Swinomish

Read more about the article Swinomish Tribe’s Restoration Improves Fish Passage Beside Farmland
Swinomish environmental director Todd Mitchell observes a self-regulating tide gate that is mostly under water in the Smokehouse tidelands.

Swinomish Tribe’s Restoration Improves Fish Passage Beside Farmland

Swinomish environmental director Todd Mitchell observes a self-regulating tide gate that is mostly under water in the Smokehouse tidelands.
Swinomish environmental director Todd Mitchell observes a self-regulating tide gate that is mostly under water in the Smokehouse tidelands.

Farming interests in Skagit County often seem at odds with salmon habitat restoration, but an ongoing project by the Swinomish Tribe aims to show that it doesn’t have to be that way.

The tribe owns the land known as the Smokehouse tidelands along the Swinomish Channel south of the Swinomish Casino and Lodge. Historically, the land was part of a system of channels that served as estuarine rearing habitat for Skagit River salmon. When the Skagit Valley was settled, the tidelands were diked and drained for agricultural use.

Since 2005, the tribe has restored tidal flow and improved fish passage to the channels by replacing four traditional flap gates with self-regulating tide gates. In addition, three culverts have been replaced by bridges, and several have been removed. (more…)

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Read more about the article Swinomish Tribe Studies Effect of Climate Change on Community, Culture

Swinomish Tribe Studies Effect of Climate Change on Community, Culture

rainbow bridgeClimate change threatens not only the environment, but also tribal communities whose culture, livelihood and identities depend on natural resources.

“Current climate change assessments omit key community health concerns, which are vital to successful adaptation plans, particularly for indigenous communities,” said Jamie Donatuto, environmental health specialist for the Swinomish Tribe.

“Recent assessments show that indigenous communities, especially coastal communities, are disproportionately vulnerable to a number of climate impacts as reservation boundaries are fixed and many aspects of their culture are so closely tied to coastal health” said Eric Grossman, coastal and marine geologist with the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and partner in the project. (more…)

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Read more about the article Tribes partner with OSU to study clam contamination
Swinomish staff and OSU students sample clams on Kukutali Preserve.

Tribes partner with OSU to study clam contamination

Swinomish staff and OSU students sample clams on Kukutali Preserve.
Swinomish staff and OSU students sample clams on Kukutali Preserve.

Researchers from Oregon State University (OSU) are studying shellfish contamination on the Swinomish reservation and nearby Fidalgo Bay.

Both the Swinomish Tribe and Samish Nation have partnered in the project with OSU’s Superfund Research Program, focusing on clam contamination on tribal lands.

Butter clams were sampled from sites in Fidalgo Bay near an oil refinery, and from the relatively pristine Kukutali Preserve. Kukutali is co-managed by the Swinomish Tribe and the state of Washington.

“We predominantly are looking for chemicals that come from fossil fuels,” said Blair Paulik, OSU Ph.D. candidate. “We were interested in seeing sites that were the extremes within the area. We expect if there’s going to be an area that’s more contaminated it will be near the refinery. We expect Kukutali to be less contaminated.”

The samples are being analyzed in Professor Kim Anderson’s lab at OSU’s department of environmental and molecular toxicology. (more…)

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Swinomish Tribe measures changes to shellfish over decades on Kukutali Preserve

Tiffany Hoyopatubbi, water resources specialist, uses a quadrat to sample shellfish species on the beach on Kukutali Preserve
Tiffany Hoyopatubbi, water resources specialist, uses a quadrat to sample shellfish species on the beach on Kukutali Preserve

The never-realized plans to build a nuclear power plant on Kiket Island has a legacy that’s proven useful to the Swinomish Tribe.

The 1969 power plant proposal attracted researchers to study the island’s ecology. Among these was then-graduate student Jon Houghton, who established permanent transects around Kiket Island to study intertidal ecology and measure, among other things, clam density and biomass. In 2011, Swinomish shellfish biologist Julie Barber worked with the tribe’s water resources program to survey the same transects as Houghton to quantify ecological change over the past four decades.

In the decades since the power plant plans were scrapped, Kiket Island was privately owned. For at least the past two decades, tribal members were discouraged by upland owners from harvesting on the tribally owned tidelands. This long-term lack of harvest pressure now provides Swinomish with the unusual opportunity to study unharvested clam populations.

(more…)

Continue ReadingSwinomish Tribe measures changes to shellfish over decades on Kukutali Preserve

Tribes study chinook use of small coastal streams

Hibulb
Todd Zackey electrofishes Hibulb Creek to determine whether there are juvenile chinook using the small coastal stream.

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.

(more…)

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