Adult Spawning and Out-migrant Monitoring of Juvenile Salmonids Funding Year 2015

This project implemented annual (FY2015) monitoring of adult spawners returning to reservation creeks and the outmigration of juvenile salmonids from those same creeks. The spawning survey included walking seven reservation creeks (Tish Tang, Campbell, Supply, Mill, Soctish, Hostler and Hospital), enumerating, measuring, and flagging redds, and enumerating, sexing, measuring and removing a scale sample from carcasses. The out-migrant work was a mark-recapture study to support analysis of trends in abundance of anadromous salmonids on reservation tributary streams, particularly focusing on monitoring of restoration actions within the Hoopa Valley Indian Reservation. This effort used fyke traps installed near the mouth of the six reservation streams (Tish Tang, Campbell, Supply, Mill, Soctish and Hostler). Trapped fish were identified, measured (fork length), marked, and released. This juvenile work provided trend data on juvenile production by supplementing out-migrant data collected each year since 1982 for the same streams. These data are referenced extensively during analysis of timber sales, water withdrawals, evaluations of restoration actions, and other projects (including drafting of ESA documentation). Effectiveness monitoring of habitat restoration actions at the watershed or larger scales for ESA-listed anadromous salmonids, status monitoring projects that directly contribute to population viability assessments for ESA-listed anadromous salmonids, or monitoring necessary for the exercise of tribal-treaty fishing rights or native-subsistence fishing on anadromous salmonids.

The goal of the project is to monitor the abundance of adult spawners and out-migrating juvenile salmonids to facilitate evaluation of spawning and rearing success of anadromous salmonids within Reservation streams.

Project Objectives
A. Track adult spawning on reservation streams.
B. To utilize fyke traps to monitor the outmigration of juvenile salmonids from Reservation streams.
C. Track impacts to anadromous salmonid populations from invasive brown trout in Reservation streams.


Project Activities and Methods
A. Survey and map adult spawning on all reservation streams.
B. Install and operate fyke traps in seven reservation streams (Tish Tang, Campbell, Supply, Mill, Soctish, Hostler, and Pine creeks).
C. Collect numbers of marked and unmarked fish of each salmonid species which are caught each day. Abundance estimates will be generated using the modified Carlson-Peterson estimator method.
D. Annual progress reports are written by HVTFD biologists, and these reports are available on request to other tribal departments, State and Federal agencies, educational institutions and individuals.
E. Fyke results will be compared to snorkel surveys to be conducted as part of the Coho Ecology Project.