The Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe recently learned that Sequim Bay is filled with more eelgrass than previously thought, and that’s good for the bay’s summer chum salmon, an ESA-listed species.
“It’s a good sign to see that eelgrass was found nearly all the way around the bay,” said Lohna O’Rourke, the tribe’s environmental biologist. “This provides a baseline of what’s there now and we can track the growth or decline over time.” (more…)
Federal and private dikes built along the lower Dungeness River in 1964 and 1983 have caused ever-increasing harm to salmon. A U.S. Army Corps of Engineers dike and a private…
While securely nestled within gravel beds, salmon eggs need proper levels of dissolved oxygen (DO) to survive.
As part of monitoring the restored Jimmycomelately Creek, the Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe is testing the DO levels within the streambed’s gravel, where salmon make their egg nests, also called redds.
The tribe is taking water samples from 21 locations within the creek. To get a sample, the tribe engineered a special tube and pump system. A small aquarium air stone is attached to one end of a 68-inch long plastic tube. The stone is buried 7 inches below the streambed surface, mimicking the typical depth of a salmon redd. The remaining 59 inches of tubing floats in the water. When gathering a sample, a special pump is attached to the exposed end, drawing the water up from within the gravel. (more…)
Snorkeling the Dungeness River at night recently gave Byron Rot a new appreciation for the fish he works hard to protect.
“The river is fast, steep and strong. It’s a hard river to crawl up while snorkeling and surveying, much less swim, especially if you’re a tiny juvenile salmon,” said the Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe’s habitat manager. “The old management practices that led to a straight and steep river have really impacted the fish and where they can live.”
Rot, eight other snorkelers, and four data recorders, spent a recent Thursday evening on a three-quarter mile stretch of the river near Railroad Bridge Park in Sequim. The group was looking for fish especially around the logjams the tribe had built in 2007 and 2008 to create salmon habitat in a stretch of river nearly devoid of it. (more…)
The Jamestown S'Klallam Tribe has been preparing a one-mile section of a dike within the lower Dungeness River for a major setback, preparing to open up the historic floodplains to…
The name "Sequim" apparently doesn't mean "quiet waters" as so generally believed throughout the region, but meaning "a place for going to shoot." This is according to Timothy Montler, a…
The Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe and State of Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife are working together to boost pink salmon populations in the Dungeness River watershed near Sequim. The supplementation…
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service just announced that more than $1.3 million in Tribal Wildlife Grants will be awarded to tribes in Idaho, Oregon and Washington for projects to…
The Sequim Gazette reported on the efforts by the Jamestown S'Klallam Tribe and Dungeness River Audubon Center to assess and repair recent damage to a portion of the Olympic Discovery…
The Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe is on the hunt for harmful algal blooms in Sequim Bay this summer so that they can get a better picture of how the explosions of micro organisms affect the bay.
“We’re looking at the effects of these blooms on such factors as water quality and toxins in shellfish,” said Chris Whitehead, tribal shellfish biologist. “We also hope that the information will help contribute to the development of a harmful algal bloom early warning system.”