Wednesday April 12, 2023
The Seattle Times —
Megan Moore slowly sliced open a half-inch of a young steelhead’s silvery belly. She pressed in a battery-like tube and stitched the fish up with two tiny sutures.
These acoustic tags, small sound-transmitting devices, allow researchers to track the movement of fish as they work their way down this creek and into Hood Canal.
Some of the 40 to 50 young steelhead tagged each week by Moore, a biologist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and her team will grow big and return to the stream to spawn after a few years.
But past tagging data showed half of the fish from monitored streams die at a human-made barrier: Hood Canal Bridge.