Skagit River System Cooperative is hiring for the position of Research Natural Resource Technician In this position, you will support SRSC’s mission of salmon recovery in the Skagit River watershed…
Skagit River System Cooperative is hiring for the position of Senior Restoration Ecologist TITLE: Senior Restoration Ecologist REPORTING TO: Habitat Restoration Director GENERAL: The Senior Restoration Ecologist will work on…
A five-year monitoring effort has shown that the Fisher Slough restoration project has benefited juvenile chinook even more than predicted in the Skagit River Salmon Recovery Plan. The Nature Conservancy…
The Tulalip Tribes and Skagit River System Cooperative (SRSC) recently completed a six-year study of juvenile chinook salmon use of small coastal streams in the Whidbey basin.
“Small coastal streams are often overlooked as potential salmon habitat because many flow seasonally and do not provide spawning habitat,” said Todd Zackey, the marine and nearshore program manager for Tulalip who obtained grant funding for the research. Derek Marks, Timber/Fish/Wildlife manager for Tulalip, was an additional principal investigator on the research.
The researchers electrofished 63 streams in the Whidbey basin and found juvenile chinook using more than half of them. The migrant fry originated from the three nearby rivers: Skagit, Snohomish and Stillaguamish.
The Tulalip Tribes recently improved rearing habitat in a small coastal stream popular with juvenile chinook.
Known to locals as “the gulch,” the unnamed stream had one of the highest densities of juvenile chinook of all the coastal streams sampled in the Whidbey basin by the Tulalip Tribes and Skagit River System Cooperative. During one electrofishing survey, natural resources staff found 280 chinook among a total of 600 juvenile salmon that also included coho and other species.
“They can live there for many weeks, so it’s more than just acclimating,” said Derek Marks, Timber Fish and Wildlife manager for Tulalip. “They’re actually rearing and growing in there.”
Despite those numbers, the tribes saw room for improvement. At the time, the gulch was little more than a ditch overgrown with invasive plants. Old county stormwater assessments referred to it as Greenwood Creek, probably named for a nearby grange.
Work is set to begin this summer to restore salmon habitat in Illabot Creek, a tributary to the Skagit River.
Once a winding, multi-channeled creek, Illabot was straightened and diked in 1970 when a bridge crossing was constructed on Rockport-Cascade Road. Straightening the creek degraded salmon habitat by creating a steeper gradient, reducing channel area and habitat complexity.
Illabot Creek is a highly productive tributary to the upper Skagit River, supporting chinook, chum, coho and pink salmon, native char and steelhead trout. Much of the watershed already has been protected or restored, but this half-mile reach on the historic alluvial fan remains heavily degraded. (more…)
The Skagit Valley Herald reports on a fish die-off in Browns Slough. Last week, hundreds of shiner perch and some fingerling chinook were found dead near Fir Island Road: Other…
Fish access and tidal flow were restored in March to a high-priority pocket estuary near the Swinomish reservation. The Skagit River System Cooperative (SRSC) removed a portion of Similk Bay…
The Skagit River System Cooperative (SRSC) removed an 80-foot-long, 8-foot-tall, 12-foot-wide culvert from Tenas Creek, a tributary to the Suiattle River. The culvert had provided vehicle access across the creek…
The Skagit River System Cooperative (SRSC) celebrated the success of two major estuary restoration projects this week.
Returning tidal flow to former estuaries is an important step toward restoring salmon habitat. Puget Sound chinook salmon are listed as “threatened” under the federal Endangered Species Act.
On Wednesday, Aug. 19, an excavator made the final berm cut to allow full tidal flow to 200 acres of the Crescent Harbor salt marsh on Naval Air Station Whidbey Island for the first time in about 100 years. (more…)