Skokomish Tidelands

Skokomish Tribe Controlling Japanese Oyster Drills on Tidelands

The Skokomish Tribe has strategically placed nearly 100 cinderblocks on the Skokomish tidelands with hopes of attracting an invasive shellfish, the ornate Japanse oyster drill.

Shellfish technician Josh Hermann loads a cinderblock cell with oyster clusters with oyster drills on them.
Shellfish technician Josh Hermann loads a cinderblock cell with oyster clusters with oyster drills on them. Click on the photo to see more at NWIFC’s Flickr page.

“Oyster drills are known to seek out hard vertical structures to gather and lay their egg cases, so by experimentally baiting them with cinder blocks, we’re hoping to lessen their impacts on our oyster seed,” said Chris Eardley, the tribe’s Shellfish Biologist. “We’re going to try and use the biology of these creatures against them.”

The snails release a pheromone to attract others, so Eardley hopes his 72 cinder blocks across eight acres of tidelands will be covered with snails and eggs soon, which will be collected by the staff and removed from the tidelands. The tribe is employing a few methods of drill control and will do an end-of-season survey in late summer to see if the population decreased. (more…)

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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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