Juvenile Coho Salmon Make a Big Splash in the Chugach National Forest
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SourDough News | August 9th, 2016
Employees in the Chugach National Forest Aquatic Program find juvenile Coho Salmon scattered in the Nellie Juan and Kings river drainages. Photo by Theresa Tanner.
Campsite at the end of the day. Photo by Theresa Tanner.
The team hikes through the stream to locate juvenile Coho salmon. Photo by Theresa Tanner.
Three Forest Service employees, Luca Adelfio, Rachel Ertz, and Theresa Tanner, spent time in July traveling to the Nellie Juan and Kings river drainages on the Chugach National Forest to check the fish habitat in those areas. What they found delighted them: juvenile Coho salmon scattered in streams near the tidal influence (inundation of seawater due to rising and falling of tides).
Tanner explains why this is important.
The opportunity for discovering new or changing fish distribution is great. Field biologists have long understood that there are many stream miles on the Chugach National Forest that contain fish but are misclassified under the current system as being without fish (anadromous or resident species). Not only is this a biological error, it has implications in terms of protecting aquatic habitat and watersheds.
In fact, the Forest Service has less constraints on land management activities for streams without fish, and the State of Alaska has similar policies for streams without anadromous fish. One of the important outcomes for stream monitoring is the potential to provide documentation to the Anadromous Waters Catalog.
Tanner writes that the AWC is:
… a powerful tool for extending habitat-based legal protections to waterbodies. Waters documented to bear some life stage of any anadromous species are afforded higher habitat-based legal protections under Alaska Statute (AS) 16.05. Nominations of waterbodies to the AWC can be for addition, substantiation, or extension of anadromous fish presence. Nominations may be linear for stream miles or polygons for acreage, e.g. wetland complexes supporting rearing Coho Salmon.
Anadromous species on the Chugach National Forest not only include all 7 species of Pacific salmon, but also species such as eulachon, whitefish, and lamprey.
Tanner will return to the river drainages in August with full sampling teams in order to document streams for the Anadromous Waters Catalog. The team will document the furthest extent of anadromous fish presence possible via boat and foot access. Their findings will be submitted for AWC nominations to Alaska Department of Fish and Game.
Excerpts from document written by Theresa Tanner
Aquatic Program, Chugach National Forest