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Salmon Ecosystems
All Across Alaska right now--even under snow and ice several feet deep--salmon are forming up in billions of small eggs. It's the first stage in a life and journey that inspires wonder in people worldwide and brings food to the table of many an Alaskan. It's also the foundation of many of Alaska's ecological systems. At all freshwater stages--from egg to spawning adult--salmon play an essential role in bringing nutrients to the web of life. "The importance of salmon was driven home for me again on a recent float trip in Katmai National Park," says David Banks, director of the Alaska Chapter. "Everything was feeding on salmon--from
to the 24-inch rainbow trout and dolly varden we were catching. Even half a mile off the river, we found salmon carcasses dragged there by bears. Those carcasses are feeding the plants and trees, too." Over the course of a week floating American Creek, David and a small group of Conservancy donors and staff saw a great variety of wildlife, including nearly 70 brown bears. "You find yourself with a ten-pound rainbow on the line and a thousand-pound grizzly fishing downstream from you, and you realize there is truly no place like Alaska," says David. "We have such a conservation opportunity here, and salmon are the key." This past summer, the Conservancy and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) provided a grant to the Kenai Watershed Forum (KWF) to restore the Oilwell Road crossing area of Silver Salmon Creek, a tributary to Deep Creek on the Kenai Peninsula. Silver Salmon Creek provides critical spawning and rearing habitat for chinook and coho salmon. The Conservancy has worked closely with KWF on Kenai salmon habitat conservation since 1996. An undersized road culvert failed during a severe flood in late 2002, destroying the road crossing over Silver Salmon Creek and causing significant habitat damage downstream as roadfill washed into and reshaped the channel. By replacing the culvert with one of adequate size, restoring the stream channel to more natural characteristics, re-vegetating the floodplain, and stabilizing the bank, eight miles of stream have been re-opened for use by chinook and coho salmon as well as resident species such as rainbow trout and dolly varden. KWF led the restoration effort this summer with additional funding from the US Fish and Wildlife Service and the Alaska Department of Community and Economic Development. The Kenai Peninsula Borough and the Youth Restoration Corps provided in-kind support. Sharing the success of the Silver Salmon Creek project is part of the Conservancy’s effort to draw attention to the problem of improperly built culverts that block fish passage. Culverts can threaten salmon and other fish in a variety of ways. Perched culverts, where the outlet of the pipe is higher than the stream level, can create insurmountable waterfalls, especially for juvenile salmon. Water velocity also can thwart salmon, again juveniles in particular; water funneled through an undersized culvert, for example, often is moving too fast for the small fry. Culverts that are too small for fish passage—such as the original Oilwell Road culvert—are also likely too small for high water events and therefore a potential hazard to civil infrastructure and human life. In a 2001 survey of culverts at road-stream crossings on the Kenai Peninsula, 78% of the culverts were not adequate for fish passage. On the Tongass Forest, two-thirds of the logging road culverts are blocking fish passage on key streams. "We need to make this a priority in our private and public partnerships for salmon conservation," says David Banks. "This is the type of conservation work that benefits everyone. We can restore thousands of miles of otherwise excellent habitat for salmon by simply redesigning or replacing barrier culverts." The Conservancy is also developing new salmon watershed projects, based on its successful community work in the Kenai River Watershed. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service just awarded the Conservancy a grant to complete a rapid ecological assessment of the Susitna Watershed, perhaps second only to the Kenai in its popularity for salmon fishing and the accompanying pressures on habitat. In southwest Alaska’s Nushagak Watershed, the Conservancy is working with the Bristol Bay Native Association and the Nushagak and Mulchatna Watershed Council to develop a conservation vision for the roughly 4.5 million acre watershed—the traditional use area of local Native people. "Salmon are also the focus of this project; they are the heart of subsistence for the villages of the watershed and the heart of the region ecologically," says David. "Across Alaska, we are finding that by focusing on salmon, we can conserve a great number of species. The diversity of life in these Alaska systems—and our human communities—simply depend on thriving runs of wild salmon." |
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