VIC LEIPZIG and LOU MURRAY:Owens Valley presses on

What a great summer this has been for us. We just returned from Vic’s last summer natural history field trip for adults, this one to Lone Pine in the Eastern Sierras. I help him teach this class. We searched Owens Valley, Whitney Portal, the Alabama Hills and the White Mountains for bristlecone pines, sagebrush lizards, and other interesting plants and animals.

The Inyo complex of fires was out, but the 35,176 acres that were burned provided yet another topic of discussion. On July 6, lightning strikes ignited 10 separate fires in the tinder-dry sagebrush. At one point, the fire burned across Highway 395, closing it for several hours. Ten hand crews, 42 engines, eight helicopters, nine air tankers and six bulldozers had the fire out by July 15, but the water supply for the town of Independence was compromised when the fire collapsed the roof of their reservoir.

The road from Independence up to Onion Meadow will provide an interesting study in fire ecology for the next few years as the surrounding montane habitat reestablishes. But this past week, we saw mostly ash and charcoal.

I talked about the geology of the area, pointing out the granite that forms the Sierras formed long ago, but didn’t poke up out of the shallow surrounding ocean until around 5 million years ago. California was formed as a long string of island arc volcanoes that were part of a volcanic line that stretched from South America to the Bering Strait. I brought along fossils of trilobites and other sea creatures that inhabited the area millions of years ago.

I also talked about plate tectonics, subduction and earthquakes. During Lone Pine’s massive earthquake in 1872—one of the most severe in California’s history—the earth heaved 20 feet upward. The temblor leveled most of the buildings in Lone Pine, killing 23 out of the 300 residents. The town hasn’t grown a lot since then, with only 1,700 current residents.

One reason for the slow growth of the Owens Valley is William Mulholland, the self-educated chief engineer for the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, bought the water rights on the Owens River back in 1905. In 1913, the Los Angeles Aqueduct was built over 233 miles of desert and mountains, a remarkable feat of engineering since the water moves only by gravity.

Owens Valley farmers retaliated numerous times between 1924 and 1927 by blowing up the aqueduct, but financial ruin of the farmers in the late 1920s finally stopped the fight. Various parts of the Owens River dried to a trickle as the mountain streams that fed it along a 62-mile stretch were diverted into the aqueduct. In 1970, an additional aqueduct was constructed to divert water from Mono Lake. Today, the Los Angeles aqueduct supplies about half of Los Angeles’ water needs.

More recently, issues with blowing toxic dust from the dry Owens lakebed have resulted in a court-ordered increase of flow into the Owens River. Although this restoration project along the lower Owens River began only a few months ago, we could see a remarkable greening along the river.

Spotting tule elk was one of the goals for our field trip. Vic found a herd of nearly 200 elk resting in an alfalfa field as we slowly cruised a back road. Vic pointed out tule elk are a highly managed species.

At one time, half a million tule elk roamed the Central Valley and Northern California. But by 1860, only a handful of animals remained. Market hunters had relentlessly shot them to feed California’s burgeoning human population after the 1849 gold rush.

As the Central Valley was dried and converted to agriculture, habitat destruction, combined with hunting, nearly eliminated these majestic animals, one of four surviving subspecies of wapiti or North American elk.

Tule elk were declared protected in 1873, but no elk were known to have survived. Henry Miller, a rancher in the Central Valley, found a few elk on his property and protected them. The herd grew from 28 elk in 1895 to 145 in 1905. Most early attempts to relocate the elk to other areas failed, but the relocation of 55 animals to Owens Valley in 1934 was a success.

California Department of Fish and Game biologists manage tule elk at a statewide population of 3,800 animals in 22 different herds. In the Owens Valley, the elk feed on mowed alfalfa fields in addition to their natural feed. When the number of elk approaches the carrying capacity, permits for hunting are issued.

The male elk in Owens Valley suffer an abnormally high rate of antler breakage. Studies of elk antlers and livers, as well as their forage, show a deficiency of copper and phosphorus, both necessary for proper growth and mineralization of antlers.

Perhaps the rejuvenation of the Owens River will give the elk more of their natural forage, and help alleviate this problem. This only points out the drawbacks of trying to move animals from their normal habitat to where they did not previously live.

Another stop was at a fish hatchery, where Vic again pointed out how humans are managing nature. If fish weren’t farmed and released, fishermen would fish out the Sierran streams within a year.

The rainbow trout at the hatchery were beautiful, ranging in length from 8 to 12 inches. The Department of Fish and Game restocks the streams nearly every week. You might as well buy the fish at a grocery store.

This trip was sure an eye-opener for me on how much we manage nature these days. Let’s just hope the managers know what they’re doing.