Oak Observations October 2024
With each track or sign an animal leaves behind, a story unfolds of who is sharing this land with us. Learning to read these stories is an important way for land managers and wildlife enthusiasts alike to understand a site. These signs can help us make more informed management decisions, as they reveal not only who has been there, but what they were doing and why. The Smithsonian recently published an article sharing the values of this long held knowledge base.
Last month, Columbia Land Trust's wildlife tracking expert Adam Lieberg led ECOP partners on an introductory sign and tracking workshop near a recent prescribed burn. The dirt roads softened by fire trucks created a perfect canvas to capture footprints of deer and coyote.
Together, we learned about wildlife utilizing East Cascades oak-pine systems, including identifying sign from western gray squirrel (recently listed as endangered in Washington state). The site hosted many nest trees and participants were able to investigate scat and conifer cone litter at a popular snacking stop for the squirrels.
The area was recently burned as part of the Columbia River Gorge Prescribed Fire Training Exchange (TREX). This innovative peer to peer experiential learning program expands capacity for burning on private lands — helping people overcome permitting, cost, and experiential limitations to enact controlled burns. To learn more about prescribed burning on private lands in the gorge, check out the Mt. Adams Prescribed Burn Association.
Returning fire to East Cascades oak systems reintroduces natural processes that have been suppressed from the landscape for over 100 years. ECOP partners at Ekone Ranch were also able to deploy a controlled burn on their lands through the TREX program, with the assistance of another ECOP partner, Mt. Adams Resource Stewards (pictured below).
October was an incredible month for collaborative learning opportunities in the East Cascades. We know that landscape scale change is made possible through partnership — thank you ECOP partners and members who participated in these events!