Mountain Lions

https://vimeo.com/157288534

Mountain lions are feared, hunted. They are actually really affectionate and playful. They have close family ties, very social and interdependent. Cubs are with their mom for up to two years. Leaving cubs for up to days to feed them.

a.) Five threats mountain lions that we should be aware of

1. Hunting
2. Natural predators
3. Natural occurrences (weather, disease)
4. Habitat loss
5. Poaching
6. Environmental pollution

b.) Conservation organizations that are helping Mountain lions and what’s being done.

• Mountain Lion Foundation: i find this organization sort of similar to SIerra Club, there are news magazines for updates and news on mountain lions, awareness, and donation for supporting mountain lions, and providing vital current information. They also provide space and connection to larger communities that are in support of mountain lions. A door to larger population.
• The Humane Society of United States: Similar structure. Donation, magazines on useful information and awareness, supply useful tips on being sustainable without harming animals, volunteer work for animal rescue and care, and humane wildlife service. Animal advocacy through public policy, corporate reforms and major campaigns. Provide training for local shelter and rescue groups.
• This organization seems much bigger and wider is scope of accomplishments and establishment.

There are many more organizations that can be found on this website that also contribute to supporting mountain lions and other wildlife.

Mountain lions are also key stone species like the wolves in Yellowstone that keep the levels in ecosystem in balance. Mountain lions prey on deer and elk, which help prevent wild herbivores from overgrazing vegetation. And not overgrazing the vegetation provide habitats, food, and natural ecosystem service back into the overall ecosystem.

Suislaw National Forest Change

https://vimeo.com/125160364

This video talks about the suislaw national forest and the changes it occurred under the Northwest Forest Plan outlined by former president Clinton. Below are some bullet points of my learning from the video, hopefully you guys will find it easy to understand and grasp the importance I'm convey here. 

Trees that fall into tstream in the forest play critical roles

Slow rushing water, protecting young fish and other species.

Create pool for spawning and trap gravel for spawning adults

Hold on to smaller organic debris that nourish the entire web of life

Landslide, erosion, and storms.

Timber industry and forest service came and worked together. Found a common ground in restoration of the salmon and the overall national forest.

Changes of management.

Decommission old, open roads that were leading to erosion, landslides, and minimize impact on streams.

Maintaining existing roads in ways that won't effect the surrounding population and streams.

Replacing coverts, allowing salmon to travel back and forth along with other organisms.

Selective cutting allowing forest habitat and ecosystem to maintain and thrive at best even with timbering.

The revenue generated by the from the forest is spent on restoration of forest itself, and 40% to salmon restoration.

The community started having bigger influence on the decision made with these companies and the national forest.

The fundamental change of this whole process was that now, the community, timber industry, and forest service are using long term planning. Thinking for the future generations, instead of current profits and benefits.

Life Cycle of Salmon

Salmon goes through four major stages. Spawning, out migration, ocean life, and upstream migration. 

Spawning stage. Female salmon uses her tail to clean and shape the gravel to form strings of nests called redds. While depositing thousands of eggs, their male partner immediately fertilizes them. The female salmon then covers the now fertilized eggs with clean gravel and defends the nests. 

Cold, clean water is vital. While the eggs are growing, nutrients and oxygen are delivered via the flow of stream water and at the same time removing waste. When the tiny fishes hatch, they are attached to their sace for nutrients, at this stage they are called frye sac. When they are ready, they move up through the gravels and emerge into the stream. Once they are one inch long, they are called fingerlin. Fingerlins remember the stream and the smell to return to spawn and die later on in life. 

Out Migration.  Fingerlins' time in freshwater with other salmon could be a few days to a few years. They dwell in backwater and stream margins where the current is weak and have the insects to provide nutrients.  As they grow, they move into main channel. Best pools are deep with large wood and rocks for hiding and shades for insects and varrying water speed. The salmons carried down stream by spring thaw, the salmons go through smolting. Smolting is triggered by increasing daylight and rising water temperature. Color change, kidney change, allowing transition from freshwater to salt water.

Ocean Life. The salmons could live in ocean from two to five years. Tough life. Fishing limit on salmon. While salmon in ocean, travel long distance to get food. Large percent don't survive. Body size increase drastically. 

Upstream migration. Triggered by instinct to spawn. Travel upstream back into the fresh water. Homeward bound fish non longer and survived off body fat. Travel hundreds of miles. Health decline rapidly. Salmon carcasses return nutrients to the river. 

It amazes me how hard salmons work. Thousands of fishes, but few survived and even fewer survived to spawn. It is very sad. 

Why does Salmon being enlished at threatened or endangered species matters? Well, because salmon accounts for a major part of the river's ecosystem. The return of nutrient, the flow of species, and contributing to the biodiversity. 

Rain Water Harvest Potential

Harvesting rainwater using rooftops can be incorporated easily into our daily water usage and replace 70% to 90% water use from the municipal plant. A typical 1,500 square feet rooftop collecting 88 inches of rainwater annually can sum up a total of 6,800 gallons of rainwater. Harvested rainwater can be replaced with most household used water supply except for drinking and cooking water. It can replace dish water, laundry water, toilet water, gardening water, and showered water. That’s a lot of water that can be replaced easily by rainwater if one were to harvest it!

Living in a Mediterranean climate should also be a incentive for people to install rainwater harvesting system in every home. The disadvantages of living in a Mediterranean climate is that during summer we can experience drought, requires more expansive irrigated crops, and experience often forest fire. Due to the low amount of rainwater during winter time and the high level of runoff, the groundwater of which we rely on are depleting quickly as we pull what we need and for irrigation, it is important to harvest rainwater so to decrease the amount we pull the groundwater.

Below attached is a website for information on harvesting rain water, installing system, what methods can be used for collecting rain water, what can be done with grey water, condensate harvesting, etc. It provides a variety of ways of collecting water based on your area.

http://www.harvestingrainwater.com/street-runoff-harvesting/backwater-or-eddy-basins/

From the website provided, one thing I really liked is the street curb cut. The benefits you get would be more plants, more habitats inviting more species, carbon dioxide absorption, oxygen production, soil stability, reduce soil erosion, reduce risk of flood, visually pleasing, and low maintenance! This should be done all over major cities, especially LA because they get really bad flooding whenever it rains. Plus this would increase the amount of plants even if its desert plants, it would please the eyes and bring liveliness to the city nature-wise. Economic benefits would be that there would less cost to infrastructure repair and recovery.