Gray's Lake.
Photo: © IDFG 2004

Idaho's Animals and Wetlands

Fish: According to Gregg Servheen, a biologist with the Idaho Department of Fish and Game, "I guess you can say that all Idaho's fish species depend on wetlands. This includes bull trout, salmon, and steelhead, which are all threatened."

Birds: In Idaho's wetlands these include geese, yellow warblers, sandpipers, avocets, willets, plovers, herons, rails, ducks, red-winged blackbirds, owls, ducks, black terns, and boreal chickadees.

Mammals: water shrews, bog lemmings, muskrats, beaver, water voles, fishers, mink, river otters, bears, skunk, and bats.

Amphibians: western toads, Coeur d'Alene salamanders, northern leopard frog, spotted frogs, wood frogs.

Reptiles: Garter snakes, racers.

Wetlands in Idaho

"Race you to the river!" shouts one young girl as her horse canters across the hayfield. Her friend holds onto her hat with one hand and the reins with the other, and gallops fast to catch up.

They plunge down the steep bench and slow to a walk as they enter the cool shade of cottonwoods. Reining their horses to a stop, the two girls listen: A symphony of insects and birds call and sing throughout the leaves of the trees and shrubs. They dismount to examine two sets of tracks-deer and bobcat-crossing the soft, moist soil. Then they quietly approach another friend, who is fly-casting out into the river. It's just another summer afternoon in central Idaho, brought to you by wetlands.

Idaho wetlands may be obvious habitats such as freshwater marshes or lake edges; more subtle habitats such as the winding miles of riverside wetlands; and sometimes hard-to-find habitats, such as the ephemeral ponds of forests, prairies, and glaciated valleys. They aren't always freshwater habitats: You'll find saline wetlands in undrained depressions and areas receiving irrigation runoff. This vast region, with its varied terrain-rivers, valleys, mountains, and grassland-provides a living laboratory of inland wetlands. We'll focus on the two types of inland wetland habitats common in this region: riverine and palustrine.

Inland freshwater wetlands differ from coastal/marine wetlands in water chemistry and dynamics. They are not subject to tidal fluctuations or to the extreme wave action of ocean storms. Thus, their vegetation can be more stable, such as shrubs, or less anchored, such as floating plants that have no roots in the sediment. For example, you'll often find mats of duckweed on freshwater wetlands. These plants float on the surface, and their roots extend into the water but not down to the sediment.

In addition, freshwater wetlands play an essential role in the availability of water in the arid Intermountain West. By slowing floodwaters or capturing snowmelt each season, inland wetlands retain the water, which then can seep into the ground to recharge aquifers and other sources of groundwater. At the same time, the wetlands vegetation and sediment filter out many pollutants from the water.

Some inland wetlands, such as sloughs associated with rivers, may appear the same each year. The relatively stable climate of mountain valleys allows vegetation in these wetlands to stabilize and reappear year after year.

Other inland wetlands, such as prairie potholes, may seem to disappear for most of a decade, only to reappear during wet years. As discussed in earlier, you need to look for more subtle clues to identify these types of wetlands because the dryness of the soil or the present vegetation can be deceptive. This type of wetland is found throughout the Palouse in North Idaho.

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