USFWS Internship & Mentoring Programs - 2013

Hello, my name is Travis Hedrick. I am a senior at The Evergreen State College (TESC) in Olympia, Washington, and an intern for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS). I just started this full-time internship and I’ve already taken part in a few adventures including salmon snorkel surveys on the Big Quilcene River!  Other future learning opportunities will include fish hatchery support, estuary sampling and stream electrofishing. All of these experiences will prove to be beneficial as I move toward completing my bachelor’s degree in environmental sciences from TESC. I have learned much from the college in the fields of environmental studies and biology but nothing rivals the real-world experience I will gain from this internship.  

My internship with the USFWS also includes a youth education component. I am looking forward to applying the knowledge I have obtained from both my classroom and field experiences as I lead learning activities covering fish anatomy (fish dissections), river morphology, and salmon life history. As I lead these activities I will strengthen my ability to articulate biological concepts to the public as well as reinforce my existing understanding of them. This program is also a great way to connect youth with nature and to promote interest in the conservation process. I am excited to have the opportunity to give back to my community as well as inspire future advocates and enthusiasts.

I am confident this internship will help me gain a better understanding of the inner workings of fisheries biology and ecology work. This internship will also help me forward my education goals, strengthen my interpersonal skills, and diversify my as work place experience. All of which will prove to be essential as I begin my transition from student to professional.

I never would have guessed that I would be earning college credits while swimming with local trout and salmon populations!

 

Coho Salmon Passage - Feeding the Quilcene River Ecosystem



Releasing adult coho salmon
above the hatchery weir

Like many hatcheries, Quilcene National Fish Hatchery (located on the Olympic Peninsula) is equipped with a weir. A weir is similar to a dam, except that a weir controls the upstream flow of fish instead of controlling the downstream flow of water. At Quilcene NFH, the weir blocks returning adult coho salmon so that the hatchery can collect the number of fish it needs to breed future salmon generations and provide fish to its affiliated tribes for subsistence. In addition to these human needs, the ecosystem upstream of the hatchery needs fish, too.

Over the last 10 to 20 years, scientists have found that naturally-spawning salmon provide a myriad of ecological benefits to aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems, including delivering nutrients as natural fertilizers and serving as "ecosystem engineers" while digging their nests in the bottom of the stream. To help meet these ecosystem needs, our office is working with Quilcene NFH to intentionally pass adult coho salmon upstream of the weir.

This year, our target is to pass a total of 800 coho salmon over the weir. September 19 marked our first passage day when we released 170 fish into the Big Quilcene River above the weir.

A tagged coho salmon to be released above the hatchery weir. 
(Note the yellow tag near the rear of the dorsal fin.)

In addition to passing fish, we are also evaluating what these fish do and where they go afterward. To accomplish this, we tag the fish prior to release and later survey the river and streams to identify where the fish spawn and how many stay upstream versus return to the hatchery. We’ll write more about these evaluations later, but for now we are happy to see salmon spawning in the Big Quilcene River and delivering much-needed nutrients to support the ecosystem that also includes federally-listed Puget Sound steelhead.

  

How Many Salmon Live in a River?



Screw trap in the Big Quilcene River

It’s that time of year again when young Big Quilcene River coho salmon (smolts) begin to outgrow the home they have lived in for the past year. Soon they will begin to make their way downstream and into Hood Canal where they will find habitat that will allow them to continue to grow. The fish will spend up to 2 years there, out of the fresh water of the Big Quilcene River, eating and growing to adult size.  Some of these fish will return to the river after only 1 year; these fish are called jacks. The majority, though, will return after spending 2 full years in the ocean.
 

Staff preparing to install trap

To monitor the number of juvenile smolts leaving the river and going out to the salt water, we installed a trap that gently collects fish as they swim downstream. The trap we installed is a screw trap; it is made of a metal cone in the shape of a funnel that spins in the water. This type of trap allows fish to be funneled through the trap into a live box where they are held. The cone and live box are suspended on the water by two pontoons. An employee from our office will check the trap daily and take data on any fish caught in it. Any coho smolts caught in the trap are tagged and then released to complete their journey to the ocean. This tag will allow us to identify these fish when they return as adults. 

The trap will remain in the Big Quilcene River for the next couple of months, the entire time period when fish are headed out of the river to the ocean.  From the data collected during this time, we will be able to determine how many coho salmon left the Big Quilcene River for the ocean and how many fish call the Big Quilcene River home.

Looking upstream at the screw trap

Checking in on Quilcene Coho Salmon!

A month has passed since staff from our office and Quilcene National Fish hatchery released the first group of coho salmon juveniles (fry) into the upper portion of the Big Quilcene River (see January 11 post).

We recently took a trip to the river to see where the fish have moved and to see if they are feeding and growing since leaving the hatchery. Our hope was that, once in the river, many of these fry would move around to find suitable shelter and food so they would stay healthy and continue to grow. And since we recorded the locations where fish were released, we were able to go back and see how many decided to stay where we planted them and how many had moved away. This information is important for several reasons--first, it allows us to determine if we are releasing the fry into areas that are good for growing coho salmon; and second, we can determine how many fry we can release into the area without overcrowding them.

There are several ways that biologists and technicians at our office count fish in streams and lakes. One way that is preferred by our office is to perform a snorkel survey. This method does not harm the fish because they are never caught with nets and handled. Visual counts by snorkeling are performed while the fish are active at night--this is when the fish come out of hiding from the stream banks and bottom to search for food in open water. The fish are less startled during the night and we can often swim beside them and watch as the coho look for insects and other natural food to drift by in the open water areas of the stream.

 

During our recent trip to the Big Quilcene River, we were able to snorkel several areas where we had planted juvenile coho this year and the findings were positive. Many of the fry moved downstream from the release locations and are now using more of the river to feed and grow; however, many of the fry found a suitable home right where we released them. The coho salmon fry all looked healthy as we swam around watching them search for and munch on natural food items. As the fry continue to grow, they will move further apart from each other, ensuring that they will have plenty of food and shelter. Hopefully they will keep growing and eventually leave the Big Quilcene River for Hood Canal and the Pacific Ocean before returning a few years later as 8- to 20-pound adult salmon.

Coho Fry Released in the Big Quilcene River

It‘s that time of year again when young salmon begin to hatch out from their eggs. Around western Washington, coho salmon fry are beginning to emerge from the bottoms of rivers to search for food and shelter. 

Coho fry in the Big Quilcene River are no different; this year they just need a little help finding a home above the hatchery. For numerous reasons, no adult coho salmon were allowed to pass above the hatchery to spawn this year. This, however, did not stop staff at Quilcene National Fish Hatchery from ensuring that there would be plenty of juveniles to occupy the river upstream. With some hard work and a little extra care, the hatchery staff was able to rear and hatch several thousand fry. The goal was to plant these fry in sections of the river above the hatchery where adult fish were not able to spawn.

With the help of staff from our office, over 25,000 fry were released last week in several locations in the Big Quilcene River to find shelter and food. Small aquatic insects flourish in these sections of the river and are prime locations for providing the fry with plenty of food to grow. As these fish grow, the need for larger food will increase and they will move farther away from their release site. Eventually they will move out to Hood Canal and then out to the Pacific Ocean.

As adults, these fish will return to the Big Quilcene River where they, too, will have the opportunity to produce offspring that can enjoy the bounty of this magnificent river.  

Coho Salmon Are Back in the Upper Big Quilcene River

Quilcene National Fish Hatchery, situated on the picturesque Big Quilcene River, has been raising coho salmon for many decades. During this time, most returning coho adults have been intercepted at the hatchery and used for human consumption and raising more fish. In recent years, a few adult coho have been allowed to pass upstream of the hatchery.

These practices are changing, however.  Managers have recognized that passing fish upstream of the hatchery has many benefits: River habitat can be used for natural production of coho salmon; coho eggs, juveniles, and decomposing carcasses in the river have many food web and ecosystem benefits; and people just plain like to see salmon spawning naturally in our rivers and streams!  In 2008 and 2009, hatchery managers allowed 200 adult coho to move upriver. During this time, USFWS biologists performed spawner and carcass surveys to evaluate how successful these fish were at spawning. We also performed snorkel surveys and installed a screw trap to evaluate rearing success of the juveniles.  


USFWS biologist checks the screw trap for fish

A screw trap (see picture) has a rotating cone that captures fish moving downstream. Fish are held in a live box at the back of the trap where they wait to be removed, identified, and measured by a biologist. Although it might look a little scary, these traps are actually very gentle on the fish.

So far, results have been encouraging. In the spring of 2010, we estimated that 1,000 to 2,500 outmigrating smolts resulted from the 2008 spawners. Not bad for a system recognized as having minimal spawning and rearing habitat! We will be continuing our studies next spring to see what results from the adults passed in 2009. Sadly, for various reasons, no adults were passed upstream this year. Nonetheless, passing coho upstream to spawn naturally is something we plan on doing every year as standard practice.


Andrew measures, weighs, and marks the fish captured in the screw trap



Pacific Lamprey - An Unusual Fish

Pacific lamprey being measured

With the decline of lamprey in many rivers of the Washington Coast work is being conducted by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to better understand why.

One type of lamprey that is of special concern is the Pacific lamprey. Lampreys are an unusual fish that resembles an eel, even though they are not related. They are a very important food source to fish, birds and mammals. Pacific lampreys spend more than half of their life buried in sandy or muddy spots of the river. Like a salmon, when the timing is right, young lampreys will move from their home in the river to the waters of the Pacific Ocean. Adults will return to the rivers and move upstream to lay eggs after spending a couple of years at sea.

Work on the Big Quilcene River has begun to see how well the lampreys are doing. To do this, lampreys are coaxed out from the river bottom using a mild electrical current that stuns them long enough to be captured. After a few measurements are taken on each lamprey, the fish are released unharmed at the same spot in the river where they were captured.

Looking for lamprey in the Big Quilcene River