Author: John Brock

Posted: May 20, 2018

Link to My Edmonds News Article

Edmonds-Woodway High School’s Students Saving Salmon Club were out in Shell Creek on Saturday releasing juvenile coho salmon in Yost Park, along Sprague Avenue, near Holy Rosary Church, and along Brookmere Drive.

The students netted about 1,000 small salmon from the pond at the Willow Creek Hatchery and moved them into their natural habitat in Shell Creek.  Streamside residents and others joined the students in trying to spot the small salmon swimming free in the creek after release.
   
Students worked with Walter Thompson, Trout Unlimited’s volunteer hatchery manager, to help raise these coho salmon from eggs that were brought to the Willow Creek Hatchery in December 2017.  Once the eggs hatched, the small salmon were placed in the hatchery pond in February, and students participated with other community volunteers in daily feedings of the 50,000 small salmon in the pond.  After growing to about 2-3 inches long in the hatchery, the small coho salmon are released to streams where they will live until next spring when they begin migration to the ocean.  Coho salmon will grow in the ocean for two years and return as adults to these streams to spawn.

EWHS Students Saving Salmon club has been working to restore salmon runs in Edmonds through water quality monitoring, stream surveys, habitat restoration, and bolstering declining salmon runs through release of juvenile salmon into Edmonds streams. 

“Shell Creek does have good water quality and habitat for salmon, but adult coho salmon cannot reach the upper areas of Shell Creek to spawn due to obstacles in the creek such as a 5-foot man-made waterfall located near Glen Street and 7th Avenue,” said club advisor Joe Scordino, a retired fisheries biologist. “The juvenile coho salmon placed in Shell Creek will grow in the good habitat and return back to the creek as adults to spawn in the lower areas of the creek thus bolstering the population. “

Students hope to continue enhancing the wild salmon population with juvenile releases until such time that passage obstacles can be removed and the natural population increases, Scordino said.

Posted: April 3, 2017
By Larry Vogel

Link to My Edmonds News article

The Edmonds-Woodway High School Students Saving Salmon Club took advantage of Monday’s beautiful spring weather to dig in — literally — on their latest project to enhance salmon habitat in Edmonds.

“Shell Creek is an important piece of salmon habitat that runs right through Edmonds,” said club advisor Joe Scordino. “It runs through backyards, under roadways, and past numerous homes and businesses, but most importantly, it supports vital runs of Sockeye, Coho and Chum salmon. These fish not only pass through Edmonds but actually build redds (nests), spawn, lay eggs, and hatch their young right in our community.”

A retired biologist, Scordino volunteers as an advisor to the Students Saving Salmon Club. A hands-on kind of teacher, Scordino jumps right in alongside the students providing a great example of enthusiasm and dedication.

This week the club is working on habitat enhancement along a section of Shell Creek that passes through the residential Brookmere neighborhood. Monday saw them at the home of Sandra Centala.

“When I first saw this property twelve years ago, the salmon stream really hooked me,” Centala said. “For years I’ve watched the salmon come up the creek, fight their way past the several low waterfalls on my property, and complete their spawning ritual right in my own backyard. It is absolutely thrilling. I never get tired of witnessing this miracle of nature.”

But in the past four to five years, Centala has noticed fewer salmon in Shell Creek.

“When I first moved in, there were often six to eight pairs at a time waiting in line to jump the waterfalls,” she said. “But the numbers have been down recently.”

According to Scordino, part of the reason could be the condition of the shoreline. Right now it’s a grassy lawn that needs regular mowing and contributes a certain amount of runoff to the stream. He and the students are addressing this by planting native shrubs including Snowberry, Mock Orange, and Red-flowering Currant along the stream course.

“Once these plants get established, they’ll enhance the habitat in several ways,” he says. “In addition to slowing runoff and thereby enhancing the quality of the water that enters the stream, they’ll provide habitat and cover for wildlife including birds and at least one family of river otters that calls this section of Shell Creek home.”

This project is funded by the Rose Foundation and will include other properties in the Brookmere neighborhood.

— Story and photos by Larry Vogel