As the Trump administration considers the fate of the Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument, the monument’s place as a climate change refuge for numerous plants and animals is even more important. Guest author Dr. Pepper Trail, an ornithologist and conservation biologist, highlights three species that call the Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument home.

The Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument links two great western mountain ranges along the Oregon-California border. It is the only national monument established specifically to protect an area of extraordinary biodiversity. President Obama expanded its original range, proclaimed in 2000 by President Clinton, from more than 52,000 acres to more than 100,000 acres in 2017. This expansion included a significantly greater range of elevations to help fulfill the monument’s purpose as a biological refuge in the face of climate change.

I have spent more than 20 years exploring this extraordinary region as an ornithologist and conservation biologist. I want to introduce you to three of the rare and endemic species that find refuge in this monument.

One of the most precious is the Jenny Creek redband trout, a unique lineage of trout found only in the monument’s Jenny Creek. An important tributary of the Klamath River, Jenny Creek rises in the cool, dark conifer forests high in southern Oregon’s Cascade Mountains, flows down through broad, flower-strewn meadows, then muscles its way past an ancient lava flow to tumble over a spectacular waterfall and then empty at last into the Klamath River’s Irongate Reservoir in northern California.

Ranging up 10 inches in length, these fish are extraordinarily beautiful: sleek and golden, spangled with black spots, and with a dramatic red line along their flanks.