Batwater Station
Conservation:
In 2011, we reached out to our Columbia County Soil & Water Conservation District to discuss improving our wetlands. Completed in 2015 we breeched our levee and reconnected 26 acres of our property to become tidal wetlands of the lower Columbia River. Bonneville Power funded the project because it benefitted threatened and endangered species of salmon and steelhead and other native species. We wanted to improve habitat for native turtles, red legged frogs, and threatened Lower Columbia White Tailed Deer. Batwater is also home to beaver, muskrats, river otters, over 52 species of birds, many wintering waterfowl stay in our wetlands during the winter months as well.
Turtle Restoration:
Batwater is home to Native Western Painted Turtles and Western Pond Turtles. When the conservation project occurred we personally paid and had installed an island with fine gravel for turtles to bury their eggs in. The Western Pond Turtle is considered endangered in Washington state and both turtles have lost critical habitat in Oregon.
We are happy to announce that many time we have witnessed logs in the wetlands with over 9 turtles sunning themselves on them. They ranged from adults to baby turtles. Logs floating down river are pulled in by us and placed on the wetlands for the turtles to sun themselves on. Our turtle project has been a success. We are facing another problem for turtles since the wetland restoration. Our non native bullfrog population has increased. We are hoping to work with ODF&W to figure out ways to reduce this predator population.
Salmon Smolt Habitat
In 2015 we finished working on the restoration of 26 acres at Batwater Station. We worked with the Columbia County Soil & Water Conservation District, the Lower Columbia Estuary Partnership with funding from Bonneville Power Administration. BPA spent $500.000 on this project. We breeched our upstream levee, added channels, logs and native vegetation. Over 100 logs were installed along the channels which attracted bugs for feeding the salmon smolt. The project was designed with beaver in mind. They have dammed up many of the channels holding water in for the salmon smolts. Since 2015 we have seen wapato, cattails, willow and other vegetation fill the wetland. The wetlands were mainly canary grass when we started the project and we still work on trying control it by flooding or mowing.
Lower Columbia White Tailed Deer
Lower Columbia White tailed deer are a rare subspecies of white tailed deer. In 1967 they were listed as endangered due to habitat loss, hunting and predators. Extensive conservation methods were used to bring back the species. In the early 2000's several deer were relocated on Crims Island which is next to Batwater Station. The deer immediately started swimming over to Batwater.
In 2016 they were down listed from endangered to threatened. Today efforts include managing predator populations (coyotes), surveys and radio collars. We mow our back fields where the deer graze and eat fruit in the fall. You may see the deer swimming from one of the islands to Batwater to eat the fresh mowed grass. They occasionally have their fawns at Batwater. We avoid mowing around fawning season in early June.