Harney Lake Research Natural Area
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3. The Research Natural Area described in this described in supplements to the guidebook; this supplement is administered by the Fish and is the ninth supplement. Wildlife Service of the U.S. Department of the The guiding principle in management of Interior as part of the Malheur National Wildlife Research Natural Areas is to prevent unnatural Refuge. Fish and Wildlife Service Research encroachments, activities which directly or Natural Areas are administered through Area indirectly modify ecological processes on the Offices; scientists wishing to use the Harney tracts. Neither logging nor uncontrolled grazing Lake Research Natural Area should contact both is allowed, for example, nor is public use which the Area Manager (U.S. Fish and Wildlife threatens significant impairment of scientific or Service, 4620 Overland Road, Boise, Idaho 83705) educational values. Management practices and the Refuge Manager (Malheur National necessary for maintenance of the ecosystem may Wildlife Refuge, P.O. Box 113, Burns, Oregon be allowed. 97720); the Refuge Manager supervises Federal Research Natural Areas provide a management activities at the Refuge and uniquely valuable system of publicly owned and coordinates scientific work on the Research protected examples of undisturbed ecosystems Natural Area. For brief observational visits, which are available to the scientific community. permission may be obtained from the Refuge Research can be conducted with minimal Manager. interference and reasonable assurance that Harney Lake Research Natural Area is a part investments in long-term studies will not be lost of a Federal system of such tracts established for to logging, land development, or similar research and educational purposes. Each activities. A scientist wishing to use a Research Natural Area constitutes a site where natural features are preserved for scientific purposes and natural processes are allowed to dominate. The main purposes are to provide: 'Supplement No. 9 to "Federal Research Natural Areas in 1. Baseline areas against which effects of Oregon and Washington: A Guidebook for Scientists and Educators," by Jerry F. Franklin, Frederick C. Hall, C. T. human activities can be measured; Dyrness, and Chris Maser (USDA Forest Service, Pacific 1. Sites for study of natural processes in Northwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 498 p., illus., 1972). The guidebook is available from the undisturbed ecosystems; and Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing 2. Gene pool preserves for all types of Office, Washington, D.C. 20402, for $4.90; stock number organisms, especially rare and endangered 001·001·00225-9. species. 'Mr. Copeland is a consulting ecologist, Portland, Oregon. The total Federal system is outlined in "A 'Federal Committee on Ecological Reserves. 1977. A Directory of the Research Natural Areas on directory of the Research Natural Areas on Federal Lands of Federal Lands of the United States of America."3 the United States of America. 280 p. USDA For. Serv., Washington, D.C. In Oregon and Washington, of the 64 Federal Research Natural Areas that have been 'See footnote 1. established, 45 are described in "Federal Research Natural Areas in Oregon and Washington: A Guidebook for Scientists and Educators,"4 along with details on management and use of such tracts; 8 have been Research Natural Area assumes the responsi- tional values on the tract are not impaired, to bility to: accumulate a documented body of knowledge 1. Obtain permission from the appropriate about the tract, and to avoid conflict between administering agency before using the studies. Research on Research Natural Areas area;5 must be essentially nondestructive; destructive 2. Abide by the administering agency's analysis of vegetation is generally not allowed, regulations governing the use of the natural nor are studies requiring extensive modification area, including specific limitations on the of the forest floor or extensive excavation of soil. type of research, sampling methods, etc.; Collection of plant and animal specimens should and be restricted to the minimum necessary for 3. Inform the administering agency on the provision of voucher specimens and other progress of the research, published results, research needs; under no circumstances should and disposition of collected materials. collecting significantly reduce the population The purposes of these limitations are simple-to level of a species. Collecting must be carried out insure that the scientific and educa- in accordance with State and Federal agency regulations. 'There are five agencies cooperating in this program in the Pacific Northwest (each agency differs slightly in its requirements): Forest Service in the U.S. Department of Agriculture; Bureau of Land Management, Fish and Wildlife Service, and National Park Service in the U.S. Department of the Interior; and the U.S. Department of Energy. A large, shallow, intermittent, internally drained alkaline lake, remnant of a larger Pleistocene lake, with alkali desert and sagebrush steppe vegetation, cold and hot springs, marshlands, sand dunes, and abundant avifauna. The Harney Lake Research Natural Area and traveling approximately 10 km (6 mil. (RNA) was established on March 4, 1975, to Vehicular access to the area is either by the exemplify southeast Oregon alkaline lakes Double 0 Road or the Refuge seasonal trail on (playas) and associated vegetation and wildlife the south side of the lake (fig. HL-3). (fig. HL-l). Most of the 12 100-ha (30,000-acre) Access to the RNA is by written permit only. RNA consists of the 11 300-ha (28,000-acre) lake Overnight camping is prohibited. Camping, 6 itself. An 809-ha (2,000-acre) strip of land dormitories, and limited laboratory facilities are surrounding the lake, within the RN A, includes available at the Malheur Field Station, 8 km (5 habitat for snowy plovers, avocets, white pelicans, mil west of the Refuge headquarters. Information terns, and migrating ducks and geese. Many on these facilities may be obtained by writing: raptors, including golden and bald eagles, use the Director, Malheur Field Station, P.O. Box 989, Natural Area at least seasonally. Active nests of Burns, Oregon 97720. Commercial golden eagles are located in and adjacent to the accommodations are available in Burns. RNA. On the observed and tentative lists for Harney Lake, 33 birds and 13 mammals are listed Envi ron ment as rare, threatened, or endangered. Harney Lake is in Harney County, southwest Harney and Malheur Lakes and several smaller of Burns, in the Malheur National Wildlife lakes are remnants of a vast Pleistocene lake that Refuge of the Fish and Wildlife Service, U.S. occupied much of the Malheur Basin (Baldwin Department of the Interior. It is located in Tps. 1976). Surrounding Harney Lake are geomorphic 25, 26, 27, and 28 S., Rs. 29, 30, 31, and 32 E., surfaces varying in age from accreting sand dunes to Miocene and Pliocene tuffs and flows. Terrace Willamette meridian (lat. 43°15' N.; long. 119°10' sediments deposited at the shoreline of the W.). It is bounded on the north by the Double 0 ancient lake adjoin the present southern shore; Road (county) and the Refuge boundary, on the various sediments from the lakebed form much of east by sand dunes, on the south by the Refuge the western and northern shores. Sand dunes on seasonal trail, and by internal Refuge fencing on the east and northeast shores and igneous and the west (fig. HL-2). The entire RNA is fenced. sedimentary plateaus on the south shore are less extensive, geomorphic surfaces within the RNA. Harney Lake has no outlet. It receives water from the overflow of Malheur Lake, from Silver Creek, which drains southeastward from the Access and Accommodations southern Blue Mountains, and from a number of springs in and adjacent to the lake on the south Harney Lake RNA is located 40 km (25 mil and east sides (fig. HL-l). Data from a 1931 study south of Burns, Oregon (fig. HL-2). The area is of precipitation and tree growth in the Harney reached by traveling east from Burns on State Basin suggested that extreme fluctuations in Highway 78 for 3.2 km (2 mil, turning south on water levels have been characteristic for at least State Highway 205 and traveling for 34 km (21 the last two centuries (Piper et al. 1939). The mil, and turning west onto the Double 0 Road fluctuating surface of the lake has not persisted long enough at any level to cut a prominent beach. The lake is presently a vast body of very shallow water in wet periods and a similarly vast 6Much of the background information is derived from a alkali flat in dry periods. report by Susan Saul in 1974; on file at Malheur National Wildlife Refuge Headquarters, Harney County, Oregon. Most of the springs in and adjacent to the lake (108°F) (Piper et al. 1939). The hottest spring at are small, but a few produce enough water to Harney Lake, Harney Hot Spring, is on private maintain permanent ponds. The largest are at the land adjacent to the RNA boundaries at the eastern end of the lakebed. Temperatures of the southeast corner of the lake. Its temperature is springs vary from 21°C (70°F) to 42°C 68°C (154°F) (Waring 1965). Climate The semiarid climate is typical of cooler por- tions of the intermountain west. Precipitation occurs mainly from November through January; a smaller peak occurs in May and June. Summers are hot, dry, and mostly cloudless, with drought periods of 1 to 3 months not uncommon. Climatic data for the period 1966-73 are from the Double 0 Refuge Substation, located 6 miles west of the RN A: Soils iota The soils in the Harney Basin have been Vegetation mapped by the field reconnaisance method (State Significant changes in substrate, alkalinity, Water Resources Board 1969). Soil and moisture occur over short distances at characteristics are related to the distinctive Harney Lake.