Salmon River Dives and Spring-run Chinook Symposium

Attendees at the Salmon River Dives and Spring-run Chinook symposium will have a chance for underwater exploration. (Photo: Scott Harding)

The Salmonid Restoration Federation and Salmon River Restoration Council are hosting the 2nd Annual Springrun Chinook symposium following the annual Salmon River Spring Chinook and Summer Steelhead Dives. This is a truly collaborative educational event with diverse symposium co-sponsors including the Department of Fish and Game, Klamath tribes, the Mid- Klamath Watershed Council, US Fish and Wildlife Service, US Forest Service, and the Bureau of Reclamation.

SRF is pleased to offer this opportunity for local landowners, restorationists, tribes, fisheries biologists and agency staff to participate in the Salmon River Dives and the Chinook Symposium including workshops, field tours and presentations on problems and solutions specific to Spring-run Chinook. The event kicks off with a dive safety training on Tuesday, July 24, and the actual dives or a Salmon River Education and Exploration workshop on July 25. A locally organized event, the dives bring together a coalition of agency personnel, tribal members, and concerned citizens who form small teams to dive the entire Salmon River in order to get the best possible estimate of the salmonids holding in the Salmon River. The Salmon River Surveys are a focal point in the effort to protect and restore Klamath Spring Chinook, bringing together communities, tribes, academia and agencies in a cooperative approach to recovery.

The Spring-run Chinook Symposium offers restoration practitioners training and networking opportunities on issues affecting California’s threatened Springrun Chinook populations. The Thursday symposium will begin with an orientation with several Klamath tribe speakers followed by three concurrent field tours. The Karuk Tribe will host a Traditional Management Practices and Current Restoration Techniques tour, including road decommissioning, riparian restoration and forestry management for fire fuels reduction. Toz Soto, Leroy Cyr and Will Harling will lead a Mid- Klamath Mainstem Thermal Refugia Float, with a discussion of refugia use and importance, creek mouth enhancement, and salmonid identification. Petey Brucker and Nat Pennington of the Salmon River Restoration Council will lead a workshop and tour about community approaches to restoration of Salmon River Spring Chinook that will include a snorkel tour. Thursday evening will include a FERC relicensing and Klamath Dam removal presentation with Kelly Catlett from Friends of the River, Craig Tucker, Karuk Tribe, and Mike Belchik, fisheries biologist with the Yurok tribe.

Friday will begin with an “Overview of Spring Chinook Salmon in California” by Dr. Peter Moyle, author of Inland Fishes of California. Petey Brucker from the Salmon River Restoration Council will discuss Spring Chinook on the Spring Chinook Voluntary Recovery Program. Concurrent sessions will include “All about Spring Chinook” focusing Chinook Stock Identification, life history investigations, and limiting factors, Fish Disease including Cal- Nevada Fish Health Lab and Hoopa Tribal presenters, and Spring Chinook of the Trinity River. Another presentation will follow entitled, “Spring Chinook Reintroduction in the Klamath River Basin and the Importance of Having a Metapopulation” with fisheries biologists from the Klamath tribes.

Salmon River Dive participants will receive diving and white water safety training on July 24 to prepare for the annual Spring-run diving counts on July 25. (Photo: courtesy of Salmon River Restoration Council archives)

The symposium will conclude with a panel discussion about Klamath Basin Spring Chinook Conservation Management with moderators Will Harling, Petey Brucker, and presenters from the symposium. The overarching question that participants and presenters will discuss is: “What do we need to do to create a conservation strategy and management objectives for Spring Chinook in the Klamath River Basin?”

After the symposium, folks can migrate to the Jammin’ for the Salmon music festival at Forks of Salmon.

So come for the Dives and the Symposium, do underwater networking while counting the last of the wild Klamath spring Chinook, then stay Friday night and Saturday, July 27 and 28 for the “Jammin’ for the Salmon” benefit concert. For more information about this exciting event please check out the Salmonid Restoration website at www.calsalmon.org or www.srrc.org or call (530)462-4665.