Linking Restoration Actions to

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Linking Restoration Actions to Salmon
Productivity Washingtons Intensively Monitored
Watersheds (IMW) January 19, 2006
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IMW Organization

• Program Funding
• External Sources
• Salmon Recovery Funding Board 1.1 millon/yr
• In-Kind
• Program participants supply about 50 of program
  support primarily personnel

• Program Participants
• State Agencies
• Washington Dept. of Ecology
• Washington Dept. of Fish and Wildlife
• Federal Agencies
• NOAA Fisheries (NWFSC)
• EPA
• Tribes
• Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe
• Skagit River System Coop
• Private
• Weyerhaeuser Co.

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IMW

• Question Does habitat restoration, as
  implemented by the SRFB, result in increased
  smolt production?
• Long-term, paired-watershed experiments
• Small watersheds focus on steelhead, coho and
  cutthroat -
• Species with long residency in freshwater
• Utilize smaller watersheds for rearing
• Enables treatments to be applied to a large
  proportion of the salmon habitat in a watershed
• Chinook salmon-try to isolate most important
  life-stage, rather than entire fresh-water
  rearing period

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Intensive Watershed Monitoring Study Locations
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Design

• Before-After/Control-Impact
• Hierarchical monitoring scheme at different
  spatial scales
• Reach scale-effects of specific restoration
  actions
• Sub basin scale-effects of multiple restoration
  actions
• Basin scale-effectiveness of all actions
• Hypothesis-driven monitoring/research

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Smolt Production
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Spawner abundance and distribution

• Walk entire stream weekly, mark and location of
  adults and redds
• or
• Stratify by habitat unit and subsample to
  supplement index reaches

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Parr Abundance and Distribution

• Electroshock for density estimate, 30-40 sites
  /complex
• Mark fish
• Population estimate f(recapture rate, smolts)

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Habitat

• EMAP site selection
• 30-40 sites /yr/complex
• New sites each year

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Flow and Water Quality
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Hypothesis-driven research

• Designed to understand the mechanisms affecting
  smolt production
• Ex. Strait of Juan de Fuca Complex

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Strait of Juan De Fuca IMWMike McHenry, Lower
Elwha Klallam Tribe
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Deep Cr, West Twin, East Twin
Private
DNR
USFS
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Stream Habitat

• Widespread sediment deposition in lower basins
• Low quantity and size of woody debris throughout
  basins
• Poor quality of rearing habitat decrease in
  number and volume of pools
• Reduction in quality and quantity of spawning
  habitat

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The restoration plan

• Road abandonment
• Riparian plantings/management
• In-channel wood placement
• Connection/creation of off-channel habitats

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Restoration to date
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Research

• What is the effect of habitat restoration
  activities throughout the watersheds on survival,
  growth and migration timing of fish? (watershed
  level comparison)
• Does survival, growth and movement differ among
  tributaries and reach types within the watershed
  and how will that influence response to
  restoration in different parts of the watershed?
  (tributary)
• What is the effect of reach-level restoration
  efforts within a watershed on survival, movement,
  and growth? Do these factors differ between
  treatment and control reaches? (reach)
• Does survival, growth and movement differ among
  habitat types (e.g., pools, riffles, glides) and
  can we improve survival by creating more pool
  habitats? (habitat unit level)

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2003

• PIT tagged 1200 juveniles in Aug-Sep from complex
  (restored) and simple habitat units
• Monitored fish movement among habitats via
  snorkeling and hand held underwater PIT antenna.
• Only 4 (52) tagged fish were recovered in smolt
  trap in the spring

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2004

• PIT tagged 2600 juveniles in ET and 300 in WT.
• ET fish were split between mainstem and Sadie Cr
  
• Permanent PIT antennae installed in WT and ET
• Noted a large emigration of juveniles in late
  fall prior to smolt migration

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Smolt outmigration Sep 04-June 05
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Size at tagging
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Results

• Over 50 of tagged fish detected at antenna
  emigrated out of the system prior to the smolt
  migration period
• Fall migrants were significantly smaller fish and
  came predominately from the higher gradient
  Mainstem
• No difference in overwinter survival between
  complex and simple habitat in the mainstem (10)
• Overwinter survival in Sadie Cr (low gradient)
  was twice that in the mainstem (22 vs 10)

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Straits smolt traps
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2005

• PIT tagged 9300 juveniles in ET and WT (3000
  coho, 1650 steelhead)
• Permanent antennae in ET, WT, and working on one
  in Sadie Cr
• Added smolt trap on Sadie Cr
• Early outmigration noted in both WT and ET
• Sadie Cr antenna was vandalized (batteries
  stolen) and data record is incomplete

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2006-planned

• PIT tag 10,500 juveniles in ET, WT, Deep Cr
  (2000 coho, 1500 steelhead in each)
• Random selection of fish collection sites to
  better distribute around watersheds
• Collect fish quantitatively
• Install antenna in Deep Cr and redesign or
  relocate Sadie Cr antenna to avoid vandalism

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How to apply the IMW concept to Chinook-sized
watersheds?

• Two examples where of IMWs in large river
  systems
• Skagit River estuary
• Wenatchee River basin
• Try to isolate most important life-stage, rather
  than entire fresh-water rearing period (Skagit).
• Try to understand fish-habitat relationships to
  different degrees, at different spatial scales
  (Wenatchee).

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Monitoring

• Project specific BACI studies to evaluate
  effectiveness (fish density, growth, )
• Comparison of North vs South Fork in the delta.
  No restoration planned on NF until 2009, until
  then it could serve as a reference.
• Supplement existing index sites with randomly
  selected sites in three strata delta, nearshore,
  and offshore to better estimate spatial
  variability