Austin, C. and LeMoine, M., 2023. Quality Assurance Project Plan for Grid-based Juvenile Fish Abundance Estimation and Forecasting Using Snorkel Surveys and Electrofishing for Restoration Effectiveness Monitoring and Planning. Skagit River System Cooperative, Burlington, WA. pp. 50.

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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 recognized as threatened under the Endangered Species Act (Federal Register 1999; 2007). The
foundational document guiding Chinook salmon population recovery in the basin is the Skagit
Chinook Recovery Plan, which identifies limiting factors for Chinook salmon recovery under the
umbrellas of habitat protection, habitat restoration, and harvest management, and proposes
actions to address each in turn (Skagit River System Cooperative and Washington Department of
Fish and Wildlife 2005). The estimated benefits of each proposed habitat restoration action are
expressed in terms of salmon capacity, measured in numbers of fish of a particular life stage. This
presents a mismatch for common project monitoring techniques since the benefits of freshwater
restoration and conservation actions are often described through habitat suitability indices, a
qualitative ranking of ‘how good’ the habitat is for a species of interest

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