Enhancement Group

Trees floating behind dam contribute to salmon recovery

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ALDER – Over 100 trees that have fallen into the reservoir behind Alder Dam will be put to use constructing engineered logjams to create salmon habitat on Ohop Creek.

“Trees that wash into the lake from the river and get stuck behind the dam need to be removed before they become a nuisance,” said David Troutt, natural resources manager for the Nisqually Tribe, which is spearheading the effort to gather the logs. “We’re just taking them out and putting them to good use.” Juvenile salmon find both food and shelter within logjams. The structures also slow the flow of the creek, easing adult salmon migration.

“We know logjams benefit salmon because we’ve been monitoring other restoration projects. We really see a difference in the section of river with logjams and those without,” Troutt said. “There are a lot more salmon around the logjams.”
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Nisqually Tribe Restores Yelm Creek Salmon Habitat

Almost ten years after a flood ravaged salmon habitat on Yelm Creek the Nisqually Tribe and the South Puget Sound Salmon Enhancement Group are repairing some of the damage. “This entire area was underwater in 1996,” said Teresa Moon, project manager for the SPSSEG. “The flood changed a lot across the watershed, for good and for bad.” The tribe and the enhancement group are digging out a pond that was filled with sediment during the flood and opening salmon access to the upper creek by modifying a fish-blocking logjam in a steep canyon.

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Nisqually Tribe, Enhancement Group Explore Off-Channel Habitat

NISQUALLY (June 20, 2003) — A river is more than just a line on a map; every side channel, slough and tributary stream helps create a complex and living river. The Nisqually Indian Tribe and the South Puget Sound Salmon Enhancement Group are surveying off-channel habitat in the Nisqually River basin to target areas for protection and restoration. The information gathered during these surveys will guide the tribe and enhancement group in decisions on future habitat projects.

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Tribes Study Salmon Migration On The Hamma Hamma River

ELDON (June 16, 2003) — Using a small net, Greg Sullivan scoops the remaining salmon from a smolt trap’s holding tank and counts his catch before releasing the juvenile fish back into the river. “That’s the last of them for today,” says the Port Gamble S’Klallam Tribe’s natural resources technician, who checks the trap on the Hamma Hamma River twice a week. “That makes 1,253 juvenile salmon. By far the most I’ve seen here at one time.”

And that’s a good sign. The more fish that show up in the smolt trap’s tank, the more accurate of a count the tribe can get on how many juvenile salmon, or smolts, are migrating from the freshwater of the Hamma Hamma River into the saltwater of Hood Canal. The smolt trap is part of a project conducted by the Port Gamble and Skokomish tribes, a local landowner, Long Live the Kings, the Hood Canal Salmon Enhancement Group and the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife.

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