Russian River Coho Salmon Population Monitoring

The Russian River Coho Salmon Captive Broodstock Program is working to supplement the wild Russian River Coho population in the hope of restoring it to a sustainable size. Since 2001, a collaborative partnership of public and private organizations have been breeding Coho salmon at Warms Springs Hatchery just below Lake Sonoma and releasing them as juveniles into local creeks that feed the Russian River.  UC Cooperative Extension and Sea Grant's role in the Coho program is to monitor the fish in the creeks to evaluate the efficacy of the program, and to apply advances in scientific knowledge to its management. Monitoring activities take place year-round, and include downstream migrant smolt trapping in the spring, direct observation snorkel surveys in the summer, and spawner surveys and adult trapping in the winter. We also maintain antennas in program creeks that detect Passively-Integrated Transponder tags within many of the program fish.