Althea Walker's blog

In the last week of my internship, results presented themselves and the end to a ten week project was successfully completed. I was able to state the results of our project regarding salmon. For my final presentation, all results could not be displayed, but the most significant results were presented. Favorable adult salmon holding habitat was established, along with the details of the impact of climate change on coho and steelhead adults. Also, the impact of dam discharge on sub-yearling migrants was determined.

This past week was spent analyzing filtered habitat criteria. The filtration produced is very interesting and at first thought, I had no idea on where to begin or what would be the best way to analyze, but began with the approach of finding significant details throughout the images. 

The end is near as only two weeks remain ...

Last week, a milestone was reached as I felt confident enough in my research to submit final minimums and maximums for S.E.L.F.E modeling. Although, my suggested values for critical salmon habitat aren't supported by expert analysis yet, submitting these values are critical in this project, as time dwindles down. Values will be edited and re-ran as the expert analysis is in response. 

This past week, I was busy compiling recent research into a progress report for my senior and frontline mentors. The progess report was presented on Friday and I feel it went very well. The report gave clarity to what I need to do in these last few weeks to provide thorough results. I feel there is much to do before I leave here, but tangible. I have come to a point in my research where I now require fisheries expert analysis on the data I have compiled. I have been in contact with a short list of experts and look forward to adding a few more to that list this week.

This past week was an eventful one with the visit of the National Science Foundation (NSF), who is the core source of funding for CMOP. I was able to partake in a lunch and met some interesting professionals from around the country. I was fortunate to have been a part of this experience because not all past interns have been able to meet with the NSF representatives. I was very excited to meet a professor from the ASU School of Sustainability, who I look forward to working with. With the representatives, I was able to explain my project details and other CMOP experiences.

A majority of this week was spent at the CRITFC office listening in on issues abroad the Columbia River Treaty. This experience was not only a learning experience, but a networking opportunity as well. The data I'm collecting will need to be reviewed by experts. At this workshop, I met a few connections, all of whom will look over my data to clarify the criticial effectiveness on salmon habitat. I also received an invitation to take a trip up to the Bonneville Dam.

My duty is to narrow down habitat opportunity for salmon to the most critical numbers. My research on salmon has been filtered to four types, all of which inhabit our research parameters of the Columbia River estuary. Those four salmon are the chinook, sockeye, coho, and steelhead. Smoltification and adult migration are the life cycles I am most interested in because of the downstream and upstream migration, which our research boundaries affect.

Meagan, Cynthia, and I, all of us whom are working on this project, made a trip to the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission (CRITFC) to introduce ourselves and give some insight on our project to the tribal leaders and elders in attendance. To meet the representatives of the tribes we are researching for meant a lot. We also had the opportunity to meet with salmon and lamprey experts to compile more information for our project. To establish these connections is crucial for the continuance of our research and I look forward to meeting with them in the near future.

This first week has been exciting. I have learned so much in so little time. The project I have been placed on will consist of the analysis of change in habitat opportunity for salmon and lamprey, salmon being the focus of my part. This project will apply filtered criteria to the suggestions of the renegotiation, or termination of most of the provisions, of the Columbia River Treaty.