Salmon Watcher Program
Volunteer Monitoring Program

Salmon Watcher is a multi-jurisdictional effort focused at protecting a Pacific Northwest treasure and educating the community in the process. The 16-year-old program involves volunteers watching streams for spawning salmon in King and Snohomish Counties. This effort mainly focuses on waters within the Lake Washington Watershed.

Our dedicated volunteers watch for fish on their assigned creeks two times a week from September through December. The information they collect helps us know where salmon are spawning in our streams, and sometimes where barriers exist to salmon migration. Volunteers act as our "eyes and ears" in the watersheds and give us a heads up when things go awry in our neighborhood creeks. Find out more about our program, including how to identify salmon in your neighborhood, by exploring our site.

If you would like to learn about volunteering, including when the training dates are, go to our Volunteer page.

What can you do to help salmon?

• Be a Salmon Watcher! Find out how to become a volunteer Salmon Watcher.
• Participate in Natural Yard Care.
• Educate yourself about Stormwater - which is not treated and flows directly to our streams, lakes, and marine waters.
• Print coupons for car washes and more at PugetSoundStartsHere.org!
• Learn about Stormwater with this information from NOAA.
• Wash your car in an environmentally friendly way!
• Use a car wash, not your driveway. See Stormwater info above! Your car's oil, grime, and soap suds flow from the driveway to the street to the streams, lakes, and Puget Sound -- not good for fish.
• Charity car washes can be huge sources of pollution. If you want to raise money by helping people get their cars clean, read this: the most fish friendly car wash fundraiser.
• Watch this fun and educational video on groundwater!

Learn more about salmon and other animals in the water

• Check out our fish identification gallery.
• Explore our Biodiversity website!
• Find out what salmon are commonly seen in your stream.
• Learn about beavers in King County.

What if you see poaching or code violations?

• In King County, report code violation for clearing or grading too close to the stream. These King County Dept. of Development and Environmental Services pages have information on what is a violoation and how to report them.
• See someone fishing for salmon in a creek during the fall spawning season? This page from Washington Dept. of Fish and Wildlife has information on who to contact. In short, if you are seeing it happen, call 911. If it already happened, go to their web site to find out about how to report it.

This program is conducted in cooperation with the King County Water and Land Resources Division, Bellevue Stream Team, Redmond Stream Team, and the cities of Seattle, Bothell, Kirkland, Renton, Woodinville, and the Vashon-Maury Island Land Trust, with financial support from the King Conservation District.