Save the Klamath Dams to Save the Pelicans!

KBC News 10/27/10

The following is excerpts and paraphrases of a letter by Mr. Ed Weber, an R-Ranch owner near Hornbrook.

The California White Pelican is a fragile species whose declining breeding grounds include the Klamath River Basin as it passes through Irongate and Copco Lakes. Removal of the Klamath dams will destroy their breeding grounds and the rookery in which they raise their young. These birds migrate each season from the Sea of Cortez to Siskiyou County in order to breed.

I am an R-Ranch owner, in support of keeping the dams in place. I have been thoughtful about this dilemma for the past two years. I love to fish for largemouth bass in Siskiyou County lakes, including our two reservoirs on the Klamath. I also fish the Shasta Wildlife area lakes at Montague. I see white pelicans everywhere in these aquatic environs. Even the federal agencies involved in supporting the removal of dams, in their own documents, report that the most concentrated white pelican breeding grounds are… right here, and that they are already threatened before any consideration of dam removal!

So I now propose to those in a leadership position opposed to dam removal, to seriously look at what I have discovered about the importance of these threatened waters, to the very survival of California’s white pelican.  

My logic in the matter begins with a consideration of this question: How long must a body of water exist to be considered to be a part of the natural environment? My answer is that the animal kingdom has long ago made that decision for us and adopted Copco and Irongate lakes and the surrounding riparian environment as a critical part of their natural environment, beginning some fifty years ago. Please consider the data and the age of these waters.

The links below will lead you to federal and expert sites which further highlight the existing status and plight of the white pelicans of the Klamath Basin. These waterfowl clearly need protection and the removal of dams will destroy their breeding grounds here!

This represents quite a bit of research on my part, and I hope you will follow through by exploring the links provided below my signature.

Save the Dams!

 

Mr Ed

Ed Weber

 http://ecos.fws.gov/speciesProfile/profile/speciesProfile.action?spcode=B0EC#petitions

http://www.natureserve.org/explorer/servlet/NatureServe?searchName=pelecanus+erythrorhynchos

http://www.fws.gov/klamathbasinrefuges/lowerklamath/lowerklamath.html

http://www.fws.gov/klamathbasinrefuges/areamap.html

http://www.blm.gov/pgdata/etc/medialib/blm/ca/pdf/pdfs/cdd_pdfs.Par.83032d3c.File.pdf/Awpe1.pdf