5th Annual Spring-run Chinook Symposium

Salmonid Restoration Federation (SRF) hosted the 5th Annual Spring-run Chinook symposium from July 22-23, 2010 in Chico, California.

SRF was pleased to offer this opportunity for local landowners, restorationists, fisheries biologists, and agency staff to participate in the Spring-run Chinook Symposium, which included field tours and presentations on problems and solutions specific to Spring-run Chinook. The Spring-run Chinook Symposium offered restoration practitioners training and networking opportunities on issues affecting California’s threatened Spring-run Chinook populations. Thursday tours included a tour of Upper Butte Creek salmonid habitat, hydroelectric influences and the Butte Creek Ecological Preserve, a tour of the Lower Feather River including Oroville Dam Visitor’s Center and Department of Water Resources Projects, and a Big Chico Creek tour of salmonid restoration projects. Later that evening, participants enjoyed a dinner social with symposium keynote speaker Lisa Thompson from UC Davis and UC Cooperative Extension who presented on Wilderness First Aid: Stabilizing Spring-run Chinook Populations While We Work Toward Recovery.

Friday tours included a Lower Butte Creek tour of the Western Canal, and some of the weirs that are being retrofitted by the Department of Water Resources. Chris Mosser, a graduate student from UC Davis, gave a presentation regarding Monitoring of Rescued Salmon in Lower Butte Creek. There was also be a tour of Deer Creek and Mill Creek Restoration Projects with Holly Savage of the Deer Creek Watershed Conservancy and a representative of The Nature Conservancy. The tour began at the Abbey of New Clairvaux included a brief overview of the Deer Creek Watershed Conservancy’s goals for salmonids in Deer Creek. During the tour, participated visited sites proposed for improvements in the Deer Creek Flood Corridor Protection Project.

Areas of the creek were visited where fish passage has been an issue, where participants discussed the Deer Creek Flow Enhancement Program (DCFEP) where local irrigators provide bypass flows for fish during low flow conditions. The DCFEP is designed to fulfill the water needs of local agriculture and domestic water users while achieving the fisheries flow objectives in Deer Creek and the groundwater protection requirements set forth by the Tehama County AB 3030 Groundwater Management Plan.