The Reserve will be installing a weir made of floating PVC plastic panels. King and silver salmon migrating upstream will be trapped on the downstream side of the weir. All fish will be counted, and a sub-sample of fish will be measured for length, girth and sex; a body scale will also be collected so that the fish can be aged. The weir technicians are careful to handle the fish gently so they can continue their upstream journey unharmed.
In addition to monitoring fish, we will also be sampling water chemistry at the weir site. Both living and dead fish release nutrients into the water. Living fish expel wastes as part of their bodily functions, and dead fish decompose. We intend to find out if it's possible to use changes in water chemistry as a measure of fish numbers in the streams. The weir and the water chemistry sampling are part of a larger project that the Reserve is initiating this summer to look at the effects of marine derived nutrients in a watershed.
Sponsored by the Kachemak Bay Research Reserve www.kbayrr.org
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