Horses Under Rainbow during Monsoons
Eagle Creek watershed is mostly intact – so far. Only the upper reaches have had the Wallow fire on them. Even so we will be impacted. The Wallow fire has another side – floods. With the vegetation burned away and lots of bare ground, there is nothing to absorb the monsoon rains.
The last fire we had in that same area brought black soot and charcoal flowing down Eagle Creek. Our creek is usually clear and beautiful, full of life. It turned black and smelled of all the dead fish on the banks. It was horrible. About the only thing not affected were the crawdads – they seem to survive most anything. Healthy crawdads and stressed fish populations are a bad combination. The crawdads are not native and feed on small fish. They can really impact fish populations.
Right now Eagle Creek is flowing clear. Maybe I’ll go take a swim this afternoon.
Leave a Reply