This time last year, Lewis County landowners were excitedly sending videos to us.
“Look! I think there are salmon in our creek!” were the excited texts coming in along with the videos.
Folks were both excited to see the red and wiggly fish and surprised to see the fish where they did.
“I didn’t know there were fish clear up here,” is a comment we often hear from people living along small, rural streams in the county.
In response, the Chehalis Basin Collaborative for Salmon Habitat, a community group dedicated to helping improve the habitat where salmon live, developed a new webtool for people to report salmon sightings and see where others have seen the iconic fish.
The tool is hot off the press and ready to test out, accessible online at https://arcg.is/1958Ci1.
To use it, just stand by the creek where you see the fish, fill out a few easy questions on the survey, upload a photo and hit “submit.”
Results will be available on a web map.
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.
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 it’s way into small creeks.
Thanks, and happy viewing!
Kirsten Harma and Bob Russell
Chehalis Basin Collaborative for Salmon Habita
