Redwood Wilds
Welcome to the biggest project DGR has ever taken on: Redwoods Wild. The goal is the acquisition, protection, and restoration of a desperately important wildlife corridor along the Elk Creek watershed to the Pacific Ocean.
The Elk Creek watershed has approximately fifteen miles of anadromous streams. Upper Elk Creek begins among redwoods who are over 2,000 years old, protected within National/State Park boundaries. These upper reaches contain spawning grounds for highly endangered coho salmon. Many other threatened species live here, too, such as the northern red-legged frog, Del Norte salamander, and Port Orford cedar.
The land is also crucial to many non-threatened species, like mountain lion, black bear, porcupine, gray fox, bobcat, black-tailed deer, and Roosevelt elk (common now, but almost driven to extinction 120 years ago). Equally important is its importance to any possibility of endangered Humbolt marten and timber wolves reinhabiting the valley, both of whom are present in the region. Derrick and Lierre personally saw a wolf forty miles south of here. The wolves are on their way back, and they need homes.
Elk Creek is vital to the region’s ecological health. Besides the habitat it provides, the creek serves as a species reservoir. The Smith River to the north is the longest undammed river in the US, and one of the least polluted. It has runs of many important salmon. But if a catastrophic loss of fish befell the Smith—say, from a fuel truck spill—the river would have to be reinhabited by fish from Elk Creek. The same is true of the Klamath River, to the south. This is how fish have kept waterways populated since there were fish: they migrate to a damaged river once conditions improve.
As the creek descends from the park, it enters the urban/wild interface and ultimately ends crossing US Highway 101 near the ocean. Along the way, the stream runs through wild lands, farms, ranches, neighborhoods, and former industrial sites. At one point Elk Creek was used to float old growth redwoods to an artificial pond next to a long-gone sawmill. These human/industrial activities have done terrible harm to this habitat for wild beings.
But still they persist. And it is our responsibility—and our joy--to help them reclaim their homes.
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DGR’s mission is to repair, restore, and rejoin. There is tremendous local support for repairing Elk Creek. Beaver need to be reintroduced so they can de-channelize the streams and restore the wetlands. Invasive plants like canary grass need to be removed. Various properties (or easements on properties) need to be purchased to protect riparian zones. Barriers to fish passage need to be taken down. We’ll be working with other environmental organizations, the local Indian nation, and city, county, state and federal governments to protect and restore these lands, until we rejoin the wild corridor from the redwoods to the sea.
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