Habitat restoration

Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe Has Success with River Otter Work

Biologist Dave Manson prepares an otter trap as part of the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe’s river otter study on the Elwha River. For more pictures, click on the photo.

Standing on the Altair Bridge in Olympic National Park, members of the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe wildlife staff peer into the rushing Elwha River below, trying to find signs of river otters in the riffles.

Suddenly, a couple of smooth brown heads break the surface, one playfully pouncing on the other before they dive back under. A few seconds later, four heads pop up while making their way upriver.

Since starting to track river otters in the Elwha River valley last year, the tribe’s wildlife staff has been busy chasing these elusive members of the weasel family. The tribe wants to know what effects dam removal and river restoration will have on the otters, including the population size, eating habits and den areas.

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Skokomish Tribe, Partners Enhance Tidelands with Logs, Rootwads

Columbia Helicopter crew member Jim Hindman rounds up the chokes that were used to lower the wood pieces by helicopter into the estuary.

Logs and rootwads were airlifted to the Skokomish River estuary by a dual-rotor cargo helicopter as part of the Skokomish Tribe’s large-scale effort to restore salmon habitat.

Woody debris had been missing from the Skokomish tidelands for the past 80 years after 200 acres of tidelands were diked and developed to create Nalley Island in the 1930s. Upstream activities such as logging, land conversion and dam building prevented woody material from floating down river to the estuary.

The lack of wood in the river and estuary prevented good salmon habitat from forming. Coho, chinook and chum salmon historically have used the tidelands before moving up river to spawn.
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Read more about the article Thirty Cent Creek Reconnected to Sooes River
The connection of the Thirty Cent Creek to the Sooes River was blocked by the artificial pond created by past timber practices.

Thirty Cent Creek Reconnected to Sooes River

The connection of the Thirty Cent Creek to the Sooes River was blocked by the artificial pond created by past timber practices.
An important winter refuge for salmon and trout has been reconnected to Thirty Cent Creek, a tributary of the Sooes River on the Makah Tribe’s reservation.

“This project has been identified for some time and we were finally able to get the pieces to line up to make it happen,” said Ray Colby, water quality specialist for the Makah Tribe. Previously located on private commercial timberlands, the site is one of several acquired by the Makah Tribe as tribal fee lands. (more…)

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