(Editor's Note: Thanks to Davd McIntyre for this guest posting. It's about how a couple of unnamed streams are actually the centre of a universe an a thriving elk herd nursery. You will have to imagine the future additions that David describes to the photo below.)
The pictured view looks east from our doorstep into the Rock Creek valley. The creek flows—left to right—into the foreground. Two—and only two—significant year-round streams (unnamed) flow westward to feed the creek from within the pictured limber pine-studded landscape.
AltaLink's proposed transmission line (a twinned, 500 kV line), if built, would cross—left to right—the pictured view, and cross each of the described Rock Creek tributaries.
AltaLink's proposed transmission line (a twinned, 500 kV line), if built, would cross—left to right—the pictured view, and cross each of the described Rock Creek tributaries.
The noteworthy aspect of our July 26th (2015) sighting of the elk herd is that the herd, comprised of 40 animals, and moving east, perhaps in response to a threat I couldn't see, or discern, involved 20 adult cows, a single bull elk and, most significantly, contained 19 newborn (June of 2015) calves, i.e., an almost astounding number of calves-to-cows ratio, perhaps especially so given the previously reported grizzly bear consumption of newborn elk calves on the same landscape.
There are two additional factors, each noteworthy, that relate to landscape and ecological value within the eastern realm of the Rock Creek watershed that may not yet be formally recorded and thus on the "radar" in terms of AltaLink's proposed transmission line.
These factors:
1.The two unnamed streams defined in the accompanying photo caption are the only Rock Creek tributary streams entering the creek from the east. The southernmost of these two streams, a linear waterway, flows directly into Rock Creek. The northernmost stream, after entering the valley bottom in the extreme left portion of the pictured view, feeds a wetland bordering Rock Creek. This wetland, estimated to be on the order of 30 hectares in size, ultimately drains into Rock Creek. Both of the noted streams, and the described wetland, are critical to Rock Creek's flow, and critical to the success of any efforts to include the lower creek as part of the westslope cutthroat trout recovery program.
2. The same two tributary streams define the majority of my observed (via tracks and sightings) east-to-west and west-to-east grizzly movement across the Rock Creek valley and east of the North Burmis Rd. In other words, most grizzlies moving between the Livingstone Range and the Connelly Creek valley via the Rock Creek valley, use these two spring-fed drainages to enter and/or exit the Connelly Creek valley (to the east). Also, most of the grizzly bear sightings and reports that I've provided to you have their origin within the pictured landscape.
A footnote to the July 26th observation of cow and newborn elk calves: While hiking, and after observing the elk, I caught a single grasshopper. Later, as I crossed the footbridge at my doorstep (within the shaded portion of the accompanying picture), I fished the trapped 'hopper from my breast pocket and tossed it into the water. An instant later, in a swirl of water, the grasshopper was gone. One cutthroat beat several others to the prize.
I love, and live for, the world at my doorstep. Cutthroats, elk and grizzly bears are part of the land's living magic. They give me hope.
David McIntyre
Crowsnest Pass, AB
