Its our Final day of the trip and its sad we weren't able to see more of Portland before we had to head home, but luckily we were able to end with a good speaker. Oregon WILD is an environmental group that works to protect and restore Oregons Wilderness and water with a focus on the Klamath River Basin. Quinn Reed was our speaker and she did an excellent job conveying the groups message. The importance of the Klamath basin is that it supports nearly 40% of the the waterfowl that travel through the Pacific Flyway and supports one of the largest populations of wintering bald eagles in the country. The organizations Klamath campaign focused on 3 primary initiatives: 1- Phasing out of lease-land farming, 2- establishment of adequate water supply to the basin, and 3- prioritize wildlife conservation at the Klamath refuges.
Quinn explained how the 2013 drought affected the area and that by summers end the lower Klamath basin was completely dry because it was the last place to receive water subsidies. Conflict with local farmers and other areas for water has caused the most issues for the Klamath basin, simply not enough water is reaching the basin to keep wildlife populations supported. What Quinn proposes as that we must strike a balance between demand and supply such that we ensure National Wildlife Refuges have sufficient water, we cannot let the politics of the farmers bully the region into taking all the water. Before we left Mrs Quinn left us with some helpful hints for getting out into the real world, such as looking at writing our own grants to fund our own projects, build experience, and ultimately just work our asses off.
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