Cooper Creek Salmon Supplementation Program

The Cooper Creek Salmon Supplementation Program began in 2009 and ran through 2012 as joint effort between the Watershed Council, the City of Bainbridge Island, and the Suquamish Tribe.

Installing the piping to bring water to the raceway

Volunteers installing the fish raceway

The Salmon Supplementation Program Is Completed!

The Bainbridge Island Watershed Council, in partnership with the City of Bainbridge Island and the Suquamish Tribe, has completed the final year of a four-year project to bring back salmon to Cooper Creek at the head of Eagle Harbor on Bainbridge Island. Thanks to our amazing volunteers, and a special thanks to several wonderful high school exchange students, we held and cared for about 14,000 fish and released them into Cooper Creek.

Click here to read a summary of this year's program.

More information about this program

This program aimed to restore a self-sustaining run of chum salmon to Cooper Creek at the head of Eagle Harbor. Cooper Creek was impassible to fish for many years because of an impoundment that was located in the stream bed so that the stream could be used used as an early drinking water source for Winslow in the first half of the 20th century. In 2001, the City removed the impoundment and replaced it with a fish passable culvert. We have been monitoring this stream since 2005 as part of our Salmon Monitoring Program, and have only observed a few adult returning salmon to the stream since the inception of monitoring. This decline in returns of salmon to this stream is likely a combination of the many years during which the stream was impassible, so that the stream eventually lost its natal run and salmon that were keyed to return to this stream, combined with larger-scale declines in salmon around the Sound that reduce the number of strays or wandering salmon that might recolonize the stream.
Each year, volunteers installed an on-site fiberglass tank that can hold several thousand salmon. Water was piped through PVC tubing from an intake screen located a few hundred feet upstream, so that the hydraulic pressure forced a good flow of clean water through the tank, keeping conditions oxgenated and healthy for salmon.

Baby chum salmon were provided by the Suquamish Tribe from their Cowling Creek Hatchery. Volunteers fed the salmon every day, 3 times a day; its a lot of work to feed these baby salmon! But by feeding them, we can increase the chance that they will return to our stream as adults by about an order of magnitude, because keeping them safe from predators and raising them past this very vulnerable small size makes a huge difference to their survival.

Volunteers installing the raceway for the suppmentation program

Releasing salmon:

We target a minimum of 10,000 Salmon to be released each year from this program, and expect a 1% or so return rate, so about 100 salmon per year that should return starting in fall 2012. We look forward to what we hope is a self-sustaining run of salmon on Cooper Creek thereafter!

This program would not be possible without all of our incredible volunteers, and without the fantastic guidance and help from the Suquamish Tribe. But to continue to ensure the future of this run and all salmon on Bainbridge Island, we need everyone's help, including you! By protecting our watersheds and groundwater that feeds our streams, keeping pollutants out of our waters, and supporting salmon protection, you are vitally important to the future of our salmon too.