Young Coho Salmon Return to Pine Gulch Creek for a Second Summer

For the second summer in a row, the San Francisco Bay Area Network's fisheries crew found juvenile coho salmon in Pine Gulch Creek at Point Reyes National Seashore. They are the young of adult salmon that came back to spawn in the creek the winter before. This July 2022 report comes from Natale Urquhart, a Watershed Stewards Program corpsmember with the network's salmonid monitoring program.

More than 300 coho were counted in Pine Gulch Creek this year, the highest raw count since monitoring began. NPS / Watershed Stewards Program corpsmember Tara Blake.

The numbers

The fish were found farther up the creek than in more than 15 years.

How the crew checks the habitat

Healthy conditions for young fish are key to coho recolonizing the creek, so the crew tracks them closely each summer:

1. Habitat survey. Walking the length of the creek with depth rods, measuring tapes and a mobile satellite database, crews measure and record every wet stretch that could hold young coho, producing a map of all available habitat.
2. Snorkel survey. Divers count fish in 25% of the pools (deep, slow water) and 10% of the flatwaters (shallow, slow water) to find which species are present and how many.
3. Measuring fish. Crews catch fish with nets and an electrofisher to weigh and measure them and confirm they are growing at a healthy rate.

After mapping habitat and counting fish, the crew nets and electrofishes to weigh and measure them. NPS / Watershed Stewards Program corpsmember Tara Blake.

What comes next

So far, conditions look good. Young coho that survive the summer and winter will head out to sea next spring as smolts. The hope is that some return as adults to keep a coho population going in Pine Gulch.

Sources

Based on "Juvenile Coho Found on Pine Gulch for the Second Summer in a Row," by Watershed Stewards Program corpsmember Natale Urquhart, San Francisco Bay Area Network, published by the National Park Service; rewritten in hubnx's own words.