Juvenile Salmonid OUtmigration Monitoring along the Middle Klamath & Lower Salmon Rivers FY25

Project Objective: Monitor salmon populations at the watershed scale in the Klamath and Salmon River watersheds. Determine annual juvenile salmon production, outmigration timing, evaluate real-time fish health conditions, growth rates, migration rates and assists with development of flow based fish production models. Collect biometric data and tissue/scale samples from juvenile salmon.



Background: The Karuk Tribe has conducted juvenile salmonid out-migrant monitoring in the mainstem Klamath River since 1997 and in the mainstem Salmon River since 2001. The Karuk Fisheries Program has worked in collaboration with the US Fish and Wildlife Service and the Salmon River Restoration Council (SRRC) with trapping operations since 2002 by providing labor for trap operations. In 2024, four mainstem dams were removed from the Klamath River increasing the amount of spawning and rearing habitat available for salmon and potential for changes in life history tactics to shift or diversify. There is an increased need to understand how fish respond to this dramatic change therefor tissue samples for genotyping will be collected and processed to better understand population structure and source parentage of juvenile out-migrating salmon. Other tissue samples will be collected and archived for future studies.



Project Description: The Karuk Tribe will operate outmigrant traps in the lower Salmon River and Klamath River near Big Bar and Kinsman Creek. The Karuk Tribe will work in cooperation with the US Fish and Wildlife Service at trapping sites located in the upper Klamath River near Kinsman Creek. This river reach is the primary rearing reach for juvenile chinook and coho salmon spawning below the former Iron Gate Dam site and will be critical for understanding salmon populations after dam removal. The Kinsman site also monitors a large population of juvenile fish emigrating from the Shasta River. Kinsman creek is located above the Scott River and just downstream of Horse Creek and Beaver Creek where an exceptional amount of effort is underway to restore the Upper mid Klamath population of Coho Salmon. In recent years, droughts, low flows and fish disease are major limiting factors for juvenile salmonid production and while changes are expected it’s important that we increase our Other work includes beach seining, fish health sample collection and weekly trap catch efficiencies. The Tribe will actively coordinate efforts with US Fish and Wildlife Service and Salmon River Restoration Council including input of data and upgrade the current Microsoft Access database managed by the US Fish and Wildlife Service.

The project will provide data to long term Chinook salmon production monitoring efforts that have been ongoing in the Klamath River for the past 30 years. The project monitors salmon populations over a large geographic scale or entire watershed scale. The project will specifically benefit Chinook salmon production modeling efforts conducted by the Karuk Tribe and US Fish and Wildlife Service where model inputs are based on real out-migrant catch data and model outputs can be verified by real monitoring data.