Who We Are
Salmon are central to the identity and spirituality of the Skagit tribes, to the communities of the region and to the ecosystems of the Salish Sea. They also form critical fisheries that provide both economic and recreational opportunities, as well as treaty-protected fishing rights. Yet we are also all aware that these storied and threatened fish—who are deeply treasured by our neighbors, our cultures and our fisherfolk—will not survive without care, stewardship and collaboration.
The Research & Recovery Program is one department within an intertribal resources agency aligned in preserving, growing and protecting populations of our culturally and spiritually treasured salmon and steelhead species. Aware of the deep cultural importance of salmon in the Skagit River, the Research & Recovery Program works in partnership with the Swinomish and Sauk-Suiattle tribal governments, as well as collaborating with WDFW co-managers, federal agencies, academic institutions and conservation organizations. The program collects hard data and utilizes targeted science to evaluate recovery actions and ensure maximum efficiency of both dollars and acreage pledged to regional recovery efforts.
What We Do
From restoration monitoring to salmon recovery tracking, the Research & Recovery team of field technicians and staff scientists work to discover, understand and communicate the status and trends of salmon populations and the habitats they need. At the same time, the program team works with its fisheries co-managers to ensure a harvestable annual return of Chinook Salmon and work to improve harvest management tools.
Looking forward, the Research & Recovery program conducts applied research to improve restoration as a practice and to understand implications of our actions, programs and decisions. Specifically, we develop predictive modeling tools for estuarine restoration that facilitate tidal channel design and anticipate likely vegetation development. These predictive tools (models) improve restoration quality, provide standards for monitoring project success, and facilitate quantifying expected benefits to salmon resulting from habitat restoration. Our team members also tackle special projects such as evaluating Skagit River Chum Salmon population dynamics and reporting on density-dependent habitat limitations for juvenile Chinook Salmon.
Our team has been recognized as a leader in salmon recovery science within Puget Sound. Our scientists publish peer reviewed scientific articles, reports and regional presentations summarizing our work. We regularly engage with salmon recovery stakeholders and co-managers, locally through Skagit Watershed Council or participating in regional discussions. The SRSC Research & Recovery Program regularly partners with academic researchers, NOAA and WDFW toward shared goals and common aims.
Above all, the Research & Recovery Program works tirelessly to sharpen the tools of salmon recovery, by evaluating the efficiency of every dollar and acre employed in habitat restoration efforts, then recommending improvements to our systemic approach.
Skagit Chinook Recovery Plan
The 2005 Skagit Chinook Recovery Plan, co-authored by SRSC and WDFW, is our roadmap to protecting and rebuilding populations of ESA-listed Skagit River Chinook Salmon. That transformative and collaborative plan not only made specific recommendations, identified recovery targets and redefined co-management regimes, but it also called for expected results and continuous monitoring against those objectives to achieve recovery. The Research & Recovery Program has taken the lead in that monitoring and reporting as well as interpretation and analysis for the Skagit River fisheries—not just of the field data but of the effectiveness and efficiency of basin-wide recovery and restoration projects.
One constant focus of our research has been the role of estuary and floodplain habitat in recovering ESA-listed wild Chinook Salmon populations. The fundamental estuary restoration hypothesis of the Skagit Chinook Recovery Plan was that restoration projects can protect and restore the tidal delta, which we have seen play out during the past two decades with habitat restoration showing a significant uptick in survival rates of out-migrating Chinook. The plan also called for tributary and floodplain habitat restoration and monitoring, which is also a core focus of our dedicated and experienced team.
Project Highlights
Skagit Estuary Monitoring
Washington’s Skagit River delta is a stunning and spiritual landscape, where a powerful artery flows to tidewater from its origins deep in the Cascades. The big, broad Skagit is home, not just to us, but also to all five species of Puget Sound Salmon and all species of native trout, which makes the final miles of its journey to saltwater critical habitat for these threatened species. This landscape of salty tidelands, silty side channels and expansive views provides habitat for emigrating fish to grow strong before continuing their journey to saltwater and the Pacific beyond.
The Skagit Chinook Recovery Plan has identified estuary habitat restoration to increase carrying capacity as critical to increasing survival and return rates of ESA-listed Skagit Chinook populations. The objective for estuary habitat restoration is to increase juvenile Chinook Salmon carrying capacity of the Skagit estuary by 60%, from 2.25 to 3.6 million estuary rearing fry annually by restoring approximately 2,700 acres of historical Skagit estuary marsh to tidal inundation, resulting in critical tidal channeling. This restoration vision is being driven forward by collaboration between stakeholders, communities, treaty-rights tribes and generational landowners, at a rate that is significantly and commendably outpacing estuary habitat loss in the delta areas.
To evaluate the gains of these programs, the Research & Recovery arm of SRSC operates a comprehensive estuary monitoring program, which includes gathering beach seine data, along with smolt trap abundances and spawn ground survey data. Our long-term estuary monitoring program is focused on five key areas—the Swinomish Channel, the North Fork Delta, the Central Fir Island Delta, the South Fork Delta and the Stanwood/English Boom Delta. In addition, the SRSC evaluates ecosystem response with a continuous eye on improving estuarine restoration as a practice at eight completed estuary restoration projects, including Deepwater Slough, Smokehouse Floodplain, Milltown Island, South Fork Dike Setback, Swinomish Channel Fill Removal, Wiley Slough, Fisher Slough and Fir Island Farms.
Floodplain Restoration Tracking
Recognized as one of the largest salmon habitat restoration actions throughout the Puget Sound region, the Barnaby Reach project is designed to reconnect 28.9 acres of off-channel sloughs, side channels, wetlands, ponds, scroll bars, and tributary channels running between Illabot Creek to the main stem just above the confluence of the Sauk and Skagit Rivers near Rockport, WA.
Completed in 2021, the project increased connectivity with Barnaby Slough, while focusing on reclaiming former fish hatchery facilities, naturalizing hydrological flows and de-engineering constructive impediments to reconnect the main stem river channel to critical spawning and rearing floodplain habitat for ESA-listed Skagit River Chinook and Puget Sound Steelhead. This effort was identified as a top percentile priority project for the Skagit Chinook Recovery Plan and was accomplished through collaboration between local stakeholders, public and private landowners, the Skagit River tribes and fisheries co-managers WDFW and SRSC.
To evaluate the impacts of the project, the Research & Recovery arm of SRSC is tasked with tracking rearing and return in the recovered floodplain areas, including continuous monitoring of five smolt traps to estimate abundance and length of both emigrating salmon and trout, as well as fin-clipping to determine trap efficiency. The Research & Recovery team also conducts randomized grid-based snorkeling and electrofishing to better understand relationships between fish use and habitat variables, providing new insight into the importance of ecological factors such as depth and flow velocity.
Also acting as a potential leading-edge template for Sound-wide floodplain restoration, our broader learnings and findings from this unique large-scale recovery project will help inform statewide recovery efforts as off-channel habitat capacity has been identified as critical to both survivability and return rates for all species of threatened Puget Sound salmonids. With a focus on adaptive management and stakeholder collaboration, this restoration template lays the recovery science groundwork for future actions and options that align fish response results with practical ground-level considerations.
Chinook Broodstock Harvesting
The journey and return of Skagit River Chinook provide both tribal and non-tribal fisherfolk with the opportunity to harvest a legendary fish in our local waters. Yet without cooperation and stewardship between SRSC and WDFW, our annual runs and returns would be a small fraction of what we anticipate each season. That is why Skagit River System Cooperative field technicians catch approximately 900 Skagit native summer Chinook Salmon on the spawning grounds each season and transport them to the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife Marblemount Hatchery for spawning.
After hatchery rearing and code-wire tagging, SRSC team tracks the 200,000 Skagit Summer Chinook natural-stock fingerlings from their release to the Skagit estuary. While a percentage of total releases will be recovered as adults in commercial and sport fisheries throughout the southern United States, British Columbia, and Southeast Alaska, our follow-up efforts to track this population includes test fisheries, carcass recovery and spawning grounds surveys in ten different major sampling areas, which gives us hard data on the rates of return for this prized and protected annual run.
This cyclical process, and our follow-up data analysis, also provides insight into specific migration patterns, ocean survival rates and harvest locations. While the marine survival rate has historically varied between .01% – 2%, SRSC observed and documented a sharp decline in that percentage after 1999. Our hard data confirmed that the majority of Skagit summer Chinook fingerling indicator stock are intercepted in Canadian AABM or ISBM fisheries, providing insight on where our fish go and who they feed. The continued monitoring of this Skagit Chinook run will greatly inform how to sustain and increase harvestable populations, against the backdrop of treaty rights, overlapping regulatory agencies and deeply interconnected fisheries.
Research Staff:
Mike LeMoine, Director of Research and Recovery
Greg Hood, PhD, Senior Research Scientist
Catherine Austin, Senior Research Scientist
Brian Henrichs, Biologist
Kathleen McKeegan, Biologist
Matt Nelson, Biologist
Amanda Hurley, Field Biologist
Jade Luckhurst, Field Biologist
Eleanor Hines, Field Biologist
Troy Riling-Anderson, Field Biologist
Bill Baugh, Data Scientist
Jason Boome, Fisheries Technician
Jeremy Cayou, Fisheries Technician
Christ Scott Jr., Fisheries Technician