Thursday June 20, 2024
Fishermen’s News —
NOAA’s Office of Habitat Conservation says the numbers of threatened Upper Willamette River Chinook salmon are increasing, thanks to habitat restored in Oregon’s McKenzie River watershed.
In 2022, NOAA provided $1.7 million to the McKenzie River Trust in congressionally-directed community project funds to restore 150 acres of floodplain habitat at Finn Rock Reach, an important habitat for Chinook salmon.
An update issued by NOAA Fisheries on June 3 said that adult Chinook spawned in restored habitat last fall, laying eggs in 65 “redds” – gravel nests they scour out of the river bottom. A new generation of juvenile Chinook is now growing there and will eventually head downstream toward the ocean, they said.
McKenzie River Trust Restoration Projects Manager John Trimble said the limited habitat prior to restoration confined salmon to a small single channel.