may help forest managers know just how much forest should be set aside to ensure the bird's survival. And that search for marbled murrelet nests, nests which are needles in a very, very large haystack, demands an odd forest specialty. Paul Engelmeyer is a tree climber by profession. When the research team spots nesting behavior, such as silent murrelets

flying through high branches, he combs the surrounding trees for nest locations. The female marbled murrelet often lays her egg on a branch at least 150 feet off the ground. The search for the nest demands sheer muscle power. I like to think that my contribution is opening up a world that no one-- or very few people-- get to look at and bring that back to people. Takes time with a species like this to discover everything about its behavior and habitat preferences. The problem is, when it comes to land management and with the conflict between saving habitat for a species that needs old-growth forests and the timber industry, which would like those trees for lumber, we are not going to have all the answers immediately to provide the land manager with all of the information that is necessary to manage for this species. Paul Engelmeyer's acrobatic feat yields video footage that is particularly

stunning. The fact is that as late as the mid-1970s, no one knew where marbled murrelets made their nests. Now scientists have a critical glimpse into the private life of a bird that is still, in large part, a mystery. Adults will come back between one and four times a day, each adult. So the chick will be fed between two and eight fish a day. The older it gets, the more fish it's fed. And compared to other birds like songbirds, it's not very much parental care at all. For a lot of the songbirds, there will always be an adult with the chick. The marbled murrelet's approach to parenthood seems consistent with a bird used to the sea, not the land. It does not build a nest as a songbird would. The videos show the marbled murrelet's nest is never more than a simple cup, shaped in the moss on a high limb. Branches large enough to support such a nest don't exist on trees much younger than 200 years or so.

What they need is a large limb that provides a large platform in order for them to make a little depression and lay their single egg, which is about the size of a chicken egg. And so if you don't have a large flat branch that has some sort of soft substrate on it so that the egg will not roll off, then then it won't work. The marbled murrelets' dependency on old-growth may one day make the bird as controversial as the spotted owl. And Kim Nelson's data shows the murrelet may be further threatened by clearcutting practices. Twenty-three murrelet nests have been discovered along the West Coast so far, but only six chicks have lived to adulthood. That is an alarmingly bad survival rate. The others were eaten by predators. This chick, for instance, disappeared from its nest. Kim believes it was very likely taken by a great horned owl. Kim says clearcutting generates habitat for predators like great horned owls, ravens, and such. Marbled murrelets living in a fragmented forest landscape are more

likely to fall victim to predators. More murrelet predators are there. So the populations of those predators increase in a fragmented landscape. All of those species are known to eat marbled murrelets. And so with more fragmentation, the more predators and the less chance that a marbled murrelet chick will survive. [birds call] There is lots of work to be done before a definitive study of the marbled murrelet is complete. Kim expects to invest years, learning what she can about the creature. She has already gathered enough facts about the bird to provide land managers considerable guidance. We have found out a lot about this bird, but there are still questions unanswered and those may never be answered, just because of the behavior of this bird. [birds call] She tempers her optimism in part perhaps because the marbled murrelet is thought to spend 80 percent of its life at sea. If that is true, got to be pretty easy for such a bird to keep a few secrets.

In Alaska, more research on the bird is a lot further along. The scientists have recorded a 15 to 25 percent decline in the marble murrelet population. But it's still too soon for an accurate prediction here in Oregon. A quick quiz: what do you consider one of Oregon's most unpopular animals? Well, for a lot of people, it's the opossum, particularly if you live in the residential areas. But as Jon Tuttle reports, the opossum may be getting a bum rap. And he's found a number of people who believe that to know them is to love them. [car honks] When most Oregonians encounter opossum, it is in the worst of all possible circumstances. Those we don't see in the glare of our headlights along our roadsides are the occasional animal which shows up unwanted in our yards or under our porches. The truth is, most of the opossums we see are dead, and most of what we

know about the animals is hearsay. I think they've gotten a bum rap because people don't know anything about them. And I think that it's really easy to hate something, to be afraid of it, because maybe we perceive it to be unattractive or we don't know anything about it. And people really don't know anything about opossums. [fade out] The point here is that while there may be prettier animals in Oregon, and smarter ones, it would be difficult to find an Oregon animal that is less understood. Here in the northwest, there is no native Indian word for opossum because there were no native opossums. Our opossums are Virginia opossums who come from the southeastern part of the United States. One theory has it the possums were brought out west during the Great Depression of the 1930s by workers at the CCC, the Civilian Conservation Corps.

I think people brought them as pets. Probably the C.C. boys brought them as pets and they were either turned loose or escaped. [fade out] Joe Pejic with Oregon Fish and Wildlife. They have a high reproductive rate, so it didn't take too long for them to populate the entire area. Opossums in the Oregon woods have to contend with bobcats and coyotes who keep their numbers under control. But in Oregon cities and suburbs, the opossum, who can live on slugs and mulch, has lots of ready food and just one enemy. In numbers, would it be your guess there'd be more opossums or more people in Portland, Oregon? Uh probably getting very close. Getting very close. Opossums are catching up with us? Well, I think proudly that they're getting close enough that they're-- if we took a census right now, we'd probably have about as many opossums as we do people. Some of Portland's most pampered possums live at the Washington Park Zoo. Remember being told as a child how it was our thumbs that made people unique? They've got a thumb just like we do, so they can climb trees and grab ahold of

apples and things like that. See how she uses her hands, just like we use our hands? She hangs onto her banana. Zookeeper Janet Swanson says when people first see possums, they have a predictable response. Yuck. That's the first one. Most people don't really like opossums, so it's usually yuck. But let people see a possum up close. Would you like to pet her? Pet one and learn a little. Once they learn how interesting they are then they actually like them. This is the only marsupial that we have here in North America. And a marsupial is a pouched animal. Ginny? Gene. You want to help me show her pouch? What was that? You want to help me show her pouch? I'll lift her up. And then... Can we see your pouch, Annabelle? There's your little pouch? Can I put my finger in your pouch, huh? Okay, okay she says that's enough. That's enough of showin' [kid chatter in background] my pouch. It's kind of a personal place to go. I know [laughs]. There is the thumb, the pouch, and there is that tail. It's not real attractive, but what's it kind of look like?

Maybe a monkey's tail? It's called prehensile, so it can hook onto things. Opossum's can't really hang by their tails in trees like they show in cartoons and things like that. But they... when they're little, they can hook onto their mother's fur and it can also help keep them from falling. Oregon's opossums probably have no greater advocate than Joan Dahlberg. Mrs. Dahlberg operates a hotline, providing advice and even explaining where to get veterinary care for injured opossums. I think they're very precious. They look like they're straight out of Walt Disney to me. [laughs] We asked Mrs. Dahlberg to sit down and say some more kind things about these misunderstood animals. [laughs] What a character. This story is not going to tell you that opossums are perfect. Scared, gracious all over me. But across the city and state, we had no problem finding households with pet opossums. Opossums who were accepted or at least tolerated by other house pets.

Opossums who are trained to use litter boxes. Opossums who know their names and who come when they're called. Opossums who, like dogs and cats, inspire genuine affection. [background chatter] Cherice Palmer and Stinky. And my husband had said that there'd be no opossums in this house. But as soon as he held him up, I knew that Stinky was gonna stay. So he's become a real family member. He sleeps in the bathtub at night and he watches TV with us on the bed in the evening. And he likes macaroni and cheese, and he eats it from a fork. And we just really adore him. He's just a sweetie. Pet opossums are not for most of us, but we found a common thread in what we heard from people who know opossums. Do you think possums get a bad rap in Oregon? I believe they do. I think they're not a very lovely animal. They got this long rat-like tail, these little beady eyes. They're not... they don't have big brown eyes like a deer.

They don't...they have the rat tail. They're real slow. And people see them killed on the highways a lot. So they have a low value. They put a low value on the animals. And there's a lot of jokes about opossum. I think they're just one of nature's creatures. They have a place, and they're very, very good survivors. They've been around for maybe 150,000 years, almost longer than anything else. And they're probably going to be around a lot, lot longer. Another way to look at it is that the average lifespan of a possum is two years, which means if the first animals arrived in the 1930s, critters like this one are now 40th generation Oregonians. That makes local opossums considerably more native than most of us. Native or not, as one of nature's creatures, when one shows up at your house, Joan Dahlberg has a plea for tolerance. We would hope that they would let the opossum stay. They're just a wonderful neighbor to have in your yard.

They, in fact, will keep your yard free of insects, bugs, slugs and even decaying leaf debris. That's their primary diet. But we certainly try to get the word out to people about how sweet and gentle they really are, and how they need our protection, and how we should really let them live undisturbed because they are a precious bit of nature in our midst. Another way to consider it is this: that the way most of us regard opossums says more about us than it does about the animals. I think that it's really a shame when we hate something instead of getting to know about it. Because when we learn about something, we really turn into better people. I think it's also interesting to note that many of the opossum lovers share the same concerns of other animal lovers, and that's helping to keep the population down through sterilization of opossums that are family pets.

There's been a lot of talk lately about the decline in our salmon populations. And there're quite a few reasons for that decline. But for now, we're going to focus on the streams along Oregon's south coast. That's where we met one scientist who believes logging practices are just one of the contributing factors, and that something needs to be done about them, now. [water flows] Euchre Creek reaches the ocean near the town of Ophir, about 50 miles north of the California border. Travel a few miles upstream and it's easy to feel days away from civilization. If you like to fish, Euchre Creek is a kind of place you'd want to visit in November with a fly rod. But here's a tip: don't bother. Not here. The most recent fall Chinook season-- over 60 days long-- yielded 10 fish. Something's not right. We've seen species like fall Chinook exhibit fairly steady declines

over the past 20 years. Coho salmon populations, we've seen them diminishing greatly and disappearing from many rivers. Chris Frissell is a fisheries biologist from Oregon State University. The streams of the south coast are his laboratory. His research team, including Rich Nawa and Joe Ebersole, is studying the effects of land use on fish habitat. Salmon were once abundant in this area, but things have changed. The forests were logged quickly and heavily in the 50s and 60s. Since then, the salmon in nearly every stream on the south coast are found only in very small numbers. The state Fish and Wildlife Department classifies the fish populations as depressed. The list of waterways with those depressed salmon populations includes Euchre Creek, Hunter Creek, and the Pistol, Chetco, and Winchuck Rivers. [background noise of scientists walking in river] But other parts of the state have been logged too, and the salmon populations are fairly healthy in many of those areas. So what's happened to the fish on the south coast?

Chris blames gravel. The terrain here is naturally rich with it. But he claims too much of it is entering the streams, and it's damaging fish habitats, and that it's coming from old and new timber clear cuts. The main problem, apparently, is that there's large quantities of bed material moving through the system and it's caused the channel to become unstable. Because the bed is moving so much, the salmon end up burying their eggs in ground that's essentially unstable. It's on its way to the ocean. According to these men, the pools where young fish live and grow are continually filled in, and fertilized salmon eggs very deep in the unstable stream beds are often scoured out and washed away before they can hatch. The winter storms, which are disruptive even to stable streams, can be especially damaging to a stream like Euchre. This area may have been this deep, you know, and the water was just muddy brown. There's no way of understanding what the bed of that stream is doing during those flood events.

Yeah, it tends to fill in to be about the same level that it started out. But in the meanwhile, it scoured down quite deeply. In the fall of '88, a spawning salmon buried its eggs here. Next to the egg deposit, called a redd, the researchers inserted a stack of plastic beads. Rich explains how the beads are used to record changes in the gravel stream bed. We had these inside a pipe, and we drove them down into the bed of the stream so that this first bead was flush with the top of the stream bed. And since then, during the winter of '89, there were storm events and it pushed... it scoured the bed down and allowed these beads to go to the end of this wire down here. And that's when we just activated them up. And by measuring or counting or measuring the number of beads that are down at the end, we know how far the stream bed scoured down. We got 39 centimeters, Chris. ?Please hold? There's a good...there is a likelihood that a lot of the eggs that were buried in

this redd were lost. But we've documented vast quantities of bed load gravel materials and sand materials down in the lower ends of these streams. That seems to be a problem for fish. Now, it's a matter of backing up the watershed and tracing where that material is coming from. Chris traces a lot of that material to sources like this: eroding tributary streams on clearcut sites. Later in the year, Chris took us back up into the hills of the south coast. This is a class 2 stream on private lands that was cut in 1989 during a winter flood. When water is pouring off through these hillsides, concentrating in these little streams, they move gravel and sand down to the main stem of the river rather efficiently. Class 2 is a forestry department term. It refers to a stream with no fish in it, like this tributary of Pistol River. A stream with fish is called a class 1. When private land along a class 1 fish bearing stream is logged, state law requires

a protective buffer zone of trees to be left along the banks. The buffer provides shade to keep the water cool and helps prevent erosion. However, class 2 streams receive no such protection. A timber company can, and usually does, cut to the edge of a class 2, clear all trees and slash burn over it. Chris thinks the state is wrong to not protect these smaller fishless streams. They outnumber the streams with fish 5 to 1 and more importantly, the gravel and sand that run through these fishless tributaries will end up downstream where the fish are. According to Chris, it's not just the streams themselves that are generating gravel. They serve as a delivery system for other sources. In fact, the majority of both road failures and landslides do enter main streams via these small tributaries. We're doing a width Rich, so somewhere over by that stake. Collapsed logging roads are not uncommon on these steep hillsides. This failure is just north of Euchre Creek, high above the Elk River.

There's a small class 2 stream below the road. Chris says within eight or ten years, much of this material will be in that stream and eventually in the river it feeds. Though fisheries biologists by title, these researchers often find themselves up on the slopes. Here, far from water, they calculate the amount of loose soil released by the road failure. The terrain of the south coast is steeper than in many other parts of the state. This and the gravel rich soil add up to increased threat to the streams from logging. You can see with the steepness of the slopes here. Virtually any part of this hill that fails, there's gonna be sediment that gets down into the stream. That clear cut across the way that was cut about-- it looks like about five years ago-- there was fairly extensive gullying down in the draws along the class 2 streams. We also had some fairly large landslides along the road system. And I presume that you know this conforms to present forest practices standards.

In 1972, Oregon adopted the Trendsetting Forest Practices Act. This law was one of the first in the nation to require buffer zones along fish producing streams. It promotes environmentally sound logging. It aims to protect fish and wildlife on all state and privately owned forest land. But though the timber companies are complying with the Forest Practices Act, damage like this continues to occur. The forest practices have clearly improved, but not fast enough to keep pace with the kinds of risks that are being incurred by cutting on these extreme high erosion risk lands. And Chris says that's why the fish are still depleted here, though this law has been in place for eighteen years. Why they don't come back in the southern streams? That's somebody else's problem. I mean, it really doesn't relate, in my opinion, to forestry and harvesting under our present forest practices rules. [fade out] Dale Sheridan works for the State Forestry Department. As the forest practices forester in the Euchre Creek area, he enforces those rules.

Dale considers the Forest Practices Act to be state of the art and effective. He doesn't appreciate the timber industries being the scapegoat in still another controversy. And neither does Dale's supervisor, district forester Ron Fox. I don't know for sure where you expect the industry to go. You know are we just to completely stop any harvesting and until such time, it's going to be proved that harvesting is not going to have some impact? To me, it would be difficult to prove that activities like this, logging and its consequences, are not having effects on fish. State forestry, they are enforcing the rules that are enacted. I guess if there is a problem it's that the rules do not give full protection to those habitats. Dave Loomis could be considered the legal guardian of the fish in the south coast streams. He's a district fish biologist for the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife. When talking about the salmon here, he does not mince words.

It is a crisis for the numbers of fish that we're seeing in those streams. So I have a concern that through habitat problems that may be coming up again or just anything that happens in the near future, be it natural or manmade, we could, in fact, lose those populations forever. The forests here have been growing back since the heavy harvesting of the 60s, but some areas, like this one, are already being recut for pulpwood. Dave worries about the new round of recutting. The fish, he says, may not be able to survive it. When they were impacted 20 years ago, it took a very good population down to a very low level. They're not at that high level that maybe could deal with some habitat problems on a short term basis. Chris's study is very important. We've got away from the classic class one fish producing stream. Everybody knows now that needs to be protected. Now we need to look on the basin up on the slopes and see, well, what actually needs to be protected up there.

To change the way forestry is practiced here, Chris Frissell and his research team have to generate some pretty convincing data. Asking timber companies not to log along smaller streams is asking them to cut into their profits. And asking the state Forestry Department to take a heavier hand in regulating private land is playing with a political hot potato. But Chris seems undaunted. We have this inherited history of some real problems out there in the landscape that haven't gone away. We need to consider moderating our present-day practices, maybe even a little more than we normally would, in order to try to compensate for those past abuses. We first did that story back in 1989, and now almost 5 years later, the situation appears to be even worse. Chinook populations in some streams are down as much as 50 percent from the time we shot the story. And the Coho are no better off than they were then. Well, there's still talk about adapting tougher regulations, but so far it appears

to be merely cosmetic. In the past few years, biologists have been sounding an alarm. An entire class of animals, including thousands of species, seems to be in trouble. It's a global problem. And as you'll see, it's an Oregon problem, too. Frogs, toads, and salamanders: these are the amphibians, animals with the ability to live both in and out of water. Wherever they live, they're an important part of the food chain. They eat huge numbers of insects before becoming food for other larger animals. But perhaps most important to us, amphibians are excellent bioindicators. With their thin, permeable skins and their exposed, unprotected eggs, they're ultra-sensitive to changes in the environment. And that, says biologist Andy Blaustein, is why people should pay more attention to these animals, because the amphibians are disappearing everywhere.

Worldwide decline of amphibians is a problem that is extremely perplexing to lots of biologists. There have been die-offs. There have been range reductions. There have been animals disappearing from pristine habitat. And it's been happening in all the continents in which amphibians are found. Lost Lake is an hour and a half from Andy's office at Oregon State University. Oregon has several Lost Lakes, and this one is near Santiam Pass in the Cascades. Tree frogs seem to be plentiful here. Pacific Tree Frog. He's been calling a lot, he's got a nice, colorful air sac. This is the thing you hear in every Hollywood movie. This species, whether it takes place in Spain or New York, they use this frog. Why? Because they're found in Hollywood. All over L.A. But Andy is here to study the western toads. There's a toad right there. [toad makes noises] The adults are big. They can live as long as 20 years too. But we see

mostly juveniles, the toadlets. Here's a one-year-old toad. We even found perplexed looking toadlet that had been mounted by an adult tree frog. It's incredible. He thinks he's got a mate, but it's the wrong species. The small toads, even in the best of times, have a dim future. About 99 percent will die before they reach adulthood. Garter snakes are the main predator of the little toads. They specialize, and almost nothing else eats 'em because they have uh poisons in them. For a garter snake, the edge of Lost Lake is like a candy store. This snake devoured three toadlets in five minutes. That's one stuffed snake. But snakes are not the reason the toads here are in trouble. A couple of weeks ago, this was the scene of a toad mating frenzy. Hundreds of adults laid over three million eggs at this spot. This whole area here is all one solid mat of eggs.

But now it's a foul-smelling mess. 90 percent of the eggs have died -- an abnormal trend that first began four years ago. This is the worst it's ever been. They've laid more eggs this year than ever. Yet more of them died than ever. These repeated egg die-offs, coupled with the normal high mortality rate for the juveniles, could spell disaster for the Lost Lake toads. Eventually, you're going to see the population decline to extinction if this keeps up. The same thing is happening in other nearby lakes, too. But why? Now, we've actually collected some animals from here while they were ???, brought 'em in a lab, they're doin' fine. I can't figure that one. At first, he suspected a disease or something else in the water, but back in the OSU lab, even eggs reared in Lost Lake water all hatched into healthy tadpoles. Now, Andy thinks that ultraviolet or UV radiation may be the problem. Various lab experiments have shown amphibians to be especially sensitive to UV

and around the world, with the thinning ozone layer, levels of UV in the atmosphere are increasing. No one knows that much about UV effects on animals in a natural habitat. To my knowledge, this is the only study of amphibians in the field like this. In this study, Andy will compare tadpoles hatched in open, exposed trays with others in trays shielded from UV radiation. But the experiment is still new and at least a year away from generating any results. There's more frog work being done up north at Portland State University. In the specimen room, jars of frogs line several shelves-- jars with about every kind of frog ever found in Oregon. And here another biologist is studying the amphibian decline from a different angle. Along with the collected specimens, Mark Hayes has compiled historic records of frog sightings throughout Oregon.

He and his team then visit the sites to see if the frogs still live there. He's particularly interested in this animal, the western spotted frog. There's been quite a bit of feeling for some time that spotted frogs have disappeared from much of western Oregon, but all that information was anecdotal. And what we're trying to do now is to basically document it's disappearance. The spotted frog, it turns out, is in even worse shape than Mark had suspected. He has only been able to find it at one of its historic locations: here at Gold Lake Bog, also in the Cascades. But these frogs have a different story from the toads we saw earlier. Mark knows why spotted frogs are in danger. They've been squeezed out of their traditional range. You have all this problem with habitat alteration, change in flooding regimes, and the introduction of a great number of different exotic aquatic predators. Spotteds require a certain type of marshland and most of that has been drained. Also, bass, pan fish, and bullfrogs, all of which devour smaller frogs, now thrive in Oregon.

The Gold Lake Bog has remained a safe haven for spotteds. Here, they coexist with tree frogs and toads, like this colorful and lumpy western toad. Large green leeches thrive here, too. They attach, or in this case, try to attach to frogs for transportation around the marsh. But the leeches don't harm their amphibious hosts. The spotted frog has reached the brink of extinction in western Oregon, and largely because of Mark's research, this frog may soon appear on the endangered species list. There used to be spotted frogs here on the side of Mount Hood in places like Trapper Springs Creek. But here, Mark thinks cattle were the problem. You had grazing practices during the late 60s and 70s that really damaged some of the meadow areas. He comes to Trapper Springs Creek to study red legged frogs, which continue to flourish

here. Red leggeds are not endangered, but they too have become scarce in their traditional Willamette Valley range. The primary reasons there are introduction of bullfrogs and warm freshwater fishes. There are amphibians that are not on the decline. And here's one. While some other salamanders around the world are in serious trouble, the rough-skinned newt is a notable exception. With this species, there isn't much evidence of it declining anywhere. In fact, in a number of places, it's becoming the dominant amphibian. It's also a predator on the eggs and larvae of quite a number of other amphibians. They have skin toxins that are not too different from those that you find in puffer fish. And there's not too many things that will eat them. In Oregon, as around the world, the overall numbers of amphibians are down. In many cases, as with the frogs that Mark studies, the reasons are identifiable, like loss of habitat, predatory fish, or water pollution.

That's bad enough, he says. But at least we can work to preserve the good habitat that is left and the amphibians that live there. What really troubles Mark and many other biologists are the unexplained disappearances, mostly in the higher elevations. The pristine environments where no obvious problems exist. There are sort of parallel reports for the Andes in South America, for the Alps in Europe, for mountains in Australia, in which you have complete disappearance of certain populations. And now in places like Lost Lake in Oregon's Cascades, the western toad eggs are dying every year. Increased UV radiation may be the cause of these high elevation declines. And if, as Andy says, amphibians are like canaries in a coal mine, that's bad news. This is very scary to me as a person, a human being. If we have this environmental change that we're not detecting yet, and if it is destroying

amphibians as the first indicator, we've got problems, major league, global problems. Andy says he's received hundreds of letters from Oregonians about old ponds and creeks where the frogs have disappeared over the years. He has yet to come up with just one where the population is on the increase.