Monthly Splotlight - Sarah Doyle
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The Salmon Coalition is grateful to work with and learn from so many inspiring and dedicated people. To celebrate the contributions of this community, NOSC selects someone each month to highlight and give thanks. This year marks our
30th Anniversary
and we will be highlighting different community members, staff, and partners that have helped make the Salmon Coalition what it is today.
This month we interviewed our Stewardship Coordinator
, Sarah Doyle
, who has been with NOSC for a decade! Sarah's work continues to have a deep impact on the North Olympic Peninsula environment. Her skill and leadership in engaging our partners and landowners in salmon habitat restoration have resulted in many successful projects!
Learn more from Sarah below
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Tell us a little bit about yourself and what led you to the Salmon Coalition.
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I spent a lot of my childhood wandering the outdoors and inevitably found myself exploring the local creeks and streams. I would peer under the rocks in the creek to look for macroinvertebrates or look for turtles and frogs along the banks. I knew eventually I would want to have a career protecting these special places. After visiting the Northwest with my college roommate, I fell in love with the conifer forests and rivers and I knew this was a place I would want to end up. Post-college, I applied to be an Americorps intern with NOSC, got the job and 10 years later, I am still here!
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Can you explain what you do at NOSC?
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I dabble in many different aspects of the organization. My main role is coordinating our riparian recovery program, where we work with our Washington Conservation Corps crew to plant trees and shrubs along the river for long-term recovery of our rivers and streams. I also play a key role on our grant writing team, working with the project managers and executive director to fund our restoration projects. As part of the grant writing team, I get to work with our many partners, stakeholders and landowners to develop restoration projects. I love getting to be a part of the very beginnings of some of our biggest (and smallest) projects!
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How do you approach potential landowners to partner with?
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Thoughtful communication is a key ingredient to gaining landowner acceptance of a restoration project. If a landowner is interested in restoring their section of the creek, myself or our project managers will often conduct one-on-one site visits to better gain an understanding of the landowner’s concerns and the vision that they have for their land. The site visits give us a better understanding of landowner motivations so that we can, together, develop a project that will benefit salmon while not having a negative impact to their property.
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What do you love about working with landowners?
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I think my favorite part of working with landowner is hearing their stories about the history of the land they live on. Many of them have been living in the area for generations and they share stories of abundant salmon running up the rivers. It makes me hopeful that these rivers could once again have strong salmon runs.
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How do you measure successful partnerships?
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Successful projects! One thing I have learned with our multi-partner projects is that we each bring valuable experience that ultimately leads to a more holistic restoration project. When we bring in shellfish partners, we can design projects that also protect shellfish habitat. When we partner with land trusts, we can protect the habitat we restore for many generations to enjoy. Collaborative partnerships is critical to the long-term success of these projects.
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What has been a particularly meaningful partnership for you and why?
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At the moment, we have several projects in partnership with the Jefferson Land Trust. Together we are working with a landowner on Snow Creek to protect critical spawning habitat and restore the creek and reduce erosion that is impacting the landowner’s farming operation. We are conducting the design of the project hand in hand with the acquisition phase so that our project goals are in alignment. A very exciting future project!
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What are you looking forward to in the next 5 years?
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After working with our engineers to assess Snow Creek habitat, I have gotten really excited for the potential impact that habitat restoration may have on salmon populations in this watershed. I am excited to work with landowners, partners and our Project Managers to develop restoration projects. I will likely be spending a lot of time on this creek and the great thing is that there are many cool macroinvertebrates hanging out under the rocks for me to check out. Not a lot has changed since I was a little kid!
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Watch Sarah's Video Interview!
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Dungeness Riparian Project
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Since 2014, NOSC, Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe and our Washington Conservation Corps Crew have been working with private and public landowners to restore the forested floodplain of the Dungeness River. Butterfly bush and knotweed have invaded a large portion of the gravel bars and floodplain habitat that is critical to our native Dungeness River salmon and wildlife populations. In order to restore the habitat, our crew have been removing these invasive species and replacing them with native plant species. Since traditional tree and shrub plantings aren’t always successful in the ever changing gravel bar environment, we have been seeding them with riverbank lupine (
Lupinus rivularis
).
In addition to colonizing gravel bars and crowding out non-native vegetation, lupine like other members of the pea family, have the ability to uptake atmospheric nitrogen and
fix it into the soil. Soils in riparian areas, particularly exposed gravel bars, can be nutrient poor. By adding nitrogen to soils, lupine facilitates the establishment of grasses, wildflowers, and other native riparian plant species. Also, native butterflies utilize the lupine at both adult and larval stages whereas butterfly bush only support adult butterflies.
We are excited to see and smell the results of these efforts at Serenity Lane!
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All photos were taken on property purchased by the Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe in 2015 after the river shifted locations and threatened several homes along the river. The parcels were purchased, homes removed and volunteers have been planting trees and shrubs to restore the former forested habitat.
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Contribute to our community PIE COOKBOOK!
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Did you see our recent email about our community pie cookbook? If not, take a look at our
website
to see how YOU can be featured on a page with your own pie recipe!
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As you might imagine, we are big fans of nature here at NOSC. This fascination and admiration for the natural world began at a young age for all of us as we each had unique childhood experiences in the outdoors. Look at us as children below!
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Sarah:
This was me rafting the San Juan River in Colorado with my family. We did a multi-day rafting trip where we slept on sand bars in the river and got to float down the rapids. I remember one camping site where we had big horn sheep visit us. The inset photo is essentially what I loved to do as a kid. I would read books about animals and watch nature documentaries. My favorite was Marty Stouffer’s Wild America!
Rebecca
: I was a January baby, born in Portsmouth NH. I was an outdoor kid from the start, splashing at the ocean at a mere 5 months old, and swimming like a fish by the time I was 4. Here I am at age 3, in a bathing suit my mom made. I bet I was defying mom’s emphatic beckoning to come in for lunch with that melt-your-heart-smile, ‘no mommy, see, I’m swimming!’. I’m still happiest in and near the water! Quote from mom: ‘you always loved the water, you were a little fish. You weren’t afraid of the water, you’d just jump in anywhere we went’. I remember scaring my mom every time I’d dive into the lake and swim away, she was scared I wouldn’t make it back safely. But I always do. I’m part fish after all!
Olivia:
Here is 2-year old Olivia on a walk in the woods near where I was born in Bedford, NH. I always had an affinity for the trees there and loved to go check them out!
Nate
: I have many fond memories of vacationing on Washington’s coastal beaches. Very few of those memories include sunshine. That never kept my family and I from having a great time! This was a rare sunny day on a Washington beach; I celebrated by writing my name in the sand. Here I am taking pride in my work.
Rian:
This is a photo of me when I was 5 years old in Chimacum Creek. I loved to try and catch the salmon fry in bottles but they were always too fast for me!
Catherine
: In the photo, I’m about 10 years old, and vacationing with my family at Cannon Beach, OR. I grew up in the desert, so I absolutely loved going to an ocean beach more than just about anything. And I still do!
Libby
: We spent many family vacations all along the coasts of Washington and Oregon. Third Beach was our favorite. This picture is from Cannon Beach with my older sister and dad and baby sister in his arms. My favorite thing to do was look at the tidepools. However, outrunning the waves was also very high on my list!
Kevin
: My love of nature started with a love of animals. At one point I had a whole food chain in tanks and jars in my room around this age.
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Base funding for the RFEG program comes from a grant from the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service's Partners for Fish and Wildlife Program, a portion of state commercial and recreational fishing license fees, and excess egg and carcass sales administered by the Washington Department of Fish & Wildlife
.
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Give Us Your Feedback
Questions or Comments? Let us know what you think!
outreach@nosc.org
360.379.8051
www.nosc.org
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