This summer the Mattole Restoration Council's Good Roads, Clear Creeks program (GRCC) completed a large project in Panther Creek, a tributary to Mattole Canyon Creek. Mattole Canyon flows into the Mattole River about a mile downstream from Ettersburg and has been one of the tributaries hardest hit by sediment impairments over the last half-century. Panther Creek was targeted for restoration work because in addition to roads crying for improved drainage through culvert upgrades and armored fords, it contained a number of treatable landslides that were contributing extensive sediments to the system and wreaking havoc on the riparian vegetation. With the headwaters of Panther Creek under single ownership, it also boasts a healthy flow of water throughout the late summer months and is home to impressive numbers of steelhead. (read more)
Marin County Releases Draft Salmon Enhancement Plan for the San Geronimo Valley Headwaters
This October, Marin County released a draft Salmon Enhancement Plan for the San Geronimo Valley, the most populated community in the Lagunitas Watershed that also supports the largest remaining wild run of coho salmon remaining in Central California. The creation of the Plan was part of a settlement agreement with SPAWN, which for years has pushed for the County to complete a cumulative impact analysis, as required under California's Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), before approving new projects along critical streamside habitat for coho salmon. (read more)
28th Annual Salmonid Restoration Conference March 10-13, 2010 in Redding, CA
In 2010 the Salmonid Restoration Federation and the California-Nevada American Fisheries Society chapter will co-host the 28th Annual Salmonid Restoration Conference and the 44th Annual Cal-Neva AFS Conference in Redding, California. We are truly excited about this new collaborative effort. The theme of the conference is Fisheries Restoration and Science in a Changing Climate. The first two days of the conference will be filled with symposia, full-day workshops continuing education classes, and field tours. A half-day plenary session will be followed by 1.5 days of technical, biological, and policy-related concurrent sessions. This conference will focus on a broad range of salmonid, fisheries, and watershed restoration topics of concern to restoration practitioners, and the scientific fisheries community. (read more)
Watershed Recovery: Fisheries and Upslope Restoration in the Middle Klamath
The section of the Klamath River watershed from the confluence with the Trinity River up to Iron Gate Dam ranges from wild, rugged, and pristine to settled, roaded, and burned to a crisp. Land jurisdictions are split in the middle with mostly national forest lands and small private and tribal inholdings to the west and checkerboard grading to private agricultural lands in the east. In the past few years, nearly a quarter of this landscape has burned in a series of large wildfires predominantly on the national forest, having both positive and negative effects on the fishery depending on fire intensity and soil type. Anadromous1 runs of salmon and steelhead have continued to struggle with low flows and poor water quality in the Klamath River mainstem and major tributaries, including the Scott and Shasta Rivers. Limiting factors to salmonid production in the Klamath River include lack of instream flow (and subsequent elevated temperatures), access to spawning areas and both summer and winter refugia, elevated rates of fish diseases associated with mainstem dams, and nutrient loading (to name a few). (read more)
Watershed Recovery: Nurturing Coho and Community: A Watershed Nursery Blossoms
SPAWN recently realized our dream to create a watershed-based plant nursery to grow local genetic-stock of plants for our coho and steelhead habitat restoration projects. (read more)
Protecting the Rogue: KS Wild Expands Public Oversight with Rogue Riverkeeper
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The Mattole Flow Program After Five Years: Lessons Learned and Future Directions
Since 2004, Sanctuary Forest has been working on several fronts in an integrated approach toward the goal of restoring healthy summertime flows to the Mattole River headwaters. Here we offer an overview of where our work so far has brought us, and what we see as the essential next steps in implementing an effective long-range solution to the low-flow crisis. (read more)
Conditions Worsening for Imperiled Salmon
It has been a scary beautiful winter on the North Coast. Even in our wet-winter corner of California, shifts in weather are amplifying changes in climate. We're getting a preview of our future, on a world where water scarcity will make life more challenging for human communities, and may threaten the viability of species and ecosystems. EPIC is working to ensure that our rich, wild corner of the continent remains an ark for biological diversity, especially for keystone species like salmon. (read more)
Western Oregon's Forests Hit by a Whopper
Southwest Oregon is once again the epicenter of a historic and high-stakes national debate about public lands management. In their final days in office, the Bush administration was able to force through the largest change in forest policy in the Pacific Northwest in more than a decade. The Bureau of Land Management's (BLM) Western Oregon Plan Revision (WOPR), known widely as the Whopper, allows for a massive increase in clearcut logging across 2.6 million acres of publicly‑ owned forests in western Oregon. (read more)
Educational Trainings Offered in 2009
During this time of economic downturn and water droughts in California, it is more important than ever for restorationists, fisheries biologists, and planners to come together to learn about pioneering habitat restoration techniques and to create long-term sustainable solutions to climate and policy issues that affect the restoration field and salmonid recovery. The Salmonid Restoration Federation (SRF) is planning a full season of restoration field school and symposia. (read more)
27th Annual Salmonid Restoration Conference: Elements of Watershed Restoration
The 27th Annual Salmonid Restoration Conference will be held March 4-7, 2009, in Santa Cruz, California. This year the conference will feature workshops on topics including estuary restoration, fish passage design and implementation, coho use and restoration of off-channel habitat, and watershed monitoring and management. (read more)
Sustaining Instream Flows for Fish and People
It's early August and the Mattole River presents itself as a long grey ribbon of dry gravel running through a tunnel of green leafy banks as seen from a small wooden bridge near its headwaters on the Mendocino-Humboldt County line. (read more)
Motivating Personal Action
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An Integrated Approach To Expanding Salmon Populations
The Eel River Salmon Restoration Project has focused on maintaining and expanding salmon and steelhead populations in the South Fork of the Eel River, the watershed that we call home. Beginning in the early 1980's, our initial work was supported in large part through funding provided by California commercial salmon fishermen and fisherwomen by way of the Salmon Stamp Program. This funding allowed us to develop a small-scale hatchery program, utilizing native coho salmon and Chinook salmon eggs obtained from a fyke entrance trap fished on a weir near the mouth of Redwood Creek, which flows through the small community of Briceland. Efforts were made to maintain as diverse a genetic base as possible by splitting egg lots and fertilizing the eggs of each female with numerous males of different age. The natal fish were planted back into their natal watershed. Planted fish were tagged or marked to allow us to both track their survival and better protect the genetics by limiting in-breeding of our "hatchery" fish, thusly minimizing our hatchery influence. (read more)
Regional Salmon Update: The state of imperiled fishes and community efforts at recovery
As once abundant salmonids have suffered due to cumulative anthropogenic impacts, restoring watersheds has become a priority for North Coast residents. The grassroots movement to recover salmon has often been the difference between existence and extirpation for these unique and esteemed creatures. (read more)