From Alan Moore, TU national staff in PDX: Check out this video at the link below. This year has seen an unbelievable, off-the-charts return of ESA-listed wet n’ wild Oregon Coast coho to Thompson Creek, a conservation property and small spawning tributary of the Necanicum River literally on the outskirts of Seaside, owned and managed by our wonderful partners at the North Coast Land Conservancy.
Coincidentally – OR IS IT? – these booming returns correspond directly with the first year the NCLC took control of the property and when TU first arrived, which is also when the habitat work we did allowed the beavers to return and begin improving rearing habitat for the coho fry that emerged that year. Can we thank good ocean conditions and other factors for that in part? Absolutely. Are we taking better advantage of those ocean conditions by providing better habitat for those large numbers of fish returning now to spawn and rear to weather the next downturn in the ocean and elsewhere? I’d sure say so.
The carcasses alone from this year’s run could feed an army, provided that army was very, very hungry and without a keen sense of smell. To the skeptics who say small habitat projects don’t make a difference, or those who say many watersheds impacted by human development are too far gone to do wild fish recovery any good – we give you Thompson Creek:
