Watershed Council

The Bainbridge Island Watershed Council works on projects and actions that protect and improve the condition of the island's watersheds, shorelines, and related wildlife habitats through volunteer stewardship, educational outreach, and advising the city government on key issues.

PLEASE NOTE: when the watershed council moved their page to this website, an individual or group took the webpage name we used to use, biwatershedcouncil. That website is NOT our website any more. We do not know who this group is, but if you do, please let us know, because that person has not responded to our request to make it clear that they are not the same entity.

Upcoming Events

 All April long, the Bainbridge Island Watershed Council and other Sustainable Bainbridge Programs will be teaming up with several partnering organizations to bring you Earth Month Bainbridge Island! Earth Month incljudes events and activities all month long and offers something for everyone, including children and adults of all abilities.

Bainbridge Island Salmon Monitoring Program

The Bainbridge Island Watershed Council has completed their 13th annual spawning salmon monitoring season this year. This program monitors four streams on Bainbridge Island – Cooper Creek at the head of Eagle Harbor; two segments of Springbrook Creek; Manzanita Creek; and Murden Creek- for returning adult spawning and juvenile salmon. Volunteers conduct fish and redd (the nests in which salmon lay their eggs) surveys weekly for a two-month period each fall.

The vast majority of the returning adult salmon in the data below are coho. Cooper Creek is the exception as it is a primarily chum salmon-bearing stream as a result of supplementation work the Watershed Council did in partnership with the Suquamish Tribe from 2009 to 2012 to restore salmon to this stream from . This year we had our first sighting of a Chinook salmon in Manzanita Creek, which is likely a stray from the Grover's Creek terminal fish hatchery in Indianola. High returns of adults were seen in Springbrook and Manzanita this year, with very low returns on Murden Creek, and on Cooper. As Suquamish Coho net pens are currently active in Rich Passage, these higher returns on our west side streams may reflect some straying of salmon returning to the net pen area and entering our streams.

Redds were only observed in Springbrook Creek this year, where more than a dozen were observed. Our Springbrook monitoring reach is consistently where we have seen the most redd activity over time (see Figure below). We did not observe redds in our other stream reaches this year. This finding is not surprising for lower Manzanita Creek, as we are observing returning adults close to the mouth of this stream, and spawning is likely occurring further upstream. As both Cooper and Murden Creeks had very low numbers of adult salmon sited in these reaches, the lack of redds observed is unsurprising and fairly consistent with past years of few or no redds observed, though disappointing for us as we always hope to see signs of the next generation in our monitoring!

MINUTES AND AGENDAS

Our next meeting is scheduled for March 29, 7 - 8:30pm at the Marge Williams Center. Hope to see you there!

 January 2018 BIWC Minutes