Upper Watershed

Squaxin Island Tribe Tracking Coho in Sherwood Creek

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ALLYN – A pair of smolt traps is helping the Squaxin Island Tribe get a better picture of natural salmon production in the Sherwood Creek watershed.

“The Sherwood watershed is one of the most complicated systems in the tribe’s treaty-reserved fishing area,” said Joe Peters, fisheries management biologist for the Squaxin Island Tribe. Tribal biologists are unsure about how many coho are rearing annually in Shumacher Creek, a tributary to Sherwood Creek, which flows into Mason Lake. Sherwood Creek flows out of Mason Lake.

One smolt trap – a safe and effective devices for catching and counting juvenile salmon as they migrate to sea – is installed at the mouth of Schumacher Creek in the upper watershed just above Mason Lake. Another is operating near the mouth of Sherwood Creek close to where it enters Puget Sound.
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Increased Salmon Populations Following Dam Removal

SHELTON (November 8, 2006) – Coho populations on Goldsborough Creek have increased significantly since a dam on the creek was removed in 2001, according to data collected by the Squaxin Island Tribe.

“This shows us that dam removal works in restoring salmon populations,” said Andy Whitener, natural resources director for the Squaxin Island Tribe. “If you give salmon habitat to spawn and rear in, they’re going to use it.”

In 2003 more than 60,000 juvenile coho, the first batch of coho that benefited from the increased habitat, migrated out to sea. “While that first out-migration is still the largest in the five years, the number of coho being produced has increased steadily,” said Joe Peters, fisheries biologist for the tribe.

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