Updated 2-19-09 Spring has sprung! It might not seem like Spring in most of Utah but the signs are unmistakable here at the Refuge. Nearly all of our winter ice cover is gone, our Canada geese are starting to separate into pairs, and the staff has been seeing new migrants who are headed for points north. In what has now been a ritual here at the Refuge for nearly all of the last two decades, we are preparing a portion of the marsh for a drawdown of the water. As part of a management prescription for maintaining the health of our wetlands, each of the Refuge’s nine impoundments is subjected to this process once every five years. The impoundments are drained in early February after the last winter thaw. They will be kept dry until Fall when refilling begins. In conjunction with this drawdown, we will nearly always try to accomplish a prescribed burn of the unit vegetation. This combined process of drawdown and burning has many benefits. Over several years, most wetlands will collect large amounts of organic materials in the top few inches of the bottoms sediments. The oxidation of this material is quite slow when underwater but when exposed to drying and the ready presence of oxygen, this organic matter decomposed much more rapidly and those nutrients are released for fueling new growth. With the impoundment dry, we also have a chance to do critical cyclical facility maintenance on our water control structures, dikes, and ditches. The desert sun and the winter ice can be pretty hard on them! The prescribed burns result in the heavy build-up of several years of residual marsh vegetation releasing most of their nutrients back into the basins and that results in a bloom of aquatic insects when we re-flood. Those “water bugs” are the critical food element for many our nesting waterbirds, particularly during their first few weeks of life. It also causes the vegetation to grow back more vibrant, much like mowing your lawn does for the grass. Avocet Unit is up for this process this year. We will burn it in late March and it is quite spectacular. It goes from being a sea of yellow post winter vegetation to a giant black moonscape in just a few hours. However, it only takes a few weeks until the green blush of the re-growth is to be seen. I hope you come out to see how this process evolves over the next few months. It is a critical process in maintaining this wildlife bed and breakfast and nursery that we call Fish Springs! |
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