By Joe Scordino
November 23, 2024
Shell Creek Residents:
As many of you have noticed in your creek, we are having a banner year in the numbers of adult chum salmon returning to Shell Creek.
I want to THANK YOU for allowing the Edmonds Stream Team to continually access your property in the fall to collect data on the salmon run. We’ll be continuing our salmon surveys into mid-December when most of our observations will probably shift to just examining dead salmon to collect data on their spawning success (we’re currently still seeing ‘new’ arrivals as well as dead spawned-out salmon).
The data we’ve collected has come to good use. You’ll see in the linked news article below that the Edmonds Stream Team was able to “come to the rescue” to resolve a fish passage problem for spawning salmon in Shell Creek. We were able to obtain an emergency permit ONLY because we had the habitat and salmon abundance data to justify taking immediate action. Normally, the WA Dept. of Fish and Wildlife would not allow instream work during the salmon migration – – but I had the data (from our surveys on your property) to justify an emergency permit.
So… THANK YOU for your cooperation and support of the Edmonds Stream Team (and reporting your observations to me). You have made a big difference for our local salmon population!