Juvenile Chinook salmon travel through and utilize nearshore habitats as part of their life cycle.
An understanding of how Skagit Chinook salmon utilize nearshore habitats, and how landscape
processes and land uses determine and impact nearshore habitats, is necessary for the successful
recovery of Skagit Chinook salmon. A study (Greene et al. 2005) using environmental data and
adult returns of wild Skagit Chinook salmon has shown that factors present during the nearshore
life stage (i.e., when juvenile
Chinook are present in Skagit Bay
and the Puget Sound fjord estuary)
significantly influence adult
recruitment, further supporting the
need to understand the nearshore
ecosystem and its role in the
recovery of Puget Sound Chinook.
Skagit River System Cooperative
(SRSC) has begun an inventory and
evaluation of nearshore habitats
within Skagit Bay, Washington
(Figure 1) as part of Skagit Basinwide
efforts to protect threatened
Skagit Chinook salmon. This paper
outlines nearshore habitat mapping
methods to characterize substrate,
vegetation, shoreline materials, and
shoreline modifications. These data
will be utilized to develop a
landscape process based nearshore
habitat model for estimating habitat
potential and predicting the results
of habitat and geomorphic processbased
restoration efforts. These
data will also be linked to fish
distribution data to determine biotic
response to habitat conditions
McBride, A., Wolf, K. and Beamer, E., 2006. Skagit Bay Nearshore Habitat Mapping. Skagit River System Cooperative, La Conner, WA. pp. 15.
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