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Saturday, September 17, 2011

The Elwha: Travel a river being reborn

Jim Adelman, a fellow at the Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center, draws blood from a song sparrow he trapped in a net near the Elwha River as part of a survey to determine what the birds are eating. In the blood sample, he was looking for signs of marine-derived nutrients to determine if the birds today eat a diet influenced by salmon in the river. Scientists expect changes in the food chain once the fish come back to the middle and upper Elwha, where they have been blocked for more than a century.