Returning Salmon Spawners
Adult Chum salmon begin returning each year to Pipers Creek at the end of October to the beginning of November after spending 3-5 years at sea in the Pacific Ocean. The first recorded sighting in 2015 was October 26. The first recorded sighting in 2016 was October 27. Visit this website for a good overview of a Timeline for Life Cycle, Growth, and Survival.
Spawning Survey & Count
Each Fall, Carkeek Watershed Community Action Project (CWCAP) enters the creeks and tributaries in the Pipers Creek Watershed to collect data from the salmon that naturally die after returning to the system. The primary objective is to determine the relative spawning success of salmon in Piper’s Creek and its largest tributary, Venema Creek. Spawning success over time is one measure of the health of the salmon run and the health of the creeks. Each Saturday beginning in late October to early November until the end of the salmon run (1st or 2nd week of December) you will see CWCAP investigators collecting data from deceased salmon. Data is compiled and submitted to local agencies to help understand the status of salmon in our urban creeks. Say hello when you’re at the park on Saturdays each fall. We’ll be there between 10am and early-to-mid afternoon.
For more detailed information related to this survey, contact CWCAP@CarkeekWatershed.org.
- Storm water flow rate: it is known that extreme energy and water volume associated with storm water moves dead adult salmon and recently nested eggs from the system to Puget Sound. Fish flushed from the system cannot be estimated and are not represented in this data.
- Predators/Scavengers: many salmon carcasses are found each Fall in the brush and wooded areas near the creeks. Without a comprehensive search, it is likely that the survey team misses numerous carcasses during surveys due to predators and/or scavengers that drag salmon from the near-creek vicinity and are therefore not represented in the data.
- This data represents all fish encountered and processed that have already died after entering Piper’s Creek and Venema Creek. Each Chum salmon dies in more or less 10 days after entering Pipers Creek’s freshwater, whether spawned or not. Since this survey opens each dead fish by incision along the belly to examine its relative spawning success, we can be certain that fish haven’t been double-counted from one week to another.
- * Resident and sea-run cutthroat trout are not part of the current survey design. The methods used in this survey do not accurately sample for the presence of resident cutthroat trout, but are listed here as incidental information only.
- Fish are sampled from dead carcasses taken from Pipers Creek and Venema Creek and returned to sample location.
CWCAP is a very local group of volunteers that also accomplishes the rearing, imprinting and release of 70-90,000 fish at the Imprint Pond every year (numbers vary) – some of which we are lucky enough to be able to tell park visitors about each fall. We could not do it, of course, without the Suquamish Tribe’s Grovers Creek Salmon Hatchery, SPU, Parks, Fish & Wildlife, the indomitable Carkeek Park Advisory Council (CPAC) and all the volunteers that help this park along to being the special place that it is.
Salmon Stewards
Carkeek Park Salmon Stewards are a community of local volunteers trained to welcome, engage, educate, and inspire park visitors drawn by the annual Piper’s Creek salmon run. They can be found in Carkeek Park on weekends (Saturdays & Sundays) 11am – 2pm, 1st week of November until the 1st week of December. Look for blue-vested stewards. They’ll know where the fish are, how many there are, and a lot about how there came to be a spawning population of Chum salmon in Piper’s Creek Watershed. Be sure to bring your family and friends. They’ll want to see this! The Salmon Stewards Program is brought to you by Seattle Public Utilities (SPU).