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Salmon and Trout in King County, Washington State

2001 Volunteer Salmon Watcher Program Report

Summary

In 1996, the Bellevue Stream Team, King County Water and Land Resources Division, the Muckleshoot Indian Tribe, the Snohomish County Surface Water Management Division, and the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife began a jointly coordinated volunteer spawning survey program in the Lake Washington Watershed (all waters draining through the Ballard Locks). In 1997, the program evolved into the Salmon Watcher Program as it is today and has been conducted annually since. The purpose of the program is to document the distribution of spawning adult salmon throughout the basin via an active public outreach and education program, and subsequently consolidate all the information into a single resource (this report). These data can be used by policy makers and the public to improve how aquatic resources are managed, to protect salmon and trout species, and to enhance their habitat.

For the 2001 program, 219 volunteers surveyed 181 sites on 68 streams throughout the Lake Washington Watershed and Central Puget Sound streams from late August 2001 to January 2002. Because volunteers collect the data in this program, the agencies are able to obtain information from far more locations than would otherwise be possible. However, data in this report should be used with the following factors in mind:

  1. Volunteer expertise in locating and identifying fish species varied from very high to very low;
  2. Coverage of streams by volunteers was by no means complete; therefore, fish distribution information is not complete;
  3. Volunteers view stream sites for relatively brief periods of time during the spawning season;
  4. Determination of survey sites was based on volunteer availability and site accessibility (and some survey locations change from year to year, even on the same creek);
  5. Spawning fish can be difficult to see and therefore may have passed through reaches undetected; and
  6. Volunteer data indicate only where minimum fish distributions extend to, but do not indicate reaches where fish are definitively absent (in other words, the data confirms fish presence, but does not confirm absence).

Volunteers observed the following species: sockeye, chinook, coho, kokanee, chum, and pink salmon, as well as trout species (rainbow or cutthroat). The following results were compiled from volunteer observations: (1) Coho had the widest distribution throughout the official survey area (36 streams); (2) sockeye were seen in the greatest numbers by far (over 10,000 enumerated); (3) chinook were observed in six Lake Washington basins and were observed but not verified in Longfellow Creek, which drains to Puget Sound; and (4) Kokanee observations were verified in four Lake Washington basins and were reported but unverified in three additional basins.

Maps included in this report have been published on the Internet, and can be found using the hyperlinks on the map web page.

Acknowldegements

Many thanks to all the dedicated volunteers for spending many hours in cold and wet weather to collect the information for this report—sometimes for the sixth year in a row, and sometimes without ever seeing a single fish. Without the volunteers there would be no data, no maps, no report. They help make a positive difference here in the Northwest, not only by reporting fish species, but by acting as the eyes and ears of the streams, reporting stream blockages as well as illegal and other suspect activities. You are true stewards of the resources that make the Pacific Northwest so special. A huge Thank You!

We also want to acknowledge the various individuals from the cooperating jurisdictions. Every year these folks meet and plan the program, organize and stage the training sessions, and invest lots of time attending to the questions of the volunteers. Thanks (in no particular order) to Roger Kelley, Darian Davis, Mike Dotson, Laura Reed, Joe Starstead, Debra Crawford, Stacey Rush, Scott Gonsar, Peter Holte, Carla Milesi, Chrys Bertolotto, Tom Barry, Jim Mattila, Michael Murphy, Jessica Kuchan, Katy Vanderpool, Hans Berge, and Robert Fuerstenberg.

Finally, we would like to thank those who sponsored our funding: the Lake Washington/Cedar/Sammamish Watershed Forum and Central Puget Sound Watershed Forum through King Conservation District grants.

Introduction

The Salmon Watcher Program is a volunteer program that originated in 1996 to observe adult fall spawning salmonids in the Lake Washington Watershed. The Salmon Watcher Program recruits and trains volunteers to identify and watch for spawning salmon throughout the Lake Washington Watershed and Central Puget Sound drainages (Figure 1). Regional agencies who participate in the Salmon Watcher Program along with King County include the Bellevue Stream Team, Snohomish County Surface Water Management, and the cities of Issaquah, Kirkland, Redmond, Renton, Seattle, and Woodinville.

The Salmon Watcher Program was initiated to expand on current efforts undertaken by resource agencies to document the distribution of spawning salmon in the Lake Washington Watershed. In 2001, the Central Puget Sound drainages became an official part of the Salmon Watcher Program. The program actively engages the public in doing something helpful for the streams in their watershed. Salmon Watcher volunteers annually collect information on the presence of fall-spawning salmonids, including chinook, coho, sockeye, kokanee (resident form of sockeye), and chum salmon, as well as steelhead and resident trout species. Data of this type become more important as salmonids in the region, such as Puget Sound chinook, are listed under the Endangered Species Act. Volunteers in this program survey the basins that make up the Lake Washington Watershed: the Bear Creek, Cedar River, East Lake Washington, West Lake Washington, Issaquah Creek, North Lake Washington, East Lake Sammamish, and West Lake Sammamish basins.

Because volunteers do this work, this task is accomplished with reduced resources, and the watersheds’ residents can become involved and educated at the same time. Further, interactions with agency personnel foster positive relationships between the public and government agencies. With monetary and temporal constraints of agency personnel, much of the data collected in this effort could not be collected otherwise.

This 2001 report is different from past reports in a few ways. For example, this report contains even more information about the activity of the volunteers than in past reports, as well as a discussion on marked fish. It should also be noted that this report summarizes only data collected by Salmon Watcher volunteers, and it is therefore in no way intended to be an exhaustive report of fish distribution in the Lake Washington Watershed and Central Puget Sound. Other fish surveys are conducted annually by county, state, city, and federal agencies and non-profit organizations. For example, surveys are conducted by volunteers for King County annually to look specifically for kokanee; the results of these surveys are reported in a separate kokanee report and are not included here.

Figure 1. Lake Washington Basins surveyed for the 2001 Salmon Watcher Program (follow link to download pdf file).

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 support from the King Conservation District.