The news on your RCD's latest efforts to conserve and protect our most valued natural resources, support a thriving agricultural community and promote a sustainable local economy.
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Three-year old male coho salmon spawning in Dutch Bill Creek, Dec. '18. Photo credit: David Berman
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This month's edition is all about fish:
- Salmon study in the Atascadero: the mystery of the marsh
- Video: Success! Adult salmon return to Upper Green Valley Creek
- Young coho salmon reintroduced to Atascadero Creek
- Hatchery fish released in Salmon Creek
- Russian River coho population report
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Do you have stories of a time when coho salmon and steelhead trout swam through Atascadero Creek? We want to hear them!
These stories can help us better understand Atascadero Creek and its marsh. Many of us have noticed the changes Atascadero Creek has gone through in recent decades: in its upper reaches, the creek bed is getting deeper, and in the lower reach, its marsh has changed from seasonally wet to having year-round standing water. It appears that the marsh is transitioning from a seasonal creek to a complex wetland.
Is this a place where salmon can continue to live?
To answer this question, we are conducting a study of the watershed, and we need your help.
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How neighbors can help
Our partnership with the residents along Atascadero Creek is essential to the success of the study.
Neighbors can help by offering:
1)
Their stories about the way the creek has changed over the years
2)
Access to the portion of the creek that runs through their property for our scientific study. We request to visit properties to learn:
- When adult salmon are in the creek, migrating or mating
- When young salmon are in the creek
- When and where the water level is lowest
- What water quality is like (with lab testing and "water bug" sampling)
Creekside landowners will be receiving letters in the mail from us describing the study and requesting access to the reach of creek that runs through their property. This includes landowners along Atascadero Creek and its tributaries: Redwood Creek, Sexton Creek, Jonive Creek, and Pitkin (also called Sullivan) Creek.
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Read more about the effort to study Atascadero Creek in a
recent article
written by Sara Nossaman, one of our team members at the California Sea Grant.
Photo, left: John Dierke spent his childhood exploring the streams of the upper Atascadero Creek watershed, often catching large steelhead, like this own shown here.
Photo, right: John Dierke releasing juvenile salmon to Redwood Creek, a tributary of Atascadero Creek.
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Success! Adult salmon return to Upper Green Valley Creek
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Green Valley Farm + Mill, the RCD and local contractors worked through the summer of 2017 to make some critical improvements to Green Valley Creek.
The team removed a failed culvert and reshaped the steep, eroded stream channe
l that barred salmonids from returning to the creek to spawn,
so that fish could once again live and spawn there. In these videos, you see adult trout easily swimming from rock weir to rock weir, pool to pool, in the newly-shaped stream.
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It's a proud moment seeing these fish access great creek habitat where previously the creek had been impaired.
Returning to their birth creek to spawn is an essential part of a trout's life. We're looking forward to seeing offspring make the same trip in years to come!
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Salmon Population Updates
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Young Coho Salmon Released into Atascadero Creek
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"What makes Redwood Creek exceptional is the cold, clear water it contains—and contributes to Jonive Creek—even through the driest summer months. Ample perennial streamflow is a relatively rare and valuable asset in Russian River streams, many of which become intermittent or dry each summer. Indeed, insufficient summer flow is a significant bottleneck to recovery of local salmon and steelhead, which rely on freshwater habitat for juvenile rearing.
Two years ago, inspired by the perennial flow and instream habitat, the Russian River Coho Salmon Captive Broodstock Program—a collaboration that aims to re-establish a self-sustaining population of endangered coho salmon to the basin—decided to stock juvenile coho into Redwood Creek.
In December 2017, the US Army Corps personnel who raise the fish for the Broodstock Program released 3,041 coho young-of-the-year throughout 1,200 meters of the stream. Just over 600 of them (20 percent) were tagged with Passive Integrated Transponders (PIT tags) to allow for tracking at CSG fish monitoring stations in Green Valley Creek and throughout the larger Russian River basin. The following spring, however, only two of the tagged fish released into Redwood Creek were detected passing over the antennas in lower Green Valley Creek on their way to the ocean."
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Hatchery Fish Released in Salmon Creek
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It's become an annual tradition of the US Army Corps of Engineers (US ACE)
and California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW)
to release coho salmon into Salmon Creek each winter. In December, US ACE brought 155 adult salmon from the Russian River Coho Salmon Captive Broodstock Program to a stream bank a few miles from Salmon Creek Beach, where the Class 1 stream empties into the Pacific Ocean. The salmon, each about 3 to 5 lbs, were transported in tanks on the back of a heavy duty truck.
US ACE and CDFW staff, with help from many volunteers, delicately lifted fish, one by one, out of the tank and into hand nets before speed-walking the fish to the water. The moment when a hatchery salmon enters wild water for the first time never ceases to amaze. Some dove expertly into the current, rushing down stream. Others entered cautiously, slowly exploring their new environment; they took refuge in sheltering places along the banks. No one could help but cheer the fish on and wish them good luck.
After adjusting to their new environment, these hatchery adults likely encountered wild salmon on their return journey from the ocean. If their instincts kicked in as hoped, these wild and hatchery fish may have mated. If so, we hope their offspring will
continue the slow but steady return of coho salmon in Salmon Creek for many generations to come.
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Russian River Coho Population Report
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"For those of you wondering about adult coho returns to the Russian, we have good news to report. As in other coastal streams this year, we are off to a good start with an estimated 239 coho so far. The really good news is that, unlike in previous years, we are seeing a lot of 3-year old fish (213 of 239) so we are hopeful for a more successful spawning season.
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Gold Ridge Resource Conservation District
(707) 823-5244
www.GoldRidgeRCD.org
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