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Idaho Fish and Game

Taylor Ranch Wilderness Research Station

Distance won’t stop us: monitoring salmon and steelhead in the middle of the Frank Church wilderness

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Way out in the Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness area, 30 miles from the nearest road, Idaho Department of Fish and Game (IDFG) staff are learning more about salmon and steelhead in one of the most wild places in the lower 48 states. At the University of Idaho’s Taylor Wilderness Research Station (pictured below), on Big Creek, IDFG technicians spend the summer operating a rotary screw trap to capture juvenile salmon and steelhead and learn more about their status in this wild landscape.

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Rotary screw traps capture juvenile salmon and steelhead on their way downstream to the ocean. Last year, the rotary screw trap on Big Creek (pictured below) captured over 5,000 out-migrating chinook salmon and over 1,000 steelhead. IDFG staff use the data generated from these traps to estimate how many juveniles are headed to the ocean in a given year, how old those juveniles are, and how genetically diverse they are. Staff also implant fish with PIT tags which allow us to monitor movement and survival of juvenile fish on their journey to the ocean and back (see Monitoring the Entire Journey of Wild Chinook Salmon).

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Big Creek is the largest tributary to the Middle Fork Salmon River, which is designated as a wild chinook salmon and steelhead refuge area. No hatchery salmon or steelhead are released in wild refuge areas, which helps maintain genetic integrity and diversity of wild stocks of fish. Conducting monitoring in these management areas gives researchers insight into how wild populations are doing in a pristine, relatively undisturbed watershed.

IDFG’s work on wild salmon and steelhead is just one piece of the large body of research that has been conducted at Taylor Research Station. Research at Taylor dates back to the 1970s and has ranged in diversity from NASA studying aerosols in the atmosphere, to studying mountain lions, rattlesnakes, and pigeons, to studying how wildfires affect the landscape. For more information on the Taylor Wilderness Research Station go to www.uidaho.edu/cnr/taylor-wilderness-research-station.

Read the latest news and information about wild fish in Idaho on our Wild Salmon and Steelhead pages at https://idfg.idaho.gov/fish/wild.