Salmon watchers gain new appreciation for finned `survivors'

You hear them coming before you see them.

Powerful tails slapping shallow water, a pair of sockeye salmon rounds a bend in Cottage Lake Creek southeast of Woodinville.

They pass under the wooden footbridge. The male's bright-red hump rises above the water's surface. His teeth protrude and his snout points upward. His partner is smaller and she's a deeper, cranberry hue. Her belly is swollen with eggs.

They disappear upstream where they'll build a redd - the fish equivalent of a nest - spawn, and die.

They're early this year, says Dick Schaetzel, a Woodinville electrician, who has spent several autumns recording the annual return of Puget Sound salmon to the creeks and streams around his home.

Schaetzel is a salmon watcher, one of 150 volunteers who provide information on the number, species and sex of spawning fish to King County officials and scientists with the state Department of Fish and Wildlife. He also counts the number of fish carcasses; salmon die within days of spawning.

The program is a collaboration with Snohomish County, the Muckleshoot Indian Tribe and other agencies. Biologists analyze the information to determine the health of the region's waterways and propose policies for protecting fish and their habitat.

The Lake Washington and Lake Sammamish watersheds have been the focus of King County's program since 1996, says Michael Murphy of the county's Water and Land Resource Division. The county also wants to have watchers along the Green and Duwamish watersheds in the future.

Not only do volunteers provide a valuable service for understaffed state and county departments, Murphy says, they also become conscious of nature's precarious balance playing out in their own back yards.

"We want people to get closer to our natural resources," Murphy says. "If someone goes to Bear Creek one year and sees 30 chinook, and the next year only sees four, it becomes a lot more real to them."

Twice a week, Schaetzel and his dog Licorice make their rounds, visiting his assigned areas along Bear, Colins, Struve and Cottage Lake creeks.

This year's run - beginning with sockeye salmon and followed by black-spotted chinook, and coho, with their dark backs and red sides - is weeks early. So early, in fact, that Schaetzel hasn't yet received his pack of data-collection forms from the county.

It's the largest run Schaetzel has seen in four years.

Environmental efforts to improve water quality and habitat may have little to do with the number of salmon returning, says Schaetzel, who has an environmental-science degree from the University of Montana. More likely, it's a natural cycle since these fish are the progeny of the last big run in 1996.

"The last three years have been very disappointing, very dismal," says Schaetzel, standing on the concrete bridge at the entrance of the Tolt Pipeline Trail in the same area of East King County. The bridge overlooks Bear Creek, where dozens of sockeyes rest on the colored stones. "These salmon have a three- to four-year life cycle and every fourth year seems to be a great run."

Returning now to the waters of their birth, salmon pairs swim upstream looking for cool spots to build their redds. The female lays her eggs; the male fertilizes them by swimming over the redd. For three or four days, they'll protect their nest from predators, namely trout. Then they die.

Around February, their young will hatch. The young sockeyes will stay in the creek for a couple months, migrate to Lake Washington and stay for a year or so before heading out to the ocean. Chinook spend less than a year in freshwater streams before heading out to sea; coho stay up to two years. In three to five years, those that survive will be back to spawn.

But the odds are against them.

A female salmon can lay 10,000 eggs. Of those, only 10 percent will make it to saltwater. And of that total, only 10 percent will make the return trip.

"I'm fascinated with these fish because they're real survivors," Schaetzel says.

"It's just an incredible cycle, an amazing journey."

Sara Jean Green's phone number is 206-515-5654. Her e-mail address is sgreen@seattletimes.com.

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If you go

If you want to see salmon, you still have plenty of time in coming months. Salmon will be returning to Washington streams to spawn from now until November or December. Don't walk in creeks or streams or allow dogs in the water; salmon redds are easily destroyed.

-- To watch salmon at the Tolt Pipeline Trail just outside of Woodinville, follow Highway 520 east to its end in Redmond and continue driving on Avondale Road Northeast for about four miles. Turn right onto Northeast 132nd Street (also called Bear Creek Road Northeast) and go almost two miles, then turn right onto Mink Road Northeast. Almost immediately, turn right onto Northeast 148th Street. Park at the end of Northeast 148th Street and walk up the trail to the bridge.

-- In Seattle, check out Pipers Creek that runs through Carkeek Park near Northwest Carkeek Park Road and Northwest 116th Street. Also, there are still plenty of salmon moving up the fish ladders at the Ballard Locks.

-- If you want to become a volunteer salmon watcher next fall, contact Michael Murphy, King County Water and Land Resource Division, 206-296-8008. To learn about other salmon viewing locations, see the Web site: http://dnr.metrokc.gov/wlr/pi/salmonview.htm.

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