2022 Summer Youth Crew

Each summer, the Mid Klamath Watershed Council hires a crew of youth interns. The purpose of this internship is to increase college and career readiness through youth involvement in a broad range of fisheries and upslope habitat restoration and monitoring projects. Throughout the 6-week program, these youth learn natural resource job skills including: native and invasive plant identification, manual invasive species removal techniques, native seed collection, fish identification, manual fish passage improvement techniques, and fire management techniques and creation of fuel breaks. They network with natural resource professionals from MKWC, the Salmon River Restoration Council, Scott River Watershed Council, Karuk Tribe, the US Forest Service, and other local agencies.

This year we welcomed Aaron Ryan Pole, Beecher Robbi, Bridgett Harrison, Eva Pearlingi, and Vinn Morales to the crew. On behalf of the MKWC staff, we thank each one of these interns for the energy, hard work, and positive attitudes they brought to the job every day.

We also thank all the mentors that stepped into leadership roles for this next generation of stewards. We can’t pull of this program without your expertise and guidance! We appreciate all the hours you put in to provide a meaningful and educational experience for the crew.

Here are some favorite snaps of the MKWC Summer Youth Crew 2022.

Youth Crew, 2022

From left to right: Vinn Morales, Aaron Ryan Pole, Beecher Robbi, Bridgett Harrison, and Eva Pearlingi.

Plants crew and the interns learning what Festuca Californica or California fescue looks like. The team collected several pounds of seeds to be redistributed in burned areas. This helps establish healthy populations of native plants in burned areas that directly benefit native insects, as well as provide food for the deer and elk that frequent these meadows.

The team tackling a forest of invasive Plumeless Thistle up the South Fork of Indian Creek.

The Scott River Watershed Council youth crew joined up with the MKWC crew for a Klamath River raft trip. The team stopped along the way to work on fish habitat improvement projects with the MKWC Fish Passage Crew.

Interns participated in the Salmon River Restoration Council’s Spring Chinook Dives, a collaborative effort to document presence of Spring Chinook to monitor population size and health of this endangered species.

Interns worked with MKWC Fisheries to create brush bundles. Brush bundles are placed in cold water habitats to increase shade and cover for juvenile salmonids.

Interns teamed up with the Karuk Tribe DNR to build a Beaver Dam Analog (BDA). BDAs mimic beaver dams with the goal of creating summer and winter rearing habitat for salmonids, as well as connecting creeks to their floodplains.

Fish passage improvement projects were popular during the summer heat! Here the interns work on creating pools and deepening pools to increase thermal refugia areas for juvenile salmonids.

Spring Chinook dives.

Interns learned underwater fish identification through snorkel surveys on the Klamath River tributaries.

BDA break to pose for a photo.