Conversations about Conservation: Eight years of scientific sharing in northern California and southern Oregon

Presentation of "Some Like it Hot: Bat Acoustic Monitoring Reveals Varied Response to Post-Wildfire Landscape" by Emma Sutphin, Lava Beds National Monument.

NPS

Enticing busy park staff to carve out time to connect with and learn from colleagues in neighboring parks with valuable lessons learned is a challenge, but the Klamath Network has been doing just that since 2014.With the annual “Klamath Conversations” gathering, park staff and partners from across divisions present 15-minute talks about their work over two half-day sessions. Klamath Conversations aims to promote interdisciplinary understanding, sharing, and learning among network parks, programs, and divisions.

The Klamath Network (KLMN) consists of six national park units in northern California and southern Oregon: Redwood National and State Parks, Whiskeytown National Recreation Area, Lassen Volcanic National Park, Lava Beds and Tule Lake National Monuments, Crater Lake National Park, and Oregon Caves National Monument and Preserve.

KLMN parks encompass an array of habitats including lagoons, dunes, rocky intertidal zones along the Pacific shore, wet coastal forests, subalpine forests, meadows, lakes, alpine environments, and semiarid sagebrush steppe. KLMN is one of 32 Inventory and Monitoring (I&M) networks across the country that provide park managers, researchers, and park visitors with reliable scientific information about key park resources. The annual gathering evolved as the result of the annual Superintendent Board of Directors’ meeting, which takes place each December in Ashland, Oregon. KLMN presents their findings and achievements from recent monitoring efforts as well as their upcoming budget and staffing plans for the upcoming fiscal year. Others participate and learn, too. Since the meeting is hosted by Southern Oregon University, this is a great opportunity to engage local students, professors, park partners and cooperators.

The annual December 2022 gathering hosted 19 presenters across a wide variety of topics. Not surprisingly, the topic of wildland fire dominated the talks, as network parks have burned extensively over the past few years.

In 2018, the Carr Fire burned 97% of Whiskeytown National Recreation Area; in 2020, the Caldwell Fire burned 70% of Lava Beds National Monument, followed by a fire in 2021 that burned the remaining 30% of the monument. Also in 2021, the Dixie Fire burned 70% of Lassen Volcanic National Park.

Presenters explored wildland fire management and their park’s challenges and successes in recovering from these events. They also explored flora and fauna response to wildfire, drawing from existing research and long-term monitoring data sets for context.

Wildland fire-related presentations included:

• Post-fire Carnivore Surveys in Two Klamath Network Parks – Joan, Hagar, USGS Forest and Rangeland Ecosystem Science Center;
• Restoring the Tower House Historic District and Landscape – Glendee Ane Osborne, Whiskeytown National Recreation Area Cultural Resource Program Manager;
• Burned Area Emergency Response (BAER) – Post Fire Recovery in the Klamath – Anna Schrenk, BAER Implementation Coordinator for Whiskeytown National Recreation Area, Lassen Volcanic National Park and Point Reyes National Seashore;
• Old Growth Tree Mortality at Whiskeytown National Recreation Area Following the 2018 Carr Fire – Micah Wright, USGS Wester Ecological Research Center;
• Some Like it Hot: Bat Acoustic Monitoring Reveals Varied Response to Post-Wildfire Landscape – Emma Sutphin, Lava Beds National Monument;
• The Bear Foot Resource: Archeological Discoveries of an Illicit Nature – David Curtis, Lava Beds National Monument and Tule Lake National Monument;
• Whiskeytown: A Goldmine of Botanical Treasures – Christopher Mccarron, Great Basin Institute;
• Using High-Resolution Imagery to Evaluate Wildfire Impacts at Whiskeytown National Recreation Area and Lava Beds National Monument – Lyndsay Rankin, USFS Western Ecological Research Center.

Some conversations at the meeting produced ideas about potential post-fire recovery social media products and the potential for using the Inventory and Monitoring Land Cover and Land Use monitoring to determine rates of change between parks within the network. Neighboring land management agencies and parks throughout the region can use the implications of the response and recovery of natural and cultural resources to a high-severity wildfire.

The presentations were live-streamed and recorded for NPS personnel who could not attend, and there was also a poster session.

There is no substitute for sharing and exchanging data and experiences among staff from these highly diverse parks. Within these conversations, creative solutions and ideas are generated so parks can collaborate in a more regional approach, especially in the wake of challenging circumstances.

According to NPS post-fire coordinator, Jen Gibson, who attended the annual event, “It is through the diversity of people and diversity of thought that we are going to take on the challenges that parks face today.”