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Kids get close look at Rogue River life Photo by Jim Craven Biologist Nikki Moore of the Bureau of Land Management talks to Crater High School students, from left, Josh Gunter, Zach Seymour and Tim Hammond about salmon spawning habits. The students, who were visiting McGregor Park on the Rogue River Wednesday, wore polarizing glasses so they could see into the water more effectively. From salmon to wiggly stone flies By BETH QUINN TRAIL -- Under the rush of Rogue River water, Josh Gunter spotted a flash of white, and eight Crater High sophomores donned fluorescent green polarizing sunglasses to get a better look at the chinook salmon. "I can see the whole fish now," said 16-year-old Mandy Valencia. "Before I could just see the tail." What she and the other biology students saw finning sluggishly against the flow was white-splotched and already rotting, a dying fish that had fought its way 151 miles upriver through boulder-strewn rapids and past manmade dams to spawn in its birthwaters. "Salmon invest all their energy into their eggs. That's why they're decaying," explained Nikki Moore, a Bureau of Land Management biologist and volunteer with Oregon Trout. The 30 Crater kids assembled Wednesday on a McGregor Park riverbank strewn with dead and dying salmon came from one of 23 Jackson and Josephine county classrooms that will participate this year in Salmon Watch, an education program that takes students into the field for hands-on learning in hopes of inspiring in them a sense of stewardship for native wild fish. The students donned hip waders and braved chilly waters to study macro-invertebrates with volunteer Liz Hunter of Ashland, scooping up the wiggling stone flies that indicate a healthy river. They studied the brushy riparian zone where the water meets the land with volunteer Eric Rico of Talent, noting the interactions between things that fly and things that walk and things that swim. They tested water quality with students from Crater's Rogue Ecology workshop, discovering that temperature and acidity and dissolved oxygen matter to fish. And they learned the salmon's life cycle from Moore and her BLM colleague, biologist Scott Cotter, who outlined the need to be informed on the hard environmental choices that face the Pacific Northwest. "Especially the young people -- they're going to be the ones making the decisions," he said. One of the hard choices will be made this week, when Grants Pass irrigators face the loss of water rights for failing to remove a fish-killing dam. When asked what decision they'd make given a choice between dams and fish, the students' answers came quickly. "The fish," said Mandy. "The fish," said Josh. "The fish," said Sean Dodd, Hillary Petersen, David McVey, Zach Seymour, Mike Lillie and Tim Hammond. Some suggested building dams with better fish ladders. Others suggested an overabundance of ocean seals is part of the threat. But in the end, all wanted to make sure that salmon always swim in the Rogue River. "I think it'd be nice for our kids and grandkids to know what they are," said 17-year-old Hillary. "Oregon's known for their wildlife," said Tim. "They're important to the environment," said Mandy. "Not only to people who are environmentalists, who want to save the Earth.'' Mail Tribune Copyright � The Mail Tribune 1998, Medford, Oregon USA