Technician Tuesday Report – Continued Invasives Management and Fish Netting – July 26

Happy Technician Tuesday!

At Kus-Kus-Sum, Renée and Cain completed a plant inventory of the north-end vegetation. This involved flagging each individual plant and categorizing it into coniferous, deciduous, or shrub. This will help to document the mortality rate of the vegetation that was planted in the spring. Working at Kus-Kus-Sum was both Renée and Cain’s favorite part of the week!

At the Mallard Creek site, the team did some invasive species management where we are trying to control large patches of reed canary grass (Phalaris arundinacea). They laid down thick paper and rocks on top of the grass to block access to sunlight and prevent the grass from taking over. They will come back next year to see if this method was an effective form of management.

At Glen Urquhart, Renée and Cain continued their work from last week; a lot of weeding and mulching along the fenced areas that were planted with native plants in the spring. They both agree that they need thicker gloves when pulling out all of the blackberry and thistles!

Fish nets were installed in the creek as the first step to start the zone of isolation for the riffle construction that is set to happen in the next few weeks.

In between the two nets, they set fish traps which they will check and empty every morning until the water for that section is diverted away for construction. They both found it super interesting to learn about the whole process of trapping fish and diverting water for the construction to proceed as well as learning about how the riffles will be constructed.