![\"beach860\"](\"https:\/\/www.thewildbeat.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/11\/beach860.jpg\")
<\/p>\nI’ve been monitoring the fish happenings at our local beach — the official “Fish Count” of returning salmon. I knew this park years ago when my family lived close by. It was a figment then of what it’s now become, restored to encourage Coho and Chum salmon to return up creek and spawn. The habitat provides things that salmon love: gravel for egg laying, logs for hiding, restored marshlands to cradle the creek.<\/p>\n
It’s a relatively small parcel. But as I acclimate to the Northwest in all of its splendor, I’ve come to appreciate these glimpses, however small, into the Puget Sound’s past — when this grand basin, fjord-like in structure and currents, was an estuary brimming with salmon, birds and other estuarine life.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Rehabbing salmon habitat is part of a grander action plan to revive the nature of Puget Sound — plans like the Shared Salmon Strategy<\/a>. I’ll write more about these local efforts in a future post.<\/p>\n For now, though, I’m all about the Fish Count.<\/p>\n When we first arrived, there were no fish. Well, I should say, no discernible, counted fish marked on the board. We saw some jumping fish in the duck pond. But the official word was: Fish Count = 0.<\/p>\n In October, the first bona fide fish showed up on the board. Fish Count = 9.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n When I first saw the sign, I looked for a docent or a researcher to ask about the counting methodology. Are they all spawned fish, found and accounted for? Do they remove the carcasses of dead salmon?<\/p>\n By whatever measure used, weeks later, the count was up to 19.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n We regularly walk creekside, looking for fish. But over the span of 15 acres, including sheltered and shaded areas of stream, they’re tough to find. I rely on the cartoon fish on the board to give me the news.<\/p>\n Tonight, I wandered down to the beach in the last waves of light. Usually, I’m alone, taking a shot of the Fish Count board in the community hall window. Today, though, I had friends on the boardwalk: chain-smoking bagpipe players and an efficiency catering crew. They were excited about the night’s gathering of the Clan MacRae . . . or was that MacQueen? I might have been the only one there interested in the fact that the Fish Count was up — way up!<\/p>\n But more intriguing was the new designation in the upper lefthand corner of the sign: “CSI.”<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Were they using 3D laser scanners now for their on-scene forensics? Did they dust for talon marks along the dorsal surface?<\/p>\n I didn’t see either of the two resident Bald Eagles, but it was well into evening roosting time. A few weeks ago, we watched one of the eagles fishing at the mouth of that creek<\/a>. The persistent vision I have is of the eagle hoarding his precious meal, away from hungry crows and gulls.<\/p>\n That image made me wonder about the CSI. And what if Bald Eagles had dry-erase markers?<\/p>\n Tonight, with the new designation “CSI” plugged into Google, I solved my mystery. CSI = Community Salmon Investigation<\/a>. It’s a team of volunteers, identifying salmon, dead and alive, and determining whether or not the salmon had a chance to spawn before dying.<\/p>\n I’m not sure how high the Fish Count will go. The Salmon Revival is quick becoming my newest Northwest nature passion.<\/p>\n Related Post:<\/b> Climbing the Salmon Ladder of Success<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I’ve been monitoring the fish happenings at our local beach — the official “Fish Count” of returning salmon. I knew this park years ago when my family lived close by. It was a figment then of what it’s now become, restored to encourage Coho and Chum salmon to return up creek and spawn. The habitat provides things that salmon love: gravel for egg laying, logs for hiding, restored marshlands to cradle the creek. It’s a […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8192,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[257,99],"class_list":["post-8168","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-fish","tag-salmon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ingridtaylar.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8168","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ingridtaylar.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ingridtaylar.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ingridtaylar.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ingridtaylar.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8168"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ingridtaylar.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8168\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ingridtaylar.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8168"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ingridtaylar.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8168"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ingridtaylar.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8168"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"fishcount9-600\"](\"https:\/\/www.thewildbeat.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/11\/fishcount9-600.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"fishcount19-600\"](\"https:\/\/www.thewildbeat.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/11\/fishcount19-600.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"fishcount53-500\"](\"https:\/\/www.thewildbeat.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/11\/fishcount53-500.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"eaglecount\"](\"https:\/\/www.thewildbeat.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/11\/eaglecount.jpg\")
<\/p>\n