Another year, another hundred Christmas trees (or more!) installed in the Willamette River to enhance salmon habitat! Each year, we partner with the North Clackamas Parks and Recreation District to recycle Christmas trees at the end of the holiday season, and place them in the river at Spring Park to improve habitat for native fish. We collected donated Christmas trees at the beginning of January- check out that pile of trees below!
And then we had a bunch of great volunteers come out with us at the end of January to help with the installation- despite the rain and chilly temperatures!
Nothing warms you up like hauling Christmas trees!
Or staking a Christmas tree into the ground so they don’t float away!
And if you are wondering why we do this- Neil will happily tell you!
Large wood (like a Christmas tree) is great for streams and the fish that live in them! We usually install a lot of large wood on our restoration projects, and are always looking for ways to get more large wood into rivers and streams. That’s because large wood provides shelter for fish from predators, slows down water to protect them from high flow events, and attracts insects that they eat. If you want to learn more about the benefits of large wood in streams, check out our recent blog post about it! And next year don’t forget to save your Christmas tree for the salmon!
Photos provided by Hamid Shibata Bennett!
ncwatersheds.org 