Habitat Degradation

Squaxin Island Tribe Tracking Coho in Sherwood Creek

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ALLYN – A pair of smolt traps is helping the Squaxin Island Tribe get a better picture of natural salmon production in the Sherwood Creek watershed.

“The Sherwood watershed is one of the most complicated systems in the tribe’s treaty-reserved fishing area,” said Joe Peters, fisheries management biologist for the Squaxin Island Tribe. Tribal biologists are unsure about how many coho are rearing annually in Shumacher Creek, a tributary to Sherwood Creek, which flows into Mason Lake. Sherwood Creek flows out of Mason Lake.

One smolt trap – a safe and effective devices for catching and counting juvenile salmon as they migrate to sea – is installed at the mouth of Schumacher Creek in the upper watershed just above Mason Lake. Another is operating near the mouth of Sherwood Creek close to where it enters Puget Sound.
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Tribe preserving threatened South Fork Stillaguamish River chinook

ARLINGTON – The Stillaguamish Tribe has everything it needs to start a chinook supplementation program in the South Fork of the Stillaguamish River – except the fish.

The tribe hired additional field technicians and acquired an old trout farm to spawn and rear threatened South Fork Stillaguamish River chinook. But because there are so few chinook returning to the South Fork, it has been a challenge to collect enough adult fish to spawn.

South Fork chinook are genetically distinct from North Fork chinook, and always have been smaller in number.

The tribe’s hatchery program in the North Fork has supplemented that population for 20 years, with about 1,500 fish returning to the North Fork each year. Meanwhile, chinook returns to the South Fork have declined to fewer than 100 fish. (more…)

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State-tribal project marks century of saving salmon

The Seattle Times and the Marysville Globe reported on 100 years of hatchery cooperation.

The Seattle Times:

The Tulalip Tribes continued a century-old tradition last week of partnering with state hatcheries for the increased production of Puget Sound salmon.

Since 1907, tribal members have traveled to the Wallace River Hatchery near Gold Bar, working with employees of the state Department of Fish and Wildlife to improve chinook- and coho-salmon numbers in the Snohomish River system.

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