Live Fish Camera
Wildlife cameras help people connect with nature and see the world from another species’ perspective. Many of us have enjoyed watching fledglings in an eagle’s nest, or spotted cougars and coyotes passing through a wildlife corridor – but getting a view of life underwater is a little more challenging.
Thanks to a grant from the Washington Department of Fish & Wildlife and some DIY ingenuity by our staff, now you can! Long Live the Kings has set up a live video feed in one of the steelhead rearing ponds at a conservation hatchery on Hood Canal. View the livestream any time from here or on our YouTube channel to spend some time with the fish.
These steelhead (or rainbow trout, the freshwater variant of the same species) are part of an innovative conservation program that LLTK manages to support the recovery of Hood Canal’s native steelhead. Hatched from wild-spawned eggs, they are being raised here to help give natural populations a boost. When they are mature, they are released to spawn in the rivers and migrate to sea. (Watch a steelhead release here.)
This is a live video feed, so visibility can vary. We clean off algae that builds up on the camera every few days. The fish are fed around 11:00am most days, which is a good time to see lots of activity! If you don’t have a good live view, you can watch a highlight here.
Watch: For The Long Run
This piece was made in 2018 by Transect Films as a reflection of LLTK’s current work. For The Long Run celebrates our current project portfolio, our partners, and optimism for future success. Whether it’s recovering a certain population in a remote stream or coordinating an international research effort, LLTK believes that the work that we do is making a different for salmon, orcas, and our community.
Watch: Glenwood Springs, Orcas Island
The Glenwood Springs Chinook program, located on Orcas Island in Washington State, began as an experiment. In 1978, LLTK founder Jim Youngren wanted to see if he could create a Chinook run from a small stream on his property. Nearly 40 years later, up to 4,000 Chinook return annually to be harvested in fisheries from Alaska to Northern Puget Sound. These Chinook help nourish our local population of endangered orca whales. And because few, if any, of our Chinook stray to mainland rivers, wild populations are protected from the negative effects of interbreeding with hatchery fish.
Every year, we release 750,000 juvenile Chinook from Glenwood Springs Hatchery—an amazing feat, given how little water is used. This success is due in large part to an expansive network of natural rearing ponds, and to reliable sources of cold spring water that keeps our fish healthy.
Glenwood Springs Hatchery is a true community effort. About 20 people volunteer annually to spawn the large Chinook that return, mark juveniles to be identified as hatchery origin in fisheries, and help maintain the facility. We also receive substantial operations and funding support from the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife—our lead project partner—as well as generous members of the local community.
We are pleased to welcome more than five hundred tourists, students, and campers to the hatchery every year. Our facility manager conducts guided tours, teaching visitors about the critical role of salmon in our region, the status of wild fish, and the ongoing efforts of Long Live the Kings to recover wild salmon and promote sustainable fisheries.
Over the years, the Glenwood Springs Chinook program has shown us that we still have much to learn about the many factors affecting the survival of juvenile salmon as they migrate through Puget Sound to the Pacific Ocean. This was the inspiration for our Salish Sea Marine Survival Project (Marinesurvivalproject.com).
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 high steelhead mortality at the Hood Canal Bridge, and to gauge the bridge’s effect on water quality. Alison Morrow from King5 News recently tagged along as LLTK and our partners conducted research near the Bridge. This research is also related to our Survive the Sound campaign, which will launch March 15th! Watch Alison’s report below and click here to learn more about our Hood Canal Bridge Ecosystem Project.
See the full report from King5 News here.
Why are steelhead dying near the Hood Canal Bridge? @Longlivekings and partners seek answers Click To Tweet
LLTK began 30 years ago as a single project in a remote coastal watershed. As we celebrate our 30th anniversary, our work–and our impact–has expanded throughout the Pacific Northwest and now stretches into Canada. Throughout, our guiding principle has remained the same: the future of salmon is in our hands.