Climate change, drought, habitat alterations, and increasing water demands are leaving less water available for streams of the Pacific Northwest and for fish like salmon. As water levels drop, some small streams become fragmented, transforming from a ribbon of continuous habitat into a series of isolated pools. Fragmented streams may pose a serious threat to salmon. For example, juveniles that become stranded in small pools are at increased risk to overheat, starve, or be consumed by predators.
Healthy salmon populations can cope with fragmentation and recover from a bad drought-year. However, many salmon populations are endangered and face long-term drought. Land and resource managers are increasingly finding endangered salmon stranded in fragmented habitats, facing what is presumed to be certain death. Desperate to help, a small group of managers and conservation stewards are experimenting with fish rescue, capturing juvenile salmon from fragmented habitats and moving them to hatchery-like facilities until they grow large enough to go to sea.
There are growing demands to expand fish rescue programs, however no one has actually evaluated whether it is safe, effective, or feasible at scales that would have meaningful impact. This project aims to measure the effects of fish rescue at multiple life-stages and analyze the costs and benefits of applying this technique across the Northwest. The final product will be a tool that allows natural resource managers to evaluate the feasibility and effectiveness of fish rescue in the context of their specific watershed and salmon population.
