“Long Live the Kings plays a crucial role—bringing together researchers of various disciplines to ensure that the whole problem is addressed, rather than parts of the problem being studied in isolation—and increasing the potential to uncover viable solutions.”
—Megan Moore, Research Fisheries Biologist, NOAA/Northwest Fisheries Science Center

How does infrastructure impact an ecosystem?

If you live in the Pacific Northwest, you’ve likely driven across the serpentine expanse of the Hood Canal bridge, that vital transportation link connecting the Olympic and Kitsap Peninsulas. It’s the longest floating bridge in the world located in a saltwater basin, and on peak summer days as many as 20,000 people traverse its 1.5 mile span. What travelers may not realize—as their cars zoom over the waters of Hood Canal—is that millions of young steelhead are fighting for survival in the depths below.

Recent studies have shown that 65% of juvenile, ESA-listed steelhead migrating from their natal streams past the Hood Canal bridge do not make it to the Strait of Juan de Fuca. Strong evidence suggests that the bridge itself is acting as a migration barrier and driving this mortality.

Long Live the Kings, in partnership with the Hood Canal Coordinating Council, Tribes, and State and Federal agencies, is working to pinpoint the causes of steelhead mortality at the Hood Canal Bridge, and to gauge the bridge’s effect on water quality, through the Hood Canal Bridge Ecosystem Impact Assessment.

2017 project highlights:

Scientists followed steelhead past the bridge, mapped predator behavior, and evaluated light and noise and water constrictions caused by the bridge, data that will be combined to determine precisely how the bridge leads to steelhead mortality. New information about how water flows past the bridge was also collected to evaluate the bridge’s impact on water quality.
In a display of regional commitment and bipartisan support, the Washington State Legislature allotted $750K dollars for this project in the biennial state operating budget. This adds to significant support provided by the Laird Norton Family Foundation, Salmon Recovery Funding Board, Hood Canal Coordinating Council, EPA and the Port Gamble S’Klallam Tribe.
Our new campaign Survive the Sound, and related media coverage, brought attention to the problems steelhead encounter at the bridge.
Looking ahead to 2018:

Data will again be collected in 2018. As the assessment progresses, the project team will test, refine, and ultimately implement a suite of management actions to address adverse impacts without jeopardizing the function of the bridge as a major transportation fixture.
Survive the Sound will reach a broader audience and bring our new steelhead tracking data from 2017 to continue to tell the story of steelhead and the bridge.

“The only way to study a problem of this magnitude is with a large, collaborative, international effort involving close coordination among dozens of fisheries management agencies working together. LLTK’s Salish Sea Marine Survival Project is doing just that.”
—Mike Crewson, Salmon Enhancement Biologist, Tulalip Tribes

Getting to the bottom of low salmon survival in the Salish Sea.

Deep in the waters of the Salish Sea, tiny creatures may hold answers to a riddle that’s confounded salmon managers for decades. Why are young out-migrating fish dying in the marine waters of Puget Sound and the Strait of Georgia?

Researchers are studying zooplankton, the cornerstone of the marine food web and a sensitive link between the physical and biological environments. Zooplankton can provide new understanding about how physical stressors—manmade and natural, global and local—influence food availability, fish productivity, and the health of Puget Sound as a whole.

Zooplankton monitoring is one of more than 80 individual studies being carried out in conjunction with the Salish Sea Marine Survival Project, a massive U.S. and Canadian effort, coordinated by Long Live the Kings, to determine why the survival of juvenile Chinook, coho, and steelhead has declined significantly in our shared marine waters since the 1980s. The project is a model for ecosystem-scale collaborative science; its results will facilitate smarter management and stronger salmon and steelhead returns.

2017 research highlights:

New finding: The survival of coho and some Chinook is strongly correlated with zooplankton composition. This means that the type of food available when a fish is young can be an indicator of whether or not it will survive.
A parasite (Nanophyetus) affecting outmigrating steelhead was found at high levels in 2014. In 2017, a novel environmental DNA screen was developed to identify the parasite in water samples. The next step is to characterize the watersheds where the parasite exists at high levels, identifying hot spots where a species of snail (Juga) harbor the parasite as an intermediate host. Once hot spots are identified, approaches can be taken to cut the parasite’s life cycle.
Looking ahead to 2018:

A Salish Sea Synthesis Committee will direct the culmination of the numerous studies in this project.
Field and lab work will continue. While we are 4 years in, the work – including data analysis – is 25% complete. As we continue our work, we are witnessing anomalies that are helping us solve the mystery of poor salmon survival. For example, over 40% of out-migrating steelhead survived to the ocean from the Nisqually River in 2016, while as few as 6% survived in years past.
Food web research will seek to answer numerous questions, for example: Are important prey, such as crab and herring, changing and less available for our juvenile salmon? If so, why?

“After I presented at the 2017 Salmon Recovery Conference on our Survive the Sound campaign, the LLTK booth was mobbed with people who wanted to sponsor fish. I had the distinct feeling that we had found a way to connect with a vast new source of support for salmon and their recovery. And we have.”
—Jacques White, LLTK Executive Director

Pairing recovery with technology to engage new generations of salmon advocates.

From May 9-19, in households, classrooms, and offices around our region, people were glued to their phones, tablets and computers, experiencing something remarkable: the annual migration of young steelhead from their natal streams to the Pacific Ocean. Experiencing the behavior of real fish in their native environment, sponsors of these intrepid travelers were able to monitor their progress, learn about the obstacles they encounter along their journeys, create “schools” with friends and compete for prizes. It was the pilot year of our new campaign Survive the Sound, the first ever endurance race for wild steelhead, and an interactive way to engage a new generation of salmon enthusiasts.

Steelhead are vital to Puget Sound and their survival trends can signal deeper issues within the surrounding ecosystem. Unfortunately, the number of Puget Sound steelhead has declined significantly over the past century and they’re now listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act. There is serious concern that the iconic Washington State Fish will slip into extinction.

Long Live the Kings developed Survive the Sound to educate the public about the pressures facing steelhead in our region; to help build support for recovery programs; and ultimately to help turn the tide for steelhead. The “game” utilizes data collected from actual fish fitted with GPS tags to allow them to be tracked and monitored as they out-migrate. The 2017 pilot year was a resounding success, with nearly 700 participants sponsoring over 1,000 steelhead.

2017 highlights:

• Increased awareness of LLTK and our mission among the general public in the Pacific Northwest.
• Educated participants and the public about the issues facing steelhead, via the game itself and associated media coverage.
• More than 60% of post-game survey respondents indicated that they had a better understanding about steelhead’s lifecycle as a result of participating in the campaign.

Looking ahead to 2018:

• The Survive the Sound experience is being enhanced.
• We are boldly targeting over 6,000 additional steelhead sponsors.
• A no-cost education version is being developed, and we are aiming for placement in over 100 classrooms.
• A broad slate of foundation and corporate sponsors will help us bring Survive the Sound to a wider audience.