“The primary objectives of the project were to protect the entrance of this important side channel used by sockeye for spawning and to reestablish new surfaces for floodplain reforestation planting. We have met those objectives” said Armstrong. “It was also the first time that a net loss of sockeye salmon spawning habitat was avoided in this watershed."
HOH RIVER (March 21, 2005) – Plant a tree and it will grow.
It’s not that simple though when the tree is a Sitka spruce planted to reforest Olympic coast timberlands.
Populations of spruce-tip weevil, an insect that causes spruce to grow uncharacteristically bushy and low, exploded in spruce forests planted in the mid -1980s. Infestation was so prevalent, that many private timberland owners stopped replanting spruce -the signature species of temperate rainforests – and a key component of salmon habitat.