Newly renovated spawning channel
Partnership and Outreach Projects at Big Beef Creek Field Station
In 1998-1999, a multi-disciplinary team of scientists from Point No Point Treaty Council, UW, WDFW, USFWS, and NMFS, along with representatives of Kitsap County and the Hood Canal Salmon Enhancement Group, developed a three-phase plan to restore Big Beef Creek as an important stream for threatened Summer Chum. The Salmon Recovery Funding Board has funded all three of these projects. As of October 2000, Phase I and Phase II are completed and Phase III is in progress.
- Phase I: Big Beef Creek Summer Chum Restoration Project, $165,000
Phase I was focused on re-establishing a spawning channel to provide a means of re-establishing the run through judicious and monitored use of supplementation. Phase I also gathered data for assessing hydrology in the lower basin to guide future large-scale restoration efforts.
- Phase II: UW Research Station Wetlands Restoration Project, $100,000
Phase II of the project re-located the station's freshwater well, enabling the reconnection of a 30-acre wetland with Big Beef Creek (Phase III).
- Phase III: Big Beef Creek Preservation Project, $160,000
Phase III will work on preservation and restoration of a 30 acre wetland on the west side of Big Beef Creek upstream of the UW facilities by removal of an existing roadway to open up the wetlands to the creek's floodplain. This will restore some of the natural function of the wetland system for the creek, including sediment entrapment and salmon habitat.
- Chinook hatchery project
- Hatchery renovation project
- Salmon Release Day
- Nearshore habitat study in the Hood Canal organized by the Point No Point Treaty Council involves mapping eel grass growing on the inner tidal areas of the Hood Canal. Students and other volunteers will survey habitat of twenty streams in Kitsap County from June through September 2000. The stream habitat assessment survey will provide data on nearshore (estuary) modifications, channel type, streambed composition, adjacent land-use, bankfull flow width and depth, outfalls, fishes observed, canopy cover %, LWD (number and type), streambank stability and riparian zone condition. Training for volunteers was held at Big Beef Creek Research Station on June 3, 2000. This project is under the direction of Chris May, Ph.D., Environmental Scientist, Randi Thurston, Stream Team Specialist, and Renee Beam, Shorelines Manager for Kitsap County Department of Community Development.
See:
Kitsap County Beaches: Hows low can you go? Bremerton Sun Article, July 2, 2000
- Kitsap County Stream Team
contact Randi Thurston, Stream Team Specialist, (360) 337-7290 or (800) 825-4940
- Volunteer training for Salmon Web macroinvertebrate sampling, August 12, 2000
- Plant collections for Stream Team ecosystem aquarium exhibit, Kitsap County Fair, August 22-27, 2000
Hood Canal Salmon Sanctuary
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