FY 2019 Pilchuck River Spawner Surveys

The project consisted of monitoring the return of chinook and coho salmon in 2020 and 2021 ( and subsequent years as funds allow) to stream reaches on the Pilchuck River above the recently removed City of Snohomish Pilchuck River Diversion Dam (summer of 2020). The Tulalip Tribes conductd escapement monitoring including visual live/dead, carcass, and redd surveys. Work occurred from the location of the former dam upstream approximately six miles where Boulder Creek flows into the Pilchuck River and Coho Creek on the Tulalip reservation. The tribe took scale, otolith, and DNA samples from carcasses will can be used to provide additional information about Chinook and coho salmon age, life history type and river of origin and contribution to the recovery of the Snohomish River Basin chinook population. This project only supported the collection of tissue and DNA samples, the analysis of these collections will occur with non-project funds.

The purpose of the project is to monitor the distribution and relative abundance of ESA listed Puget Sound chinook and other salmon species in Coho Creek and in the previously unsurveyed portions of the Pilchuck River. The goal of the project is to provide spawner survey and redd count data for these stream and river systems to better assess chinook and other salmonid populations in the Snohomish River Watershed and on the Tulalip Reservation. This data will be used to better understand salmonid use and populations of these systems and of the entire Snohomish watershed.