Since 2021, the Kenai Watershed Forum has visited more than 50 streams and lakes throughout the central Kenai Peninsula to determine where anadromous fish, such as salmon, can be found. The initiative aims to increase the number of streams and rivers protected under the Alaska Fish and Game’s Anadromous Waters Catalog.
“They’re often places that we drive past every day but they don’t necessarily look like salmon habitat,” said Ben Meyer, environmental scientist at the Kenai Watershed Forum. “They tend to be fairly humble-looking streams and marshes.”
Deciding where to look is one of the most challenging aspects of the project. The nonprofit looks at maps of flowing water and overlays them with the Anadromous Waters Catalog to determine which bodies of water have not been identified.
On this particular day, Meyer visits West Mackey Lake, just outside of Soldotna. He suspects the lake may harbor juvenile salmon. He is assisted by Alexa Millward, Kenai Peninsula Engagement Coordinator for Trout Unlimited Alaska.
“It’s important to provide this extra protection for these streams,” Millward said. “Right now, these streams are not documented as anadromous, and so by us surveying and providing evidence that there’s baby salmon out here, that helps obtain more protection for these waters.”
After jotting down field notes and snapping a few photographs, the team takes a look at a map and decides to venture off to a nearby pond that has not yet been surveyed. On this day, the scientists find only stickleback fish in both bodies of water.
Meyer came back the following day with two volunteers, a mother and her 7-year-old daughter, to find four juvenile coho inside the traps at West Mackey Lake.
“That was really my first time catching those baby salmon,” said Lila Anderson, a first-time volunteer. She was joined by her mother, Sarah.
“Going back to the Watershed Forum and seeing the creeks and streams and ponds of where there actually is salmon and how far they have to travel to get back out into the ocean, it’s amazing,” Sarah said. “There’s probably more salmon than we even know in most of the lakes and streams that haven’t been studied yet.”
“I find this kind of work fascinating because it often gives people a new perspective on something that maybe they’ve driven past thousands of times, or would never have expected to see a salmon habitat until we show what’s there,” Meyer added. “It’s a way of getting people to participate and learn about what’s right under their feet or what’s right out their back door that they might not have known was there or been able to appreciate.”
Not far from the two bodies of water that were surveyed is a stream that was unintentionally disturbed by a local developer. Later added to the Anadromous Waters Catalog, surveying undocumented streams, lakes and rivers is crucial to protecting the salmon population on the peninsula.
With the help of volunteers, the Kenai Watershed Forum has documented over 15 miles of previously unknown salmon streams, all within a 30-minute drive of the nonprofit’s Soldotna office. Funding for this project is provided by the Alaska Sustainable Salmon Fund.
The Kenai Watershed Forum and Trout Unlimited Alaska will continue this field work next summer. If you are interested in volunteering, contact the Watershed Forum. You can also document any suspected anadromous waters by using the Fish Map App.
