The Skagit Recovery Plan (SRP) estuary goal is to increase carrying capacity by 1.35 million Chinook Salmon smolts from the estimated carrying capacity of 2.25 million Chinook Salmon smolts at 2005 status. The SRP estuary strategy is to maintain and … Continued
Our understanding of seasonally disconnected floodplains and how they function to support rearing salmonids in the Pacific Northwest is limited. Past studies have found that these dynamic habitats may provide high-risk, high-reward trade-offs for rearing fish. High prey densities and … Continued
The purpose of this technical memorandum (memo) is to present a summary of the activities and data collected in the 2023 field monitoring of the Crescent Harbor Creek Restoration area (hereafter restoration area). This memo describes fish monitoring activities in … Continued
This technical memo summarizes fish and habitat monitoring that occurred during 2022 and 2023 that are intended to evaluate the effect of restoration on fish use and habitat condition at the site. The project is funded by ESRP as a … Continued
This technical memo gives a summary of all Skagit River System Cooperative (SRSC) activities for 2023 in the Port Susan Bay, specifically reporting on Task 1 and Task 2 of contract # WA-C220215-048. The summary includes description of water surface … Continued
Pacific salmon (Oncorhynchus spp.) are culturally vital and commercially important to Tribal communities who inhabit the Skagit River. Over recent years some species have declined from historical population sizes, and Chinook salmon (O. tshawytscha) and Steelhead trout (O. mykiss) are … Continued
Alluvial fans, as nodes in a discontinuous nested stream hierarchy, offer unique challenges and opportunities to restoration practitioners and fisheries research scientists. Illabot Creek alluvial fan restoration removed hydromodifications and reestablished multiple stream channels along a historically channelized reach of … Continued
To understand fish and wildlife population dynamics we must determine which internal and external factors most influence demographic rates, and therefore drive changes in populations. Integrated population models (IPMs) incorporate multiple data types throughout animals’ life cycles, and incorporate separate … Continued
In 2022, Skagit River Systems Cooperative sampled Lone Tree Creek within and upstream of the 1000 Trails Campground. The purpose of this monitoring effort is to evaluate effectiveness of removal of log weirs and channel roughening to improve fish accessibility … Continued
In 2023, Skagit River System Cooperative (SRSC) sampled Lone Tree Creek within and upstream of the 1000 Trails Campground. The purpose of this monitoring effort is to continue to evaluate the effectiveness of restoration actions completed in 2021 to replace … Continued
Pre-restoration monitoring of Smokehouse Floodplain tidal blind channels separated from Swinomish Channel by “fish friendly” tidegate styles demonstrated dampened tidal effects and substantially lower fish use than in reference tidal blind channels along Swinomish Channel. Salinity was slightly lower inside … Continued
In Washington State, strengthening mitigation measures for sediment supply impacts from forestry was a central component of the 1999 Forests and Fish Report (USFWS et al., 1999) due to the many prior decades of high sediment yield and resulting impacts … Continued
Maximal summer stream temperatures are an important factor affecting juvenile salmon survival. In 2008, the Skagit River System Cooperative began collecting stream temperature data each summer season in lands managed for timber throughout the Skagit River basin. Using 15 years … Continued
Chinook Salmon recovery requires a combination of many local actions that are expected to result in a population response that can be masked by variability in environmental factors also influencing the population positively or negatively. Thus, tracking habitat conditions, recovery … Continued
Forest management-driven increases in landsliding may impact aquatic habitat and water quality, yet it is difficult to disentangle the effects of hydroclimate from evolving land-use practices when interpreting landslide rate fluctuations over decadal timescales. We compiled shallow landslide inventories starting … Continued