An Annual Checkup for Puget Sound
Every year, Long Live the Kings joins in an ongoing offshore monitoring effort in Puget Sound led by The Tulalip Tribes in partnership with USGS. The crew gathers important biological information from salmon and other marine life to get a snapshot of marine health and to learn more about what’s causing the persistent low marine survival rates for salmon.
The Tulalip Tribes are leading five years of monitoring surveys focused on juvenile salmon and Pacific herring (their key food source) during the critical summer growth period in Puget Sound. These surveys will be the foundation for a long-term regional monitoring program of salmon and their food web.
These surveys are like an annual doctor’s visit for Puget Sound salmon: sampling juvenile salmon gives an early indication of how well different populations are doing during their critical first summer in salt water. By collecting data about salmon, their prey, and other environmental conditions at the same time, we can paint a clearer picture of the complex ecosystem that is Puget Sound. Understanding the marine factors that limit salmon returns is critical to informing habitat, harvest, and hatchery management and evaluating current salmon recovery efforts, especially with the increasingly uncertain impacts of climate change.
The research team spends two weeks each year on a purse seiner fishing vessel, traveling from the San Juan Islands to the southern end of Puget Sound and Hood Canal. They sample both fish and general environmental conditions at up to 18 locations, covering salmon populations from more than 10 watersheds. In addition to abundance, age, and growth data on salmon, the study is collecting essential information about salmon diets and food supply. This means looking at what salmon have in their stomachs (using non-lethal methods on ESA-listed species like Chinook). It’s a good sign when they see plenty of energy-rich fish, especially herring, both in the sample net and in salmon stomach contents!
At each sample site, researchers follow the protocols of the Zooplankton Monitoring Program to provide a snapshot of the base of the food web while collecting environmental data.
Linking this environmental data to the health and diets of salmon is critical to developing indicators that help us track the Puget Sound ecosystem over time.
We are urgently pursuing sustainable funding to support a long-term collaborative monitoring program to provide robust data and support sustainable management options for all Puget Sound salmon stocks in a changing environment.