Meet our Guests: Kent Woodruff

Kent Woodruff

Retired USFS Wildlife Biologist; Director, Methow Beaver Project

Twisp, WA

9/1/2018-9/6/2018

Kent Woodruff is no ordinary naturalist. Wildland firefighter, bat aficionado, hawk watcher, forest service biologist, and beaver believer, Kent flows over with passion for his home, the Methow Valley. He has an amazing way with words and people. He is a champion of wildlife recovery, reintroduction, and the founder of crucial environmental groups and projects. We learned that the Methow is an ecological haven for hawks, beavers, elk, wolves, bats, rattlesnakes and more. Over the weeklong crash course in ecology we learned the many interactions between species, the land, and the role that humans have taken in restoring much of these interactions. Kent brought our focus to a few critically important and/or imperiled species of the Methow including the Peregine Falcon, Western Rattlesnake, Townsend Big-eared Bat, and the Lookout and Loop Loop wolf packs. It didn’t take long for Kent to transfer his passion for the Methow to us. Kent taught us about the wonders of the beaver, what he calls the “Machinery of the Methow” for their stream damming, habitat creating, and overall transforming characteristics.

Kent is the founder of the Methow Beaver Project, designed to reintroduce beavers into degraded habitats, where streams run fast and lose their water quickly, to create healthy riparian areas, store water, and attract wildlife. Kent is a beaver believer and we quickly converted too as we waded through a series of beaver ponds, searching for indicators of transformation, succession, riparian habitat, and changes to the forest. Beavers had been introduced to this site two years prior and had quickly gotten to work. We found frogs, birds, snakes, moose, aspen, and more, nurtured by these benevolent beavers. It wasn’t hard to see that Kent holds the beaver close to his heart. The species unite the ecological diversity of the Methow in their restoration capacities and recovery as a species. Kent’s positive energy and passion for the projects he spearheads has inspired us to “dig deeper”, never settle, and to be curious of the world around us. 

By Whitney Rich

Photo by Amara Killen

Meet our Guests: Janet Millard

Janet Millard

Wildlife Biologist, Okanogan National Forest

Leavenworth, WA

9/4/2018

On a warm morning in early September, we met up with Janet Millard on the dusty, jagged slopes of Chelan Ridge, Washington. With her aging pup Ginger at her heels, Millard took most of our group to the observatory at the Chelan Raptor Migration Project. The project, which Millard holds near and dear to her heart, was the brainchild of Kent Woodruff, a retired wildlife biologist. Woodruff saw the potential to collect valuable data on raptor migration at the ridge, where an open skyline allows for easy visibility of birds in flight. Currently Millard is the director, and oversees the management of the project.

A few of us, the biology majors, are afforded the opportunity to spend the day in the blind, where birds are caught, banded, and set free. Millard uses her radio from the observatory to let us know when a raptor is close by. “There’s a Coopers hawk headed your way!” she relays eagerly. After a couple false alarms, we manage to catch two juvenile Sharp-Shinned hawks, one male and one female. “When I saw all three of you running, I knew you caught something!” she smiles, having run half a mile from the observatory to the blind. “One of them [a researcher] didn’t believe me, but I knew.” We tuck the birds into two hole-punched soup cans, an unlikely but effective carrying method that helps keep them calm. Their scaly feet stick out from the bottoms like popsicle sticks as we gingerly carry them to the rest of our group with Millard. When we get there, a hushed chatter falls over everyone as they realize what we’re holding. Carefully, we’re allowed to hold the birds, one finger resting on their breastbone, another wrapped around their legs. Millard and Woodruff fan out the tail feathers of the female hawk, counting carefully for the twelve that should be there. Next they probe the crop, where food is stored, to see how recently the bird has eaten. Millard seems just as excited by the hawk as we are: though she encounters them every day, the light and passion in her eyes are as bright as any of ours.

By Abby Hill

Meet our Guests: Kristen Kirkby

Kristen Kirby

Project Manager, Central Cascade Fisheries Enhancement Group

Twisp, WA

9/3/2018

Whitman alumna and fellow Westie (2004) Kristen Kirkby is a passionate fisheries biologist working as a project manager for Central Cascade Fisheries Enhancement Group (CCFEG). CCFEG uses funding from Bonneville Power Administration, state government agencies, and local Public Utility Districts (PUDs) to rehabilitate fish populations in the Upper Columbia River and its tributaries. Kristen works to restore habitat for salmon by creating flood zones, taking out levies, replanting riparian zones, and adding structure in the form of stumps and log jams to help create vital salmon spawning habitat.

Kristen greeted us with a truck full of neoprene, snorkel masks, and an enthusiastic smile along the banks of the Methow River just outside of Twisp, Washington. Before we made it down the path to the river she had us stop to dissect a female hatchery steelhead. We analyzed its eggs, held its perfectly round eye lens in our fingers, and even quizzed us on anatomical features of the fish. Snorkeling in the frigid water of the Methow did not seem to faze any of us, with white fish tickling the shallow shore and large Chinook salmon and Bull trout darting through the dark depths. There was an exciting new world to explore just beneath the water’s surface, one seldom seen by recreationists, and even fishermen. One can easily see why this sort of data collection and monitoring is one of Kristen’s favorite parts of her work.

Kristen expressed the importance of salmon as a species for not only their commercial value and recreational benefits, but their ecological benefits as they bring crucial nutrients from the ocean to the valley. Kristen imparted to us the value of a holistic approach to habitat restoration and how it takes careful management and monitoring along with education to help its impact flourish into the future.

By Liam Voorhees

Meet our Guests: Tom and Sonya Campion

Tom and Sonya Campion

Founders, Campion Advocacy Fund

Methow Valley, WA

8/31/18

Tom and Sonya Campion are founders of the Campion Advocacy Fund. This couple has managed to combine their passion for business and public service as a tool to protect the environment, support homeless communities and advocate for civil engagement in politics. Tom, co-founder of the brand Zumiez, has spent his life in the business world, and Sonya has spent hers working in non-profits and fundraising consultancies.

The Campions are based in Seattle, but they welcomed our group at their mountain home in the Methow Valley. Within their property near Mazama, WA, they showed us a developed preserve for Townsend’s big-eared bats in a century-old wooden house and a more modern replica of the house right next to it. Additionally, the Campions talked about their experience in their business and philanthropic worlds and their story of combining those two in their foundation’s work. They explained the link of their role in politics and the importance of civic engagement. The Campions believe that civic engagement goes further than voting and recognize the need for advocacy and dialogues in different communities. Tom and Sonya represent an example of committed professionals advocating for social change, economic growth, and passion, together.

By: Juan Pablo Liendo

Meet our Guests: Zoë Hanley and Gabe Spence

Zoë Hanley

Institutional Researcher, Whitman College

Gabe Spence

Wolf Expert

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Methow Valley, WA

8/30/18

After winding our way through the charred spruce of the Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest and up a rocky forest road above the Methow Valley, we began our day with wolf biologists Zoë Hanley and Gabe Spence, two strong-willed minds with sharp eyes and a weariness for ranchers. Crouching over tracks, we learned how to read a wolf’s gait, and discussed the complex family structure and specifics of wolf behavior regarding their predation on livestock. Along with sharing her “risk” maps—that is, a generated topography of where wolves are most likely to kill cattle—Zoë posed the idea that the rancher versus wolf debate is at its core a societal question: “Who gets the right of way?” A political more than a science-driven issue, both researchers admitted the undeniable bias on each side of the value-divide.

The rest of the afternoon we strode toward a pocket of forest frequented by the “Lookout” wolf pack, stopping along the way to examine scat and practice our tracking eye. Stepping quietly off the overgrown road and into a saddle, we searched our peripheral for movement and ached for a response as Gabe let out a long set of howls. In the evening, we listened below the Douglas Firs of camp as Zoë and Gabe grappled with questions that left my peers and me unsure of where we stand, talking into the night of sacrifice and who belongs: What, if not science, should be the facilitator between the opposition? How do we create a baseline of trust and respect? To what degree do we need wolves? Ultimately, what do we want?

By: Jessie Brandt

Photos by: David Dregallo