Klamath River Flow Study Activities Support 2015

Project fieldwork began April 1st of 2016 and continued until July 2016. Karuk technicians worked in collaboration with the US Fish and Wildlife (USFWS) operating out-migrant juvenile salmonid traps at two locations along the Klamath River. Sampling locations were located near Kinsman Creek at river mile 130 and Interstate 5 at river mile 170. Two type of our migrant trap were used for sampling including rotary screw traps and downstream frame traps. Tribal technician assisted with installation traps at all sites. Tribal technician were solely responsible for operation and maintenance of traps located at the Kinsman Creek site. Traps were operated 5 days per week and checked once daily. Additional work included beach seining and fish sample collection at the trapping locations. All work related to fish disease is part of another larger research project not funded by PCSRF. The trap site was used as a fish sample collection site where the samples were later analyzed by a USFWS fish disease pathologist as part of a separate and larger Klamath Basin wide fish disease research project. Drought conditions during the latter part of the 2016 sampling period caused river temperatures to be warmer than normal and prevalence of fish disease to be higher than normal. In July of 2016 technician assisted USFWS staff with the removal and demobilization of all the trapping sites.

This project benefits Klamath River salmonid by providing information in a long term data set to water managers, researchers and restoration efforts by collecting up to date data on migration timing, presence, fork length, and health of juvenile outmigrant salmonid as well as other fish in the Klamath River. More specifically the project assists with determining the annual fry abundance and health of the upper Klamath River juvenile Chinook and Coho populations. In addition, Klamath Mountains Province Steelhead are captured and sampled at both Kinsman Creek and I5 trapping sites and provides beneficial information regarding their relative abundance and presence. Resident and ocean migrating steelhead are indistinguishable as juveniles therefore the steelhead form can not be separated from the resident form at the trapping sites.

Federal water managers use this data to determine flow needs for juvenile salmonids out migration from the Klamath River. The trapping sites are key locations for fish disease sampling. Clinical signs of fish disease are documented and a sub set of samples are collected where they are examined by the US Fish and Wildlife Services Fish Health Lab to determine the prevalence of infection (POI) from the pathogen C-Shasta. This project does not specifically pay for the fish samples to be examined by the Fish Health Lab and POI to be reported, but is a large benefit to Klamath River fish health studies because it provides a location where fish can be collected. The combination of POI and weekly abundance estimates are key information for adaptive management including flow releases from Iron Gate Dam. The data also provide long term monitoring of the Klamath River Chinook population which is a major contribution to Tribal and commercial fishing industry.