 |
On Saturday, at Ash Meadows we had a "Cattail Removal Day" at Crystal Spring. The water that bubbles to the surface at Crystal Spring is clear and warm. It flows out of the spring and down a channel to Crystal Reservoir. Many years ago, the settlers in this area, built concrete channels to funnel the water to their fields. After Ash Meadows was established in 1984, some of those concrete channels were removed so that the water could flow more naturally to the reservoir.
Cattails are native to this area, however because of human disturbances to the spring and the channels in some places the waterways are now choked with cattails.
This is a threat to the endangered pupfish which live in Crystal Spring, so cattails are now considered invasive and must be removed by hand.
(In nature, the sediments laid down in the bottom of the spring and channel, act as a control for the cattails. Since settlers straightened the channels and diverted the water into concrete culverts, this natural process no longer occurs allowing the cattails to take over. The concrete culvert has been removed in some places allowing the channel to reestablish itself naturally, but it's a slow process, so cattail removal is still required,) |
 |
| To begin the process of cattail removal, staff erected a fence across the channel to "catch" the cattails so they could be removed from the water. |
 |
Volunteers and staff were each given a pair of gloves and a sharp knife. Then we waded into the water and started pulling up cattails by their roots, or cutting them off at the roots if we couldn't pull them out. Then we floated the cut cattails down the channel to the fence where we pulled them out of the water and piled them up.
The water ranged from ankle to chest deep. The temperature of the water was about 85 degrees. |
 |
| Look at the pile of cattails we pulled out! The cattails will be left there to dry out and then the pile will be burned. |
 |
| Now the banks of the channel are clear! |
 |
This grasshopper is on some bullrushes near the channel.
Its body is about 3 inches long! |
 |
| These Black-eyed Susans grow along the channel. |
On the cattail removal day, it was really windy!
No comments:
Post a Comment
Enter your comment in the text box above. Write your name at the end of your text then choose "anonymous" on the drop-down menu. Click on "publish" when you are finished.