Today, there are many so-called “mitigation hatcheries” in the Snake River basin that are intended to produce enough salmon and steelhead to make up for the wild fish that were lost when their habitat was blocked by dams.
It’s Steelhead Fryday!
It’s steelhead fryday and we have you covered with a look into the early life stage of steelhead and the various types of behavior and biology at play.
Field Day Friday: The high value of two redds in one
Is there anything special about a winter steelhead redd in late May? Perhaps not, in general, but sometimes if we look more closely some interesting details might emerge.
An Attempt to Breed Better Biters Has an Unexpected Twist With Implications for Broodstock Collection
On Oregon’s Alsea River a broodstock program is raising fish using both angler-caught fish and those fish that swim into the hatchery trap. These data beg the question of whether offspring of angler-caught broodstock would be more likely to be caught by anglers than offspring of adults that voluntarily swam into a trap. We dig into a recent study examining this in this edition of Science Friday.
Update: Emergency closure for some winter steelhead rivers and the Quileute Tribe’s perspective
It has been a tough stretch for wild winter steelhead on the West End of Washington’s Olympic Peninsula. Now, several months into the season, some of these runs appear to be even weaker than forecast. Given the alarmingly low returns of coastal wild winter steelhead so far this year, it’s not a surprise WDFW had to take additional action to protect these fish.
Elwha River: An update on our summer steelhead journey
Our Science Director, John McMillan, shares some early findings from our snorkel surveys of the Elwha River’s summer steelhead this past year.
Science Friday: How dam construction — and removal — changed genetics of O. mykiss in the Elwha River
Have you ever wondered how installing a dam, and later removing it, can influence the genetics of a population of migratory fishes? A new study sheds some light on a possible answer.
An unfortunate reality: Depleted Olympic Peninsula steelhead and emergency conservation measures
Last week, the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) enacted new regulations coast-wide with the stated goal of reducing our encounter rates on these last, best wild runs here in Washington. This includes some serious changes to the way we fish for steelhead.
Elwha River update: habitat restoration on Little River
The Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe has completed a two-year restoration project of Little River recently, making it more salmon and steelhead friendly. We go in-depth with this part of the tribe’s Elwha River watershed restoration work.
Science Friday: Oldie but a goodie on steelhead fry behavior in intermittent streams
This week we review a Master’s Thesis from John David Faudskar, conducted when Faudskar was at Oregon State University in 1980. This study examined how young steelhead behaved during their first summer of life in the Rogue River watershed in Oregon.