Reclaiming an Ecosystem: A California Success Story

[babylonsister]

Reclaiming an Ecosystem: A California Success Story
by Louis Sahagun



LEE VINING, Calif. - Not long ago, it was rare to see a yellow warbler around Rush Creek.

But on a recent bright and sunny morning, a yellow warbler plunged through a gap in a stream-side cottonwood forest, flying back to her nest and her chicks. Suddenly, she was stopped in midair - tangled in a mist net.

Field biologist Chris McCreedy found the bird in his snare a few minutes later. “Hi there, sweetie,” he said as he untangled the bird, recorded its vitals - a 2-year-old female that weighed 10 grams, about as much as a ball point pen - and gently clamped an identification band to one of her legs.

Then he opened his palm and released her back to Rush Creek, a major tributary to Mono Lake in the eastern Sierra, the focus of an agonizingly complex and decades-long effort to heal a vast wilderness devastated by Los Angeles’ insatiable thirst.

Now, 14 years after the city was ordered to reduce the quantity of tributary water it had been diverting into the Los Angeles aqueduct since 1941, Rush Creek has among the highest concentrations of yellow warblers in California - roughly three pairs per 2 1/2 acres.

“Restrict grazing and bring back the water and things really start hopping,” McCreedy said.

more...

http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/08/10/10919/

[mitchtv]

1. Here's hoping something can be done for the Salton Sea

While artificially created at the beginning of the last century, it has become an integral part of the Pacific flyway, and quite important to migratory birds. One needs only to look at the Owens Valley to see what awaits us if the Sea is allowed to go dry.

[XemaSab]

2. Let's hope that at some point this creek

doesn't go to LA. :eyes: