Kendall Warm Springs, Wyoming.

Authors(s): R. H. Mohlenbrock

Publication: Natural History

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Publication Date: 0000-00-00

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Location:

Abstract: Highlights the biological phenomena found at the Kendall Warm Springs in Bridger-Teton National Forest in Wyoming. Animal life; Mineral content of the 85 degree water; Background; Details. While it ends by rushing turbulently into the Colorado River, the Green River rises 730 miles away among the small alpine lakes, springs, glaciers, and streams high in Wyoming's Wind River Range. After a northwestward descent, the river turns abruptly and begins its southward flow through a broad valley. Within a few miles, it is fed by the clear waters of Kendall Warm Springs, which cascade over a ten-foot-high ledge of white travertine, a rock built from calcium deposits. Named for an early logger in the region, the springs are part of the Bridger-Teton National Forest. The springs get both their calcium and their warmth from a low limestone ridge some 1,000 feet east of where the springs enter the river. As surface water in the ridge circulates down through subterranean cracks and fissures, it penetrates deeply enough to be warmed by the rock, emerging from the hillside at 850 E. The springs consist of three major and several smaller flows that drop into two main pools at the foot of the ridge. The water then continues in a stream, often fanning out into a series of rills until it pours over the waterfall into the Green River. A strong odor of sulfur emanates from the springs. Fisheries biologist Niles Allen Binns has analyzed the water and found it also abundant in other dissolved minerals, particularly calcium, magnesium, sodium, and potassium. At the source along the limestone ridge, the warm spring water is very high in carbon dioxide but low in dissolved oxygen. As it percolates downstream, the water gives off some of the carbon dioxide and gains more oxygen from the air. While this part of Wyoming has severe winters with recorded temperatures as low as -54 degrees, the water in the Kendall Warm Springs stream never drops below 78 degrees. Following a heavy winter storm, mounds of sparkling snow border the green aquatic vegetation in the stream, while the water continues to flow. Biologist Galen Boyer has noted that the warm water entering the Green River keeps it free of ice for several miles downriver. Judging from the mink, bobcat, and coyote tracks that are often found on the streamside mud, the springs and the stream appear to be a winter oasis for wildlife. Kendall Warm Springs and its stream lie in an open landscape. On the limestone ridge, only occasional aspen and rounded, shrubby sagebrush form a canopy above sparse grasses and a few flowering plants. Boggy patches of vegetation and occasional willows grow along the stream, punctuated by yellow monkey flower, silvery cinquefoil, and daisy fleabane. Several plants grow submerged in the water, including large mats of sago pondweed, naiad, and stonewort. Sago pondweed and naiad are flowering plants that form small, obscure flowers and minute seeds, while stoneworts are algae and reproduce without flowers, sometimes forming egg and sperm cells and sometimes forming asexual spores. Stoneworts lack the complex cellular structure of leaves, stems, and roots found in flowering plants but may form extensive colonies several feet across. An easy way to distinguish stoneworts from similar-appearing pondweeds and naiads is by their feel: stoneworts are stiff and rough, while the others are soft and flaccid. This is because stoneworts (as their name implies) become heavily calcified. At Kendall Warm Springs, calcium from the spring water precipitates in a crust of tiny calcium carbonate crystals over the body of stoneworts. As the plants die and fall to the bottom of the stream, their limy residue accumulates, eventually forming layers of travertine. Fisheries biologist Binns has also examined the animal life in and near the warm water and recorded an assortment of snails, aquatic beetles, buffalo gnats, dragonflies, damselflies, caddis flies, crane flies, and soldier flies. While all these organisms are apparently common and widespread, the soldier flies have attracted special interest. Related to, but smaller than, horseflies, soldier flies are usually brightly colored and shiny and possess short, spinelike projections over part of their body. Fly authority Harold Oldroyd finds these features unusual in an organism that does little but rest, mate, and lay eggs. The soldier fly's coloration may relate to the way the insects swarm before mating, glistening as they flit through the sunlight. When at rest, the soldier fly crosses its wings in a scissorlike fashion, covering the bright markings so that potential predators will not be alerted to its presence. Its spinelike projections may also offer protection. The larvae of the soldier fly lie nestled in decaying, moist vegetation along the stream. Their roughened skin is also due to the deposition of calcium carbonate. Oldroyd postulates that the crust may protect the delicate larvae from desiccation during dry spells. Only one kind of fish swims in these springs, the Kendall Warm Springs dace, a 1 1/2-inch-long relative of the minnow. Recorded no other place in the world, it has been considered an endangered species under federal law since 1973. It is related to the speckled dace that lives in the Green River, but the latter species has never been found in the warm spring waters. (Nor do the Kendall Warm Springs dace survive if they enter the Green River, where they encounter not only different water temperature and chemistry but also hungry trout that linger in the vicinity.) Some biologists have questioned the distinctiveness of the dace in the springs, but the special conditions in the spring waters and their probable isolation from the Green River for several thousand years (due to the waterfall at the end of the stream) have given the fish the opportunity to develop its own characteristics. Discovered by forest ranger Harmon Shannon in 1934, the Kendall Warm Springs dace was described by fisheries biologist Eugene R. Kuhn and his colleague C. L. Hubbs. They called it an odd little fish unlike those seen from any other body of water. The females, which outnumber the males four to one, are a mottled dull green, while the males, particularly during the breeding season, are bright purple. The fish live along the entire length of the stream except in the uppermost pools, where the level of carbon dioxide is too high for them to survive. The main channel of the stream contains primarily adult fish, while young of all ages remain under the protective cover of aquatic vegetation in small, shallow pools. Although the number of Kendall Warm Springs dace appears stable today, the survival of the fish was threatened until it received adequate protection under the Endangered Species Act. Grazing livestock used to wander across and into the stream, disturbing the fragile ecosystem, until the U. S. Forest Service fenced off the area. For many years, the warm water stream was also used for bathing and washing clothes. Since soaps and detergents were potentially harmful to the organisms inhabiting the water, the Forest Service banned all such activities in 1975. And until it was forbidden, fishermen used to take the dace as bait. As a result of these measures, the Kendall Warm Springs dace is now more secure.

Keywords: Kendall Warm Springs , Green River, Bridger-Teton National Forest , animal, wildlife, insect, Diptera, fly, soldier fly, Hermetia illucens , Stratiomyidae, Wind River Range, habitat, fish, ichthyology, dace, Kendall Warm Springs dace, Rhinichthys osculus thermalis, Cyprinidae, human activity, livestock, grazing