BIG BEND POOL GLOSSARY OF PACIFIC SALMON
These definitions are to clarify terminology and to clarify Pacific salmon usage issues that are potentially unfamiliar to the reader of these essays. The focus of these definitions are thus Pacific salmon and their ecology, their genetics, and their population structure with particular attention paid to wild summer steelhead. Words in bold face type are defined terms in this glossary. The Oxford dictionary of biology has been used as a primary technical reference.
acceleration, a steelhead behavior, the movement through the pool by a steelhead in a burst of speed. This action is associated with milling events as are flashes and occasional jumps. Stirred up steelhead appear to accelerate more than unstirred fish do. Spring chinook and cutthroat trout have been observed to carry out this action too. The main purpose of accelerating steelhead seems to be to approach a distant area to get a better view of some stimulus.
adaptation, any morphological, physiological, or behavioral characteristic which fits a steelhead to the conditions under which it lives and improves its chance of reproducing; the genetic or developmental processes by which such a characteristic arises. In the high-gradient, cold streams of the Pacific Northwest, steelhead and their Pacific salmon cousins show an ability to adapt themselves to local conditions that is astounding. Unfortunately, this ability brings about a genetic response to even one generation of artificial propagation and rearing (Bakke 2000).
It is by having a variety of representations of gene action, a variety of timings, sizes, colors, behaviors existent in their gene pool that creatures can take advantage of changing conditions. It is likely that the very large amount of DNA that salmon have—twice the amount of most animals (they are a polyploidorganism)—allows them to respond as effectively as they do to the dynamic changes that characterize Pacific NW and the fluvial systems draining into the North Pacific generally. This is the [functional] genetic diversity being booted about now and it is why the genetic simplification that has resulted from hatcheries—the domestication of the salmon—is one of the worst of the historic changes that salmon have had to deal with (National Research Council 1996:302-323). There is no way that salmon can avoid the incremental lethality incorporated into their artificially propagated cousins that stray into contact with them . . . and they do stray into contact with them.
An example of this variable adaptive ability is shown every time that there has been an El-Nino Event. During these times of poor ocean productivity, the frequencies of wild steelhead increase dramatically in relation to the numbers of hatchery fish. There have been more than ninety years of exotic stock introductions and artificial propagation in the North Umpqua Basin, both of which rebound into wild populations because salmon stray and artificial salmon stray more. See functional genetic diversity, dysfunctional genetic diversity
adaptive pressures, those pressures that influence the success or failure of particular genotypes within a deme, or local breeding population.
agonistic behavior, any form of behavior associated with aggression or appeasement or flight.
Agni, the name assigned to a sun break on the pool between Sidd and Herb as these shadows separate during their movement upstream with the sun’s westerly movement across the sky. See Sidd, Eva, Old Scratch, Herb.
Alcove, one of five loci (A, B, C, D, & E) on the right bank of the pool where unconsolidated sediments (and their vegetation) overlay bedrock. In concert with the labeled rocks, the labeled alcoves are used to locate steelhead behaviors in the pool.
alevin, the life stage of salmon after they have hatched from the egg and dispersed into the interstices of the gravel surrounding the redd. An alevin lives in the gravels while obtaining nutrition from a yoke sack with little exogenous feeding. After the alevin stage, salmon become fry and take up life in the free flowing stream environment. See: fry, parr, smolt.
allele (abbreviation of allelomorph), any one of the alternative forms of a genethat occupy the same relative location (locus) on homologous chromosomes. There are usually two and may be several alleles at any gene location. Often one allele is dominant and another recessive. Each allele has a unique nucleotide sequence.
anadromous, animals that move from saltwater to freshwater to spawn.
ant fall, the descent of ants from heights by apparently simply letting go their purchase and falling. Around the pool, ant fall usually seemed to correspond with the retreat of sunlight from the height in question. Other things being equal, ant fall occurs at approximately the same time every day, modified incrementally with the seasonal change of the sun’s position in the sky. Ants will also simply let go and fall from a height when they feel threatened too.
ant-weevil critter, this is an unusual insect, looking somewhat like an ant-weevil cross. It is about six to eight millimeters long with its brown/black body making up about half that measure and its three-segmented antennae making up the other half. The proboscis is quite slender and extends back under the body to about mid-thorax. The creature does not appear to have eyes or I haven’t seen them. The antennae come from just above the proboscis on the head.
This creature touches and probes things with the proboscis extended out from the body. I don’t know whether this extension occurs due to the flexure of an unseen joint or whether this flexure is accomplished by moving the head back on its axis. This creature is extremely active, swift, and agile when it wants to be. There are three color forms, a dark brown form with a white rim to its posterior thorax, a solid black/brown form, and a two-tone form which has a dark head and abdomen and an ochre red thorax. This latter form mimics strongly the commonest ant found in the viewing area.
approach, a steelhead behavior, this is when a steelhead moves toward something in the pool, be it in a rise or a simple turn or other move beneath the surface of the pool. Sometimes and rarely the movement is so subtle that it isn’t recognized until the steelhead in question turns away from an item. Generally, an approach seems most often to be the result of curiosity. Sometimes it represents a steelhead going to, and taking or turning from an insect. Whether the latter action is the acting out of curiosity or feeding is, of course, impossible to say. Approaches may include taking and releasing items. The most commonly approached items in the pool are leaves, twigs, and bits of lichen. Mayflies and caddis flies make up 5% and 2%, respectively, of what have been risen to in the more than 2,309 approaches documented over the now thirteen years I have been deterring poachers at Big Bend Pool.
artificial fish, an artificially propagated fish and its genotype. A hatcheryor a STEP program fish or a farmed fish. All are artificial fish.
artificial propagation, human intervention in the natural mechanics and behaviors of the spawning process. Artificial propagation has an unavoidable influence on genotypes. Generally, artificial propagation involves stripping eggs and sperm from fish into a container of some kind and mixing them and rearing the fertilized ova for a variable amount of time and through a variable number of life stages.
The process of artificial propagation functionally—if not theoretically—removes a fish thus created from the local breeding population (deme) to which its naturally propagated parents belonged, if its parents were naturally propagated. Artificial propagation severs the demic connection in three ways:
1. it bypasses the sexual selection mechanisms;
2. if the adults are naturally propagated and if there is more than one deme higher in a drainage than a given trapping location for hatchery brood stock, it mixes different demes (local breeding populations); and
3. the artificial rearing that necessarily occurs at some level as an adjunct to artificial propagation subjects the young to the adaptive (selective) pressures of an artificial environment which are thoroughly different from those of fish rearing naturally.
Each of these reasons, or mechanisms, acting separately and together, have been shown to produce sufficient genetic change and simplification that the resultant genotypes are alien to any naturally propagated parental genotype.
The separation from the naturally propagated parent’s deme occurs with the act of artificial propagation and remains unchanged by any and all subsequent circumstances. See sexual selection, deme, natural selection, artificial rearing.
artificial, non-natural, pertaining to human intervention.
artificial-fish-production facility, a hatchery or any other facility be it a bucket or a hatch box (any kind) or a pond or a net enclosure where artificially spawned and reared fish are held for any period of time.
artificial rearing, the variable duration rearing that occurs after the eggs and milt have been mixed in a container and before the offspring are released into the natural streamflow environment. The rearing may be a matter of a few weeks only or may be a matter of twelve months or more. No matter how short, artificial rearing has adaptive and therefore genetic consequences. Note: artificial propagation means some sort of artificial rearing occurs for some amount of time, it is impossible to completely separate the two. See natural selection, artificial propagation, artificial-fish-production facility.
artificial straying, the straying of artificially propagated fish into contact with a naturally propagated deme. Artificially propagated fish are known to stray at a higher rate than do naturally propagated fish (Barnhart 1991). Note: it could be argued that any artificial steelhead that doesn’t return to the artificial fish facility that produced it is an artificial stray.
Since natural straying is THE mechanism that joins demes intometapopulations, artificial straying may be particularly effective at severing the demic connections that maintain metapopulations. Thus, artificial straying, no matter how low the numbers of artificially propagated fish may seem to be, has deleterious effects on genotypes, demes, and metapopulations. See: straying, deme, metapopulation, artificially propagated fish.
attachment, a Buddhist concept that refers to the feelings of connection with another sentient being or with anything else that ties one to the world of desire and craving, or to suffering. [see skandha or upadana in any dictionary of Buddhism]
Augeias, a king of Elis in ancient Greece whose stables contained 3,000 head of cattle and which had remained uncleaned for thirty years. Eurystheus had set the cleansing of these stables as Heracles’s fifth labor. Heracles breached the stable walls in two places and diverted the “rivers Alpheus and Peneius, or Menius, so that their streams rushed throughout the yard, swept it clean and then went on to cleanse the sheepfolds and the valley pastures” (Graves 1955).
Robert Graves also states that the colors of Augeias’s sacred bulls were red, white, and black, kind of like our California mountain kingsnakes, though with legs.
Avalokiteshvara, he or she who Hears the Cries of the World, the bodhisattva of compassion, one of the two fundamental aspects of Buddhahood. Also known as Kuan-yin in China, this personification of the bodhisattva is evoked by the sound of water running in the bed of a rocky stream, as well as other things. The other fundamental aspect of Buddhahood is wisdom.
Beelzebug, the black longicorn beetles common at the pool in early and middle summer.
body length, twenty-eight inches, the average length of an adult summer steelhead in the North Umpqua Basin.
boulder cirque, a geographic locus in the upper pool that is a large circumscribed boulder-bedded hollow in Area 4.
Brownian motion, the irregular, patternless movement of small particles in suspension in a fluid.
camp, the edge of the flat above the Perch where my camp is while caretaking the pool.
chalkline, a term referring to a line of guano left by a flying bird when it voids.
champing, a steelhead behavior, the relatively quick opening and closing of its jaws by a steelhead. This action is often associated with other actions. Seegaping and accelerations.
chickaree, a small squirrel.
chromosome, threadlike structures in the nucleus of a cell. Several or many are found in the cells of plants and animals. Chromosomes are composed of chromatin and carry a linear sequence of genes in a unique pattern for each organism.
corner pocket, a geographic locus of the pool that is located is at the intersection of the front of the Peninsula—an underwater extension of Rock 9—with the subsurface wall edge of Rock 8.
cycling, a steelhead behavior, the turning of a fish in the flow to move in another direction from the one it was facing. This turn may be 90°, 180°, or 360°, or any increment thereof. Occasionally, steelhead cycle more than 360°, though this seems always to be associated with flashing or a dominance encounter.
The term cycling is also used to describe the behavior of individual spring chinook when they are continuously swimming up and down the pool in a large oval. This circular swimming is usually counter-clockwise and closer to the substrate than steelhead generally hold. When a spring chinook extends its cyclic swimming to more than moving in a simple oval, and particularly if the spring chinook seemed to be investigating the local area of the pool, the term patrolling generally comes into use.
daisy chain, a steelhead behavior, a daisy chain is evidently a pronounced group response to stress. A daisy chain consists of the cycling of many fish which together form a complete and continuously repeating oval, like a snake swallowing its tail. The area encompassed by cycling steelhead is commonly fifteen to twenty-five feet up and downcreek by eight to twelve feet broad. When in action, this cycle almost always takes place in Area 2 to the right of the thalweg and is always counterclockwise. Ephemeral clockwise daisy chains have been observed and these are usually part of a daisy figure eight. It is worth noting that a counterclockwise cycling on the right of Area 2 encounters a large back eddy which is turning clockwise and, thus, the steelhead are always facing into some current. See daisy figure eight.
daisy figure eight, a rare steelhead behavior, a variation of the daisy chain behavior and also a pronounced group response to stress. It is a comparatively quite rare cycling of many fish together that forms two oppositely turning loops that cross each other at the center. This complex cycling also takes place on the right side of Area 2 and Area 1. When observed, the upstream portion of the figure eight always moves counterclockwise and the downstream portion always moves clockwise. I do not know why a daisy chain would become a daisy figure eight, though I speculate that it may be a response to increased stress or increased numbers of fish or both or neither. A daisy figure eight may be an elegant way for a larger number of fish to cycle in the same space.
darner, large dragonflies that are at least 2.25 inches long and are called biddies and flying adders (Family Cordulegastridae), and darners (Family Aeschnigae).
deme, a local population—and its gene pool—in which breeding occurs (a local breeding population). Demes are locally adapted and largely reproductively isolated through the functioning of the homing mechanism [including timing], that is, migrating to their natal stream to spawn. Generally, it is several if not hundreds of demes that make up a metapopulation. Because of the genetic consequences of artificial propagation and rearing, no artificially propagated fish belongs to any deme, the fish of which are always naturally propagated.
It can reasonably be argued that it is impossible for a generation of artificially propagated fish to make up or belong to a deme at all. To state that they could would distort the meaning of deme into uselessness because a generation of artificial fish is gathered haphazardly through human intervention, spawned artificially by-passing sexual selection, and reared artificially. See artificial propagation, metapopulation, natural propagation, stock, straying.
diploid, having two sets of chromosomes, one from each parent.
disease, any abnormal condition that interferes with normal vital physiological processes, caused by pathogenic micro-organisms, parasites, unfavorable environment, genetic, or nutritional factors, etc.
domestication, the genetic and behavioral simplification that is an unavoidable result of artificial propagation. Domestication not only reduces functionalgenetic diversity, but involves a positive adaptation to the non-natural conditions of an artificial-fish-production facility. Domestication will always bring about a commensurate decline of natural adaptivity, or fitness, to a natural streamflow environment (National Research Council 1996:307). To continue to exist, domestic anadromous salmon require the functional genetically diverse gene pools of local breeding populations to maintain themselves. This is the conundrum of artificial fish: they undermine the very thing that they require for their own existance. This undermining is on many levels, including deme population numbers and genetic integrity, and angler awareness.
dominance cycling, a steelhead behavior, an uncommon dominance action in which two fish cycle side by side until one fish retires downpool. This action may be a modified form of ferrying or an abortive sort of flanking. Dominance cycling appears to be a moderate intensity dominance encounter. See: jockeying,ferrying, heading, and flanking.
drifted organic debris, a geographic locus in the pool, a generally semi-lunar area on the left side of Area 3 between the boulder cirque and the left ledge. During moderate to low flows, this is the place where the left eddy interacts with the main pool currents creating a flow-neutral, or currentless, area and this is where water-logged organic materials are often deposited. This organic drift is generally absent in the winter and spring, but develops during the summer and fall. The higher flows of late fall and winter appear to wash it away.
dysfunctional genetic diversity, the incorporation into a natural gene pool of genotypes influenced by the artificial conditions fish are subjected to when artificially propagated. The adaptations—genetic and behavioral—that fish make to artificial conditions are virtually always dysfunctional on some level to survival in a natural environment (National Research Council 1996:307). Many of these dysfunctional adaptations are heritable. As an example of this, Barnhart (1991) notes that some artificial summer steelhead were eight to ten times less effective at producing offspring that survived to adulthood than were naturally propagated fish in a particular stream. It is worth noting that domesticated behaviors may also have something to do with this failure to successfully breed. See adaptation, domestication, functional genetic diversity.
ecosystem, a biological community and its non-biotic environment.
emergent size, for the Steamboat Creek steelhead populations, this refers to the length of the fry as emerges for the first time from the gravels and appears to be 0.75-0.88 inches.
Eva, a name assigned to the shadow cast on the pool by the trees located on the left bank and to the upstream side of the trail down to the viewing area. SeeSidd, Agni, Old Scratch, Herb.
evolutionary potential, the ability of individual demes of fish to continue to adapt to the dynamic environments they live in, i.e., to not become extinct.
exotic fish, a fish and its genotype that is exotic or non-native to a drainage or subdrainage (that is, a tributary, stream, or stream reach) it emigrates to. May be a natural stray, that is, a naturally propagated fish that reared itself and is non-natal to the relevant drainage, or may be an artificially propagated, domesticated fish. See homing, metapopulation, straying.
falsification, a scientific process whereby a person or persons attempt to disprove a theory. A much more powerful and robust process of assessing the validity of a theory that verification due to the subjective nature of human nature.
farmed fish, if a Pacific salmon, a fish that is artificially propagated and raised in net enclosures in the ocean strictly for food purposes. These fish are never released purposely into the natural environment, but are collected from the enclosures when large enough. Fish farmed in the ocean have always escaped and will always escape and this has had unfortunate consequences for wild populations of Pacific salmon.
Even if no fish escaped, there are bad things that happen to the environment because of fish farming. These include, but are not limited to, undermining the price per pound of salmon so that commercial fishermen need to catch far more fish, many of them wild, to simply make ends meet. Another bad thing is that an average fish farm creates the waste problems of human communities with populations of ten to twenty-five thousand. Fish farms are also disease vectors because of the large numbers of fish held in relatively small spaces, and they require regular doses of antiseptics and antibiotics. Because they are held in net enclosures in the oceans, massively more in the way of antiseptics and antibiotics have to be dispensed per capita on the fish. Therefore, the local aquatic environment is flooded with these substances.
In another example of the continuous obfuscation practiced by the various artificial-fish managers—whether hatchery, STEP program, or farmed fish—it has been implied that farmed fish help wild populations of Pacific salmon. This is not the case. There is no positive benefit to wild local breeding populations of Pacific salmon from any artificial fish, though many and various benefits are asserted. There is no problem produced by farmed Pacific salmon that is unique to them and is not also found in a game-management hatchery.
Finally, in one of the more pernicious results possible from raised public awareness about farmed fish, the dialogue of the fish market has become, “Is that a wild fish or a farmed fish?” Hatchery fish have dropped out of the discussion and been subsumed under the new label of “wild” fish. This has had and will continue to have terrible consequences for wild Pacific salmon since, of course, artificial fish—whether hatchery, STEP program, or farmed fish—are clearly the great danger faced at present by wild fish and by fishing.
feeding, see incidental feeding.
ferrying, a steelhead behavior, a dominance action in which two fish ferry right or left across the pool with bodies parallel and both fish oriented somewhat oblique to the flow. Movement seems to be slow and uses only the paired fins. The tail or the body do not seem to be used in this motion. Ferrying seems to be a medium intensity dominance action. See: jockeying, heading, dominance cycling, and flanking.
flanking, a steelhead behavior, a dominance action in which one steelhead moves for the anal-fin region of another fish, which fish—if not intimidated—itself cycles and goes for the anal fin region of the first fish. This type of action is observed in cutthroat trout and spring chinook too. Flanking and chasing appear to be the highest intensity of the dominance encounters observed in the pool. See: jockeying, heading, ferrying, and dominance cycling.
flashing, a steelhead behavior, an arcing of a fish’s the body in such a way that the concave surface is upwards and reflects the light of the sky. The flash is a bright silver reflection as though the body were a mirror. This action nearly always occurs close to the streambed and during a turn. The creation of the flash of light appears to be purposeful and communicative, potentially complexly so.
Flashing appears to be a warning or a way for a steelhead to draw attention to itself for the purpose of communicating a warning. The most common time that flashes occur is during a flight response to ODFW divers or otters. During these actions, individual steelhead go to the substrate and make a single flash that is slightly curved but always in the direction of flight. When steelhead appear to be agitated as a group but not fleeing (yet?), flashing is also quite common and often a single fish will flash several times in an arc of a circle. Sometimes a steelhead will flash in a complete circle of 360° or even 720°.
Once in August 26th of 2008, I watched as a steelhead beneath a blue heron perched on a log that projected out over a deep part of the pool flashed in a 306° circle. Cutthroat trout and spring chinook have been observed to flash too, as have hatchery steelhead in the pool though these latter artificial steelhead occasionally seem to have difficulty with the mechanics of the action (cf., note for 8/23/2002, 6:43 PM).
flutter jump/rise, a steelhead behavior, a type of rising and jumping where the tail is in rapid continuous motion during the whole of the action.
fluvial, of or pertaining to rivers.
fry, herein, a freshwater life stage of steelhead and other Pacific salmon species between the alevin stage and the parr stage; a young steelhead once it has left the gravels and taken up residence in the free-flowing stream and up until it is one year of age. Generally, in Steamboat Creek, a steelhead fry grows from 0.75 inches in the spring to a maximum of 3.5 inches in the late fall.
functional gene pool, those fish of a local breeding population, or deme, that actually successfully and naturally spawn.
functional genetic diversity, a meaningful diversity of genotypes within agene pool that allows a naturally propagated fish or a deme of fish to adapt to changing or dynamic local conditions. Necessarily, functional diversity declines with each and every artificially propagated fish that strays into contact with and breeds with the locally, adapted naturally propagated populations of fish. Seeadaptation, artificial propagation, dysfunctional genetic diversity, straying.
fungus, a Saprolegnia species, it shows up as a white, variably thick layer on a fish. It is usually a secondary invader after the slime layer on the fish has been interrupted or a wound is present. Possibly a beneficial agent in healing damage to steelhead and other salmon when these fish are in the natural environment (a hatchery is a highly stressful place for wild brood stock to be).
Commonly, by the end of the season, steelhead in the pool have at least spots of fungus at three locations on their bodies: on the nostril flaps, on the inside of the pectoral and ventral fins, and on the back just behind the dorsal fin.
fusiform, spindle shaped, rounded, thickest at the center and tapering toward both ends.
gaping, a steelhead behavior, a single relatively slow opening of its jaws in something like a yawn, usually for more than a second. It seems to be contagious. Often associated with champing.
gene, the sequence of nucleotides concerned with a specific function. One or more genes may be associated with other genes controlling their expression. A gene is the shortest length of chromosome that can undergo mutation or that cannot be broken by recombination. Different forms of a specific gene, of which there may be many, are called alleles.
gene pool, the sum total of all the genes and their different alleles of all the individuals making up a breeding population or a metapopulation of a species. See deme.
genetic diversity, see functional genetic diversity, dysfunctional genetic diversity, and adaptation.
genotype, the particular alleles at chromosomal loci present in an individual.
gill flaring, when a steelhead opens or spreads its gills broadly. This action, particularly when associated with head shaking, may be a way for a steelhead to clean its gill rakers.
gill rakers, bony processes in the gill arches.
gravel test, this is a pit of variable size that has been dug by a Pacific salmon into the substrate, dispersing constituent gravels and fines downcreek. Gravel tests may be from a few inches to a few feet in longest dimension and separate gravel tests may coalesce as they did in 2002 to take up much of Channel 1 from the break to the point of the central bar.
This term was coined to describe a product of the digging behavior of steelhead or other Pacific salmon. The disturbance of gravels by lampreys spawning an otter nosing the substrate while foraging for crawdads or other prey may produce a quite similar disturbance of the substrate.
harvestman, daddy-long-legs (family Phalangiidae).
hatchery, an artificial environment, usually with concrete pens for holding brood stock and juvenile fish and some form of trays for holding artificially propagated and developing eggs. As a rule in a hatchery, fish are kept in relatively still water; they are crowded together and more subject to disease; they are treated with antiseptics, antibiotics, and other medications; they are protected from predators; and they are fed processed food. All hatcheries must have a way of at least flushing waste and antiseptic residues from the pens and these hatchery byproducts are generally flushed into whatever the water source is that services the hatchery. See artificial-fish-production facility.
hatchery fish, an artificial fish. A hatchery fish is an artificially propagated fish that—presently—has generally been reared until smoltification in the domesticating environment of a hatchery, or other artificial-fish-production facility. Hatchery fish are sometimes considered much more domesticated than are STEP program fish. This is a fallacy. The fact is that both of these types ofartificial fish have been bred through a process of artificial propagation, which makes both much more similar to each other than either is to a naturally propagated fish. Comparing hatchery and STEP program fish to pristine fishis similar to comparing two types of domestic turnip to camas (Camassia quamash). See artificial propagation, natural selection, artificial-fish-production facility, artificial rearing.
head dipping, a foraging strategy used by common mergansers that involves swimming with the head dipped into the water past the eyes. Dippers have been documented using this foraging technique too.
head shaking, a steelhead behavior, the side-to-side shaking of its head by a steelhead. This action is virtually always associated with an open mouth and gill flaring. See gill flaring.
heading, a probable steelhead dominance action in which the lead-male steelhead moves up the pool and away from a group of other steelhead that move into an area of the pool that previously hosted dominance encounters. See: jockeying, ferrying, dominance cycling, and flanking.
helical flow, a type of corkscrew flow superimposed on the primary downstream flow of a stream. The flow moves across the water surface from the inside (convex) bank of a meander towards the outside (concave) bank where it descends to the channel bed before returning as a reverse flow towards the inside of the meander (Dictionary of Physical Geography 1984).
Herb, the name assigned to the shadow cast by the grown-old fir located on the left bank and at the edge of the flat above the viewing area. See Sidd, Eva,Agni, Old Scratch, Herb.
Hokum’s Razor, this is a false explanation, one that is apparently simple and direct, yet does not take into account the true and known complexity of a particular phenomenon or the fundamental reality that complex interdependent systems not only exist but are the rule in the natural world. A Hokum’s razor explanation may come about through a purposeful manipulation of data or through ignorance or through both. For example, all rationales used to justifyartificial propagation and artificial rearing are examples of the use of Hokum’s Razor. See Occam’s Razor.
—Syn. 1. nonsense, twaddle, balderdash, bull, moonshine, absurdity.
homing, a fish’s migration to, ascent of, and spawning in a stream or portion of a stream—at a particular time—where they began their lives; their natal stream. Homing is generally considered an instinctual behavior and a complex one with, certainly, elements of learning involved. Homing is an isolating mechanism which, in combination with timing and natural selection, allowsdemes to fit themselves to (adapt to) local environmental conditions. With Pacific salmon, this adaptation is sometimes on a particularly small geographic scale yet a particularly long time scale that certainly encompasses cycles of ocean productivity and possibly the climatic reversals of the ice ages.
In conjunction with straying—not in opposition to it—the process of homing allows species to adapt locally on a microgeographic scale, yet retain their evolutionary flexibility (National Research Council 1996:8). What homing is to a deme, straying and homing are to a metapopulation. See: straying,artificial straying, natural straying.
human intervention, humans and their technological processes have a profound and pervasive influence on the biosphere. Herein, the term means those purposeful interventions into the natural life ways of steelhead or other salmon that are—rightly or wrongly—believed to improve the fish or fish numbers for some human purpose. In these steelhead notes, the term does not include angling, habitat improvements, logging, dam building, and rafting. This is not an exhaustive or inclusive listing of non-intervention interventions.
incidental feeding, the ingestion of the rare and usually minute amounts of food-like items that are now and then found in the stomach of a steelhead here and there. The term “food-like item” differentiates insects from leaves, dippers, sticks, and other items occasionally recovered from steelhead.
incipient lethal temperature, the lowest temperature that will be lethal to a steelhead if it cannot find cooler water within forty-eight hours. This is 75°.
instinct, “an innate tendency to behave in a particular way, which does not depend critically on particular learning experiences for its development and therefore is seen in a similar form in all normally reared individuals of the same sex and species. . . Some [sic] complex instinctive behavior, however, requires some learning by the animal before it is perfected. Bird song, for example, consists of an innate component that is modified and made more complex by the influence of other birds, the habitat, etc.” (Oxford Press 1996) (italics mine).
jockeying, a steelhead behavior, a dominance action in which two fish that are holding in proximity to each other attempt to move ahead of each other. Sometimes it is a see-sawing forward, sometimes an easing up, and sometimes both fish move forward maintaining their relative position. Jockeying appears to be the lowest intensity and it is certainly the commonest dominance action. Spring chinook also engage in jockeying, at least with steelhead. See: ferrying,heading, dominance cycling, and flanking.
jump, a steelhead behavior, a movement by a fish into the air above the surface. The tail may remain in contact with the surface and the action will still be called a jump in these natural history notes. By far the majority of jumps at Big Bend Pool appear to be for the purpose of getting their eyes above the surface to see outside the Snell Window: a circular meniscus-like window created by the refraction of light that creatures beneath the surface see the above-the-surface world through. See rise and splashy rise.
kingmixer, a person or steelhead who appears to hate group unity.
kype, a secondary sexual characteristic of male and female Pacific salmon, though certainly less pronounced in female fish. The region on the head of a steelhead in front of or distal to the nostril cavities that is subject to growth once a steelhead has entered freshwater.
In the ocean, prior to elongation, the nostril cavities are positioned a third of the distance from the snout tip to the eyes (another way of saying this is that the nostril cavities are positioned two-thirds of the way from the eyes to the snout tip). A male steelhead grows this region distal to the nostril cavities—the kype—until the nostrils are positioned two-thirds of the distance from the kype tip to the eyes. Female steelhead grow the kype until the nostrils are positioned half the distance from the kype tip to the eyes.
lead fish, a steelhead behavior, generally a male steelhead that is asserting dominance by establishing itself at least a body-length forward—or upcreek—of the pod front. Holding as the lead male steelhead appears to be the fundamental aspect, or ultimate goal, of all dominance encounters observed in the pool between steelhead. A male fish holding in the lead fish position, particularly when this position is separated from the pod front, is the dominant male steelhead. It is unclear how the lead fish position is used by female steelhead.
A male steelhead that is the lead fish responds variably aggressively to other male steelhead that approach it. Usually, the lead male steelhead does not engage in aggression with female steelhead that hold further ahead or that move up past it.
lead pod-front fish, a lead steelhead within the front of the pod, but not necessarily a lead fish if a vanguard or lead fish is holding out in front of the pod.
learning, a “process by which an animal’s response to a particular situation may be permanently altered, usually in a beneficial way, as a result of its experience. Learning allows an animal to respond more flexibly to the situations it encounters: learning abilities in different species vary widely and are adapted to the species’ environment. Numerous different categories of learning have been proposed, but there is no general agreement on how many different processes are involved” (Oxford Press 1996).
lichened, thickly coated with lichens.
local breeding population, see deme.
local reproductive unit, see deme.
longicorns, a beetle belonging to the Cerambycidae, the long-horned beetles.
Lughnasadh, the feast of the Celtic god Lugh on August 1.
metapopulation, a theoretic entity, a network of local populations (demes) within a drainage basin or other geographic area which are connected by the infrequent exchange of individuals (genetic material) through natural straying. A metapopulation is a population of local breeding populations. Where demes(in association with homing) ensure local adaptation, metapopulations (in association with homing and straying) ensure evolutionary flexibility.
mid-level flash, a steelhead behavior, this is a flashing action that is carried out well above the substrate and below the surface. This action may represent abortive pseudo redd-making flaps. This is not a common behavior. Seepseudo redd-making flaps.
miller, a white moth. This usage relates to the powdery or floury appearance of the wings.
miller’s wife, a metaphor used in Alexis Zorba’s characterization of human reason.
“‘Oh, you just sit there and ask questions! It just came over me, that’s all. You know the tale of the miller’s wife, don’t you? Well, you don’t expect to learn spelling from her backside, do you? The backside of the miller’s wife, that’s human reason.’”
Kazantzakis
(1952:11)
milling, a steelhead behavior, a stress response by a pod or a portion of a pod (sometimes milling steelhead form several discrete groups of fish) that appears most often to be a response to otters in the pool which are paying attention to the steelhead [usually otters visit the pool to forage for crawdads]. Occasionally, steelhead will engage in milling as a response to precipitation that causes a rise in the level of the creek and often milling is a prelude to exiting the pool. Milling consists of a loose, generally lazy, concerted movement by a group of steelhead away from a pod and out over the pool apparently examining the geography of the pool or, potentially, looking for something.
natal stream, the stream or stream reach in which a fish’s parents spawned and the gravels from which it emerged.
native fish, a fish from the deme that originally adapted itself to a drainage or subdrainage during and after the Late Pleistocene Period. Because of over a hundred years of artificial-fish-production facilities on the west coast of North America, few native local breeding populations of fish remain without some admixture of domesticated genes. For this reason, the term pristine is introduced herein to reference both native demes of fish and the inclusive nature of the fluvial systems prior to Euro-American contact with the Northwest Coast of North America. Note: natural straying of naturally propagated fish has always taken place at a very low frequency and the rare incorporation of naturally propagated exotic genotypes into a native deme’s gene pool is the rule and the mechanism that joins demes into metapopulations. See metapopulation,straying.
natural, existing in or formed by nature without human intervention.
natural propagation, the spawning of a fish naturally in the gravels of its natal stream without human intervention.
natural selection, an evolutionary process by which the less-well-adapted individuals of a local reproductive unit tend to be eliminated in competition with the more resilient and more well adapted individuals of the same deme. The idea was proposed jointly by Darwin and Wallace in 1859 to account for the origin and diversity of species.
“The differential contribution of offspring to the next generation by various genetic types belonging to the same population . . .”
Wilson 1999:403
Note: natural selection implies that if artificially propagated fish were less fit they would be weaned from a naturally propagating population. In reality, the fact that there is always another generation of artificial fish being reared in hatch boxes and ponds, or other artificial fish production facilities, and straying into contact with naturally propagated fish pretty thoroughly undermines the working natural selection at present in those basins with artificial propagation going on in them. Therefore, the continued presence of artificial fish is not a sign that they are as strong and adaptive as the naturally propagated fish.
natural straying, the straying of a naturally propagated fish without human intervention. See straying.
no slip condition, a quality of fluids such that their velocity at an interface with a solid is always the same speed as the solid, fluids do not slip with relation to adjacent solids. This means that the velocity of a stream at its contact with its bed is effectively zero though only perhaps for the thickness of less than one millimeter.
nucleotide, a subunit of DNA or RNA made up of a 5-carbon sugar, a nitrogen-containing base, and a phosphate group.
Occam’s Razor, this is an unusually useful philosophic maxim, or principle, according to which the best explanation for an observed phenomenon is the one that is the simplest and uses the fewest assumptions, hypotheses, etc. It should be noted that the explanation in question must reference all of the relevant aspects of the phenomenon known at the time as well as take into account the existence of complex interdependent systems when it is relevant to do so. SeeHokum’s Razor.
Old Scratch, the name assigned to the sun break between the shadows namedHerb and Eva on the pool. This patch of sun was caused by the cutting of a large tree at the top of the trail down to the viewing area. See Sidd, Eva, Agni,Herb.
operculum, the gill plate of a fish. The plural form of operculum is opercula.
outlier, this is a steelhead that consistently holds away from the pod.
parr, herein, a freshwater life stage between fry and smolt stages of steelhead and other Pacific salmon. At the age of twelve months, a fry becomes a parr and remains one until the juvenile fish loses its parr marks (the large dark oval bars on their backs and sides). If belonging to an anadromous species like steelhead, parr marks are lost when the fish becomes a smolt and undergoes the metabolic and behavioral changes that prepare the juvenile steelhead for life in the marine environment. Generally, in the main creek, steelhead parr measure between 3.5 and 4.5-7.25 inches (see Dambacher 1991:124-126).
Pink salmon (O. gorbuscha) are the only species of Pacific salmon that do not have parr marks as juveniles. See: alevin, fry, smolt.
patrolling, a steelhead behavior, this is when an isolated steelhead or spring chinook or cutthroat trout swims all over the pool apparently looking for something or examining the geography of the pool. The term patrolling is also used in the natural history notes I take at the pool to describe the territorial habits of some of the butterflies.
The use of the term patrolling to describe fish behavior has gone out of common use in my seasonal reports.
Perch, the, this is where I sit and watch, read, take notes, nap, play with Sis, sneeze, and so on while in the viewing area. The Perch is located at the roots of the Sidd tree, a medium-size but nonetheless grown-old fir at the downstream edge of the viewing area.
peer review, “Peer review” is my short-hand phrase that means studies that follow the generalized scientific method, that is, studies that have clearly defined objectives; a procedures section that is thorough and simply phrased; a technical glossary in which all ambiguous and potentially ambiguous terms and phrases are defined; as well as a presentation of the study results and analysis, falsifications, and findings. Further, these studies containing all these parts need to be readily accessible to the lay public on request. Another term of similar application herein is “transparent” in the sense that all these studies with all these parts need to be available to whoever requests them. This is the meaning herein of the short-hand term “peer review.”
Peer review, as the term is technically used, means a study has been freely available to ones scientific peers for comments. This is an aspect of testing and falsifying ones conclusions.
The peer-review process as it is used in journals should be meaningfully related to technical definition above. All too often, however, the process of peer review in journals fails because of concern with acceptable and unacceptable paradigms and theoretic stances. This is misuse of the peer-review process.
This whole issue is raised herein because the field of Pacific salmon studies is full of people who are politely known as “scientists” because of the academic discipline—some aspect of biology—they have obtained a graduate degree in. The polite use of the term does not, unfortunately, mean that that these people use or even subscribe to the methods common to science. Further, biologists who have never done a scientific study are, also unfortunately, not hesitant about asserting that they are doing science or that a given study is scientific when said study is merely unsubstantiated assertion by the self-serving. Various game-management agency newsletters, fact sheets, and handouts to the public are replete with assertions masquerading as science or scientific studies. These are the reasons that I use the short hand term, peer review.
There are plenty of biologists, both in and out of game-management agencies, who believe in scientific methods and use them in their studies. These peopledeserve the name scientist.
Finally, a study does not need to be accepted in a peer-reviewed journal to be a good study and one the uses the scientific method. If it is freely available to the public in all its necessary parts so that it can be assessed, I would argue that it satisfies the peer review process as used herein. If only the results, or findings, are cited and the study itself never seems to appear, the peer-review process is not satisfied as used herein.
pheromone, a chemical substance emitted by a creature into its environment as a specific signal to another creature, usually of the same species. Pheromones may cross the species boundary as when spring chinook pheromones influence steelhead behavior or vice-versa.
Pinocchioing, a term used in the first few seasons of these natural history notes to describe the lengthening of the nose and jaws in male steelhead in the pool.
pH scale, a 0-14 scale which reflects the concentration of hydrogen ions in solution; acid conditions are indicated by a number less than 7 and a number greater than 7 indicates basic conditions.
plant down, fluffy windborne seeds of various plants, including thistles, milkweed, fire weed, cottonwood trees, and so on.
pod, a majority of the steelhead in the pool that are obviously holding together and which potentially form a socially coherent group. By socially coherent group is meant that group of steelhead that carry out socially significant behaviors in relation to each other as apposed to other steelhead groups that may be present.
A pod does not necessarily contain all of the fish in a part of the pool. More than one pod may exist at one time, but these pods do not appear to be behaviorally related to each other like a vanguard does to the pod it is in front of.
polyploid, a cell nucleus containing more than two sets of chromosomes. Polyploidy apparently is much more common in plants than it is in animals. Steelhead and the other Pacific salmon are polyploid organisms. They aretetraploid and have four sets of chromosomes. Most animals are diploid and have two sets of chromosomes, one set from each parent.
pristine fish, native, naturally propagated fish and their gene pool which have never incorporated genes from an artificially propagated or reared fish. A theoretic entity and reference point truly on the other end of any spectrum fromartificial, or domesticated, fish.
pristine stream, a creek, stream, or river and its basin and ecology which is in a state of dynamic equilibrium with local climate and which have never been subjected to artificial modifications. A theoretic entity and reference point at the extreme end of any continuum of a stream basin and its ecology which has experienced artificial modification.
protein, an organic compound made up of one or more polypetide chains of amino acids. The large majority of structural materials and enzymes in a cell are proteins.
pseudo-redd-making flaps, a steelhead behavior, an action that is quite similar to the flaps a female Pacific salmon uses in digging her redd, but an action that is not for the purpose of excavating gravels. As is true for the “real” redd-making digging motions, while making these pseudo flaps, the body of the fish is held in a sinusoidal curve and only the end of the tail and the peduncle is flapped. Pseudo redd-making flaps, however, happen well above the substrate. The action has been observed with male and female spring chinook and female steelhead. Often a turbulent stir of current comes to the surface several feet behind the action if the action is carried out within a few feet of the surface.
Puca, an Irish Celtic animal spirit thought to be particularly active in the month of November and especially around the time of Samhain.
querencia, a Spanish word meaning affection or liking. Herein, a part of the pool that a pod of steelhead seem to be comfortable holding in.
Querencia is also a term from bull fighting. As explained by Hemingway in
Death in the Afternoon (1932), the querencia is the “part of the ring that the bull prefers to be in; where he feels at home.”
rain querencia, where steelhead in the pool resort to when a spate is in the offing and the creek is rising or has recently done so. Usually, these rain Querencias are in shallower water upstream of the pool in the riffle and downstream of the Peninsula.
reciprocal jumps, a steelhead behavior, two jumps by the same fish that are carried out facing in opposite directions. It is speculated that the purpose of reciprocal actions is to see in two directions. Very occasionally, rises or flashes appear to be reciprocal too.
redd, the nest excavated into the gravels by a Pacific salmon females. One or a series of depressions which are dug by the female salmon and into which all or some of her fertilized eggs are deposited. After the eggs are deposited, the hen works the gravels upstream from the redd and the displaced materials move downstream and cover the original depression. See the notes for 2000, pages 502-504, for a detailed description of the spawning process of a spring chinook in Channel 1 below the pool.
In 2001, Spring Chinook Zz, a hen, excavated an egg depression and worked on it between the 23rd and the 30th of September. No male spring chinook spawned with her, with the possible exception of a ten-inch spring chinook smolt (?). This redd was not completed.
redd area, located to the left of the cobble bar that splits the creek just below the pool, at the top of Channel 1.
redd mound, a common mounding of gravel that covers all or most of an individual female Pacific salmon’s excavated egg depressions, or redds. The redds covered have all been filled in prior to the deposition of redd mound gravels. The redd mound is created by digging a trough ahead of the area of the redds to be covered. The debris from this trough is pushed downcreek by the currents and is deposited on the area of the nests creating the common redd mound. Redd mounds have only been observed to be created by spring chinook, however, only spring chinook have been watched through the completion of their spawning process.
rise, a steelhead behavior, when a fish rises through the water column and actually breaks the surface with some part of its body, and descends again. The fish does not leave the water completely or create more than a minimal splash. See splashy rise and jump.
Samhain, an Irish Celtic festival, the Feis na samhna, which falls on the evening of October 31st and the day of November 1st. On Samhain the Otherworld became visible to mankind.
sexual selection, the behaviors carried out by the males and the females of a particular species that attract the opposite gender and are potentially carried out in competition with the same gender. The way in which secondary sexual characteristics and courtship/dominance behaviors have evolved. Sexual reproduction is the gateway through which most life ensures a genetic future. Sexually selected behaviors and morphologies are the keys to that gateway.
“The practice of making artificial matings—now the dominant hatchery method—is a serious concern because it disrupts natural patterns of sexual selection with negative implications for the fitness of hatchery fish in natural environments. . . . Sexual selection favors the pairing off and differential reproduction of some individuals at the expense of others. . . . The most effective breeders in general are few, implying that this process of sexual selection is extremely intense and important evolutionarily. In hatcheries, the whole process is bypassed: humans select adult males and females, strip their eggs and sperm, and then rear the fry.”
National Research Council 1996:308
Sidd, the name assigned to the shadow cast on the pool by the left bank fir that the Perch is on. Sidd follows Herb through the pool with the movement of the sun across the sky.
sinkings, a steelhead behavior, a pod-wide stress response. Sinking is when the steelhead pod settles deeper and out of sight in turbid water.
sky mirror, truck wing-mirror set up in front of the Perch by which the sky is seen.
smolt, the final freshwater life stage of juvenile anadromous Pacific salmon, including the steelhead. During the smolt stage, the juvenile steelhead looses its parr marks and takes on a silvery look from the deposition of guanine on the inside its scales. A suite of other metabolic and behavioral changes takes place that ready the young fish for a life in the estuary and ocean. Steamboat Creek steelhead smolt at an average length of 5.25 inches in length after spending their second year in the North Umpqua River and begin their single-minded swim to the ocean.
spate, a marked increase in the velocity and volume of a stream. Herein, a spate is specifically a quick creek rise of six or more inches over the course of the day or night.
splashy rise, a steelhead behavior, a stress response. A rise becomes splashy when an individual steelhead uses its tail on the surface to create a large splash during a rise. After the stress response called daisy chaining, as a spooking begins to dissipate, comes a period when the steelhead consistently make splashy rises.
Calling a rise splashy may be a variably subjective determination. See rise andjump.
STEP program fish, an artificial fish produced by artificial propogation. Often, a STEP program fish is contrasted with a hatchery fish, though the only difference is the amount of artificial rearing that the fish are subjected to and perhaps not even that. Because of the genetic changes inherent in artificial propagation, a STEP program fish is effectively identical to a hatchery fish, rather than filling an illusory intermediate position between hatchery fish and naturally propagated fish.
steelhead, an anadromous, or sea-run, rainbow trout (O. mykiss).
stock,
“populations or groups of salmon populations that are recognized for [the sake of] management” (National Research Council 1996:78). A stock is essentially an arbitrary population of fish—including artificial fish—and can refer to any recognizable group of population units that are fished. Managing a basin’s, or state’s, or bio-region’s wild fish populations on a stock basis and ignoring the local breeding populations that together constitute a stock necessarily brings about the extinction of some of the local breeding populations.”
National Research Council 1996:148
See: deme, metapopulation.
straying, the natural tendency for a very small percentage of a generation of naturally propagated fish to migrate to and enter a non-natal stream and to spawn there. Natural straying ensures that all the alleles within ametapopulation will be present in each local breeding population and can be acted on by natural selection (Allendorf 1983 in National Research Council 1996:156). It is the genetic mechanism by which evolutionary potential is maintained within a metapopulation (ibid). Note: straying would be meaningless genetically, were it not for the process of homing.
Studies with artificial chinook have shown that the frequency of straying increases with number of years a fish has spent in the marine environment without returning to spawn (Quinn and Fresh 1984). This suggests that straying may be in a dynamic relationship with homing and that there is some learning involved. The proximity of the exotic stream entered to the natal drainage is an influencing factor as well (National Research Council 1996:149). Of course, of the few fish that stray from a particular deme, all do not go to the same exotic drainage.
The introduction of artificially propagated fish into a system is not the equivalent of natural straying in any sense because the genotype of any artificially propagated fish “has reduced variation or has been derived from a population adapted to a [fundamentally] different environment” [the domesticating environment of the hatchery] (ibid:8, 302-323).
Barnhart (1991) notes artificial fish have an increased incidence of straying.
Speculation: is it possible that straying is to some degree a behavior that is genetically controlled rather than just being a failure of the homing instinct? The regular, low-level action of straying in any generation of naturally propagated fish which appears to connect the gene pools of local breeding populations together into metapopulations suggests straying may be so. Note: the fact that straying fish generally stay closer than further away from their natal stream also suggests that, rather than being an opposite process, straying may be a variation of homing. See: artificial straying
stripe, the red band or stripe from the gill plates to the peduncle (and occasionally spreading into the tail as an amorphous rusty-colored area) on the sides of sexually maturing steelhead of both sexes. The stripe appears to be secondary sexual characteristic and is certainly more pronounced with the male than with the female steelhead.
substrate shuffle, a steelhead behavior, this behavior was first seen in November of 2004. It may be related to flashing, though no flashes of light are produced. This action involves a fish descending to the substrate and carrying out agitated and quick waggings which scoot the fish ahead. The fish remains upright during the action. The descent to the bottom and agitated quick waggings strongly resemble aspects of the flashing action.
This action appears to be associated with agitation shown by the other pod fish and became a relatively common action during the first three weeks of November, 2004.
sun breaks, patches of sunlight on the pool among shadows.
supplementation, this term is only present here in the glossary to allow a pertinent quote about the purpose of hatcheries from the National Research Council’s book, Upstream.
“The term “supplementation” as a goal of hatchery programs should be abandoned. The ambiguity of this term has generated confusion about appropriate roles of hatcheries, as illustrated by its many and often incompatible definitions in published and “gray” literature. Instead, precise thinking and terms are needed to define and select ecosystem-level goals (e.g., rehabilitation of natural regenerative processes versus high human control) that will set the context for any proposed hatchery program.
National Research Council 1996:321
taken up, when used herein, this term may mean anything, but probably refers to abduction by aliens.
tetraploid, having four sets of chromosomes.
thalweg, when referring to a stream channel, this term means the line of maximum depth, the deepest part of the channel.
theory, a well-tested hypothesis that explains or organizes the data or knowledge in a field of inquiry and successfully predicts future events or observations. All theories will eventually make way for other theories that better explain and predict nature.
tic, a habit spasm that involves repetitious behavior relatively uninfluenced by environmental stimuli.
timing, the temporal regulation of certain stages in the life of a steelhead, such as smolting and migrating to the marine environment, homing to their natal stream, and spawning. Timing is an isolating mechanism which, in combination with homing and natural selection, allows demes to fit themselves to (adapt to) local environmental conditions sometimes on a particularly small geographic scale and a particularly long time scale. The same timing may be operating in both homing and straying within the naturally propagated fish of a metapopulation. See homing, straying.
tree drops, a dropping of moisture from trees rather than precipitation from the sky.
tortoise-wings, a butterfly identification that includes tortoise shells, angel wings, and commas.
two-tone, refers to the look of a very silver and bright steelhead which appears to be two differentiated bars of silver, the dorsal bar being darker.
Upper Querencia, a common steelhead pod lie at the upper left end of the pool that spans the pool/riffle boundary. It is where the main Big Bend Creek current enters the pool. Steelhead are often described as holding on the pool-side or the riffle-side of the Upper Querencia.
vanguard, a steelhead dominance (?) behavior, a small group of steelhead that are separated from the pod and in front of it. The vanguard is not another pod because the behaviors of the fish in the vanguard indicate that it exists in reference to a pod. Usually a vanguard consists of short-jawed steelhead that frequently appear to accompany a small number of long-jawed steelhead that are engaged in some type dominance interaction. See pod.
viewing area, a small bedrock and sediment bench about fifteen feet above the pool where the Perch is and from which most of these observations are taken. The viewing area is above the inside of the bedrock-constrained meander that is Big Bend Pool.
wall edge, refers to the relatively vertical faces of the named rock formations on the right bank of the pool other than Rock 9. Rock 9 does not have a vertical face but rather extends out into the creek as a peninsula—The Peninsula.
what is, the fundamental ground or reality that is outside of words, names, thoughts, projections, ideals, emotions, God or gods, and ego.
wild fish, non-fin-clipped fish and the gene pool they belong to. The result of one or more generations of naturally propagated fish, unless the artificial-fish-production facility has not been fin clipping fish. On today’s North Umpqua and when used to reference the other extreme of the genotypic continuum fromartificial fish, this is a useless term when discussing this issue with a hair splitter, but for one thing: Artificial fish have shown themselves to be largely inept when producing viable offspring that are capable of surviving the freshwater and ocean life stages.
—end of glossary—
© Lee spencer and The North Umpqua Foundation 2010, all rights reserved
