A Tale of Two Fish Collections
I joined the Blue Thumb field educators on two fish collections recently, one at Crow Creek right in Tulsa, and one at Coal Creek in Glenpool. These streams are in the same eco-region (Central Irregular Plains) and are about 12 miles apart. Crow Creek flows directly into the Arkansas River, Coal Creek joins Polecat Creek, which flows into the Arkansas River.
This article is from my perspective. When all the metrics are completed and the voucher specimens are identified, I will have some new information, but you are getting the story as I experienced each stream.
I work a great deal in the Crow Creek watershed. In 2013, the Crow Creek Community was formed with the plan of educating the people who live, work, go to school, travel through, and shop in the watershed. The education was to help the people understand how Crow Creek can be protected. The stream has very good habitat, but a depauperate (lacking in numbers or variety of species) fish community. Stream bank erosion is an issue, and the City of Tulsa has purchased several properties along the stream due to flooding issues.
In a nutshell, Crow Creek is beautiful – it flows through the Philbrook Museum property, several neighborhoods, a couple of schools and parks. Blue Thumb volunteers have been monitoring the stream for over 20 years.
The August 2021 fish collection found about thirty-five green sunfish, three bluegill sunfish, three central stonerollers, and one tiny yellow bullhead catfish. I thought we might see some longear sunfish and mosquitofish, but they were not seined up in this collection. There has been at least two major fish kills in the stream in recent history. One took place this winter when the severely cold weather led to breaks in water mains within Tulsa, and Crow Creek is one of several streams that was impacted.
It needs to be noted that Crow Creek has several fish barriers – places that form an obstacle to fish traveling upstream. These obstacles start down near the mouth of the stream and continue all the way through the Philbrook property, perhaps as many as six places that hinder fish movement. So only during times of high water can fish move upstream. Landowners along the stream are likely to sometimes stock fish, probably in small numbers. It should be noted, though, that the stream’s benthic macroinvertebrate community is also not very healthy, with primarily tolerant species found in the Blue Thumb collections. One important reason the benthic macroinvertebrate community is not what we would expect for a healthy stream in this ecoregion is because the majority of the stream (about 21 out of 24 stream miles) is encased underground in storm sewers.
Crow Creek has a newly approved (by the US EPA) “watershed based plan” that is likely to make a difference for the education taking place in the watershed. Funding will allow educational efforts to be more consistent and far-reaching. Stay tuned.
Coal Creek in Glenpool was monitored for a short time by the Glenpool Public Schools media specialist and middle school students. This was back in the 1990s – a great reminder that Blue Thumb has been around a long time. Monitoring started again on the stream when I picked up with this stream in 2016. During COVID my monitoring has been less regular, but this is a pretty neat little stream and I want to get back to it.
So on August 10, 2021 the Blue Thumb crew met at Morris Park on 121st Street South and just east of HWY 75. The east side of Morris Park is ball diamonds and is used by Little League teams. The west side is Coal Creek. Between Coal Creek and the ball diamonds is an area that is kept mowed and has picnic tables. As you get to the stream, a narrow zone of trees (and associated brush, grasses, and healthy poison ivy) exists along the east side of Coal Creek. The riparian zone on the west side of the stream is much wider, then there exists some commercial businesses between HWY 75 and the stream. Coal Creek is very sinuous (curvy) from 121st to the Blue Thumb monitoring site.
I had high hopes for Coal Creek, as it is my stream in my community, and I am excited to report the fish found:
- silversides
- bass – not sure if they were spotted or largemouth, most were YOY
- red shiner
- mosquitofish
- central stoneroller
- unknown minnow
- longear sunfish
- green sunfish
- bluegill sunfish
- redear sunfish
- orangespotted sunfish
- white crappie
- redfin darter
- spotted sucker
- spotted gar
- yellow bullhead catfish
- gizzard shad
On July 28, 1998 a fish collection was conducted on the same stretch of Coal Creek and resulted in the following species:
- black bullhead catfish
- red shiner
- mosquitofish
- green sunfish
- bluegill sunfish
- longear sunfish
- unknown bass species
- sand shiner
- suckermouth minnow
- unidentified species of minnow.
So Coal Creek has a better fish community now than twenty-two years ago. One large change that for sure has helped Coal Creek is that the City of Glenpool now routes their waste water (after treatment) directly to the Arkansas River. During the collection in 1998, Coal Creek was the receiving waters.
Upstream of where the collection was made is a field that is sometimes hayed, there is what I know of as an “oil tank farm.” Oil was detected on the surface of the water and a petroleum smell was noted in some areas by all the Blue Thumbers. Then more fields, then right into Glenpool. As the stream flows through the city, it moves through Black Gold Park where the City manages the banks by leaving a narrow zone of grasses. This is a new development – the City has been known to mow all the way to the water, then weedeat, and then kill any remaining vegetation with herbicide. When I talked to City staff about the stream banks, I feel I was heard. I am thankful the banks are healing in the Black Gold Park area. There was a lot of erosion in Morris Park, even with the additional trees on the banks. This is probably due to the ever-increasing development in town reducing infiltration. Glenpool is really growing.
I am excited by the fish we found – there are some species in this mix that require good habitat and clean water. I posted this information on the “Glenpool Community Awareness” Facebook page, and I plan to prepare a report for the City of Glenpool. I am also inspired to find a way to make the chemical monitoring happen on a more regular basis. I want to know about my stream and do all I can to help Coal Creek maintain this good community of fish.
Cheryl Cheadle
Volunteer Coordinator
To our Monthly Monitors:
Howdy Howdy from your QA Officer,
Let me kindly remind you of our interactive map containing "volunteer written data reports" and raw fish results; this is located on our website. I bring this up for a couple reasons.
I've recently been to this website to look up what past fish we have collected from Coal Creek: Hwy 11 so I could do a quick comparison to what we collected on August 20, 2021. I've done this a lot this summer since a lot of our fishing sites have been in the Tulsa area where we have a lot of old monitoring sites thus lots of old fish collections. You can do this as well. Especially if you helped us on a fish collection this summer, you can look back at what past fish we’ve collected and see if we caught more or less species and overall numbers.
Another reason I bring up our volunteer written data reports is that I’d like to get back with that; meeting with volunteers to first of all explain their data (physical, fish and bugs, chemical) to them in hopes they will write or update a data report. I think in 2019 I met with some volunteers to do this; if you have worked or will work on your report I will still take it whenever you are done. If you have questions about this please let me know and I’ll answer them. I can even go over your data with you again to refresh you on that. Looking ahead, I’d really like to meet up with volunteers from sites we fished in 2019 to explain your data packet in hopes you will write/update a data report. These sites are:
- Boomer Ck: 3rd
- Boomer Ck: Perkins
- Chisholm Ck: Western
- Coffee Ck: Sooner
- Cow Ck: Hwy 51
- East Cache Ck (both sites)
- Little Deep Ck: Weatherford
- Mustang Ck: Morgan Road
- Spring Ck: Martin Park
- West Cache Ck
- Wolf Ck: Gore
- Wolf Ck: McMahon
Especially the Boomer Creek sites, I know there is some quick turnover of volunteers on some sites due to student monitors. You don’t have to have been monitoring long, or even at all, to write a data report. I’ll be reaching out to volunteers maybe starting late September to start this process and see when we can hopefully meet up to discuss your data packet. The writing of the data report is optional but highly encouraged. If you are reading this and would like to write a data report, you are in luck, I have several data packets from the past 3 years that could use a new report or an update of an old report. Just get in touch with me and we can work it out.
These volunteer written data reports are a great tool to use with your community, to help educate your local community about their local creek. Whether with local officials, city water workers, schools, local community groups, etc. Show your schools what local data you have that they can use with their students for class projects in biology, chemistry, math, etc. Its always better to use real live and local data then some made up data from mountain/ocean areas. This way the students can go see what it is they are studying.
Kim Shaw
Blue Thumb QA Officer
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