Recap of “Defining Salmon Habitat in Alaska” Presentation:
Earlier this month UFA SHIP hosted a meeting of the minds in Juneau to discuss current practices and emerging technologies for defining salmon habitat in Alaska.
Q: Why does habitat need to be defined and why does it matter to fishermen?
A: Salmon habitats are the natural environments where they live throughout various life stages. A species’ habitat is those places where it can find food, shelter, protection and mates for reproduction. Land and resource managers need to know where salmon habitat is so that development in those habitats is done with as little disturbance as possible. Fishermen need to know where salmon habitats are so we can weigh in on decision-making about projects that will impact habitat.
Q: So, how is salmon habitat defined in Alaska?
A: It is done differently by different agencies. In a nutshell:
- ADF&G: Under state jurisdiction habitat is defined by the Anadromous Waters Catalogue. If it is in the catalogue it is considered habitat. In order to be accepted to the catalogue a reach of stream must have documented two salmon in the same life stage in hand. Maps of catalogued waters can be found here.
- USFS: Under federal jurisdiction habitat can be modeled based on known habitat characteristics.
- Emerging Tech: Universities of Washington and Alaska have made exciting new discoveries about eDNA and habitat modeling with ear stones. eDNA allows researchers to identify presence or absence of salmon through water samples and otilith studies which extract habitat and migratory information from a salmons ear bone allow habitat models to be made that tell us where salmon habitat will be without having to incure the costs of actually going to every stream and river and capturing fish (the fish in hand method)