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As the rainy season arrives and water levels rise, salmon are migrating upstream to their spawning grounds, with many getting there through the streams that run through popular trails, recreation areas and even backyards.
The Chehalis Basin Collaborative for Salmon Habitat is testing out a new idea to measure the impact of salmon habitat restoration and show locals just how close they are to the fish.
Kirsten Harma works with the Chehalis Basin Partnership and is the watershed coordinator for the Chehalis Basin Collaborative for Salmon Habitat. Harma and the collaborative recently announced a new survey, open to the public, that allows people in the Chehalis Basin to mark where they have seen salmon recently and share photos and videos of the important fish.
The end goal is to use the survey to create a map that is open to the public and will allow anyone to see where the salmon are, along with the photos and videos of the sightings. While the survey is up and running, the map is not yet operational.
But, according to Harma, it will be soon.
Harma said the idea came from conversations between herself and the collaborative’s Lewis County citizen representative, Bob Russell. Russell said, in recent years, he has often received photos and videos from neighbors and friends showing salmon far upstream in small tributaries along hikes or crossing through streams on private property.
Residents will often say they didn’t know salmon made it so far upstream and wonder if their photos and videos can be put to good use. The new web tool is meant to do just that, using those photos and videos to show landowners and basin residents that there are salmon in many of the streams they see every day.
Russell calls himself a perfect case study of a landowner who didn’t know until just a few years ago that salmon were passing through his property. He and Harma hope that by showing more people that salmon are swimming through their backyards that landowners will get excited about protecting salmon and avoid any activities that might endanger them.
“I am an example of somebody who lives, works and owns salmon streams who didn't know they were there,” Russell said. “The biggest thing we can do with these sorts of photos is to communicate the passion that we all have for this natural resource.”
Russell noted that, in his experience, many people like himself don't know there are salmon nearby because salmon often swim upstream during rain storms and high-water events. He predicts that another period of heavy rain coming in early November will be the perfect opportunity to spot salmon this season.
The collective asks residents who spot a salmon to open up the new survey on their phone while they are still on site, take a photo and mark where the sighting was made. Along with photos and locations, residents can say what type of fish was spotted and give information about weather and stream conditions. Finally, the questionnaire asks if the collaborative can contact users in the future to ask more questions about the sighting or share more information.
Harma urges people filling out the survey who want to see the finished project of a salmon-spotting heat map to share their contact information so that the collaborative can share the finished project when it's ready to go.
“After a summer where the Chehalis River had some of the lowest water levels on record, the rains are returning, and so are the adult salmon,” Harma wrote in a recent letter to the editor. “We are launching this tool so that you can document fish you see spawning this fall. Keep an eye out for Coho, the most abundant salmon and the most likely to make its way into small creeks.”
Harma added that the tool being developed is meant to serve the public and the information is not held by any state agencies. The map is not meant for enforcing regulations but simply to show people how close they are to the fish that so many in the state hope to protect and see prosper.
Visit https://tinyurl.com/ym8ayt2r to take the new survey, share a photo or video and sign up to receive more information from the Chehalis Basin Collaborative for Salmon Habitat.
