DESCRIPTION
This project was a continuation of the Asotin Creek multi-year IMW project. The project is an Intensively Monitored Watershed monitoring project. The project focused on three tributaries to the Asotin Creek in Southeast Washington. The tributaries are: Charley Creek, North Fork Asotin Creek, and South Fork Asotin Creek. The purpose of the project was to link salmon and steelhead responses to specific mechanisms related to habitat restoration. The fundamental approach was to treat restoration as an experiment and concentrate a large restoration effort in order to increase the likelihood of detecting a population increase. This type of project has increased our understanding of what restoration activities are most effective, demonstrated how changes in habitat influence survival of various life stages of salmon and steelhead, and has determine what magnitude of restoration is required to cause a significant population response, and ultimately provide information to better evaluate the efficacy of habitat restoration.
The restoration effort has been focused on summer run steelhead habitat. The funds for this grant award focused on continuing the IMW effort in the Asotin. Fish monitoring occurred in 12 sites, each 300-500m long, 4 in each tributary, with a cooperative effort with WDFW and continues in a subsequent project agreement funded by the PSMFC. Habitat monitoring occurs in 12 CHaMP sites in Charley and North Fork Asotin Cr, each 160-200m long. This project supports ESA listed steelhead recovery. All data will be made publicly available. Data analyses will be conducted with other funds.
Intensively Monitored Watersheds
1) Continue baseline monitoring of 12 permanent sites for fish abundance and habitat condition,
2) Implement restoration treatment plan based on approval of the plan by the Regional Technical Team
3) Monitoring a wide variety of response variables
Data Modeling and Analysis
1) Determine if certain aspects of habitat enhancements and restoration respond with correlating abundance and productivity of salmonids.