Hood Canal Salmon Enhancement Group (HCSEG) proposes to acquire approximately 297.12 acres of land within the Lower Big Beef Creek watershed on Hood Canal that is currently owned by the University of Washington. The area proposed for this ESRP acquisition consists of 50.7 acres of estuarine wetlands which are vital habitat for rearing and migration of the ESA-Listed Hood Canal Summer Chum Salmon. Big Beef Creek is one of four streams included in the Hood Canal Intensively Monitored Watershed (IMW) program, which centers on measuring the response of salmonid populations to specific habitat restoration actions as well as the mechanism driving observed responses. Since 2003, biologists from WDFW and Dept. of Ecology have been monitoring habitat conditions and salmonid population data within Big Beef Creek, including estimating adult escapements, redd counts, egg-to-fry survival, parr-to-smolt survival, and smolt productivity. Additionally, smolt out-migration and adult escapement data for Coho, Summer Chum, and steelhead has been collected at a weir situated in the mouth of Big Beef Creek since the 1970s. This weir sets harvest limits for Coho throughout the entire Puget Sound fishery. If this land acquisition is successful, HCSEG will continue to steward this land in a manner which facilitates the continued operation of this weir as well as initiate discussion with WDFW to determine appropriate restoration actions which will not affect this valuable monitoring effort in the future.