The Winter Rearing Bottleneck: Creating off-Channel Coho Habitat within a Constrained System

Seiad Creek is currently one of the most productive tributaries in the Middle Klamath Subbasin for coho salmon, however habitat complexity has been greatly degraded and simplified over time through human-caused channelization. The lower four miles of Seiad Creek historically migrated across a large floodplain, but through settlement and subsequent development, the creek channel has been constrained. Nearly all of this lower reach is levied by dozer constructed berms, pushed up by local landowners in response to flood events over the last thirty years. The result has been a continued incision of the creek, loss of floodplain connectivity, lowered water table, and almost no off-channel rearing habitat for Seiad Creek's overwintering coho juveniles. Recent studies in the Mid Klamath by the Karuk Tribe Fisheries Program point to a lack of winter rearing habitat as being a bottleneck for restoring coho salmon populations within the Middle Klamath Subbasin.

In response to these studies, landowner support, and restoration potential, the Mid Klamath Watershed Council (MKWC) is working in cooperation with the Karuk Tribe, the US Fish and Wildlife Service, Pacificorp, several private landowners, and local contractors to implement projects that will increase the quantity and quality of off-channel rearing habitat along Seiad Creek. In the summer of 2010, MKWC successfully completed construction of three Off-Channel “ponds” on separate pieces of private property, located adjacent to high quality summer rearing habitat within Seiad Creek. Each site maintains perennial connectivity with Seiad Creek, but functions mainly as winter rearing habitat. MKWC and the Karuk Tribe Fisheries Program have been monitoring water quality and fish usage throughout the winter of 2010, and preliminary estimates for February put populations in one pond at nearly 1,000 fish.

In 2011, MKWC hopes to continue with similar projects along Seiad Creek and other Mid Klamath tributaries. MKWC will be coordinating with the Karuk Tribe in 2011 and 2012 on a larger channel reconfiguration project within the lower two miles of Seiad Creek, adding off-channel habitat within a less constrained and more connected floodplain.