Stories and narratives describing interesting observations, research and management findings, news items and ____ within the Klamath River Basin.
April 15th, 2024– Unraveling the Journey of Coho Salmon in the Scott River Watershed
For the past eight years, the Scott River Watershed Council (SRWC) has been PIT-tagging juvenile Coho Salmon (Oncorhynchus kisutch) in both treated and untreated stream reaches. These fish have the potential to be detected passing through a network of stationary antennas placed throughout the watershed, or at an in-hand sampling event using a handheld tag reader. The data collected from these tag detections provide insight into how and when Coho Salmon use various rearing habitats and migration pathways.
In December of 2022, PIT antennas on the mainstem Scott River and French Creek detected an adult Coho Salmon returning to spawn in French Creek, its natal stream. This fish was tagged in a beaver dam analogue (BDA) habitat in Miners Creek, migrated out to the ocean and was detected 20 months later traveling up the Scott River and French Creek as an adult. To date, the sample size of returning adults tagged by SRWC has been rather small. However, we are hopeful that with continual effort and increased survival we may start to see trends in which types of rearing habitats are more successful in producing outmigrants that return to spawn.
