Monitoring and Evaluating the Effectiveness of Fry Planting Coho in the Tsoo-Yess (C’u yas) River Watershed

Preliminary monitoring was conducted by the Makah Tribe, working closely with the USFWS. This included the operation of a smolt trap from the spring of 2018 through 2023. The smolt trap was not effective in capturing outmigrating coho, primarily due to poor site selection in 2018. Improvements were made in subsequent years by adding additional weir panels and netting, which increased the efficiency of the trap. However, it was still greatly influenced by flow conditions in the Tsoo-Yess River.

The primary purpose for this project is to evaluate hatchery effectiveness monitoring, but also supports the primary mission of Makah National Fish Hatchery to provide sustainable fishing opportunities for the Makah people. This project also addresses other Hatchery Reform objectives such as hatchery effectiveness monitoring and evaluation and improving survival.



The project aims to enumerate outmigrating coho smolt of natural and hatchery origins, measure overwinter survival of fry planted coho, monitor passage above the hatchery weir, and map some primary coho spawning areas within the upper Tsoo-Yess watershed.