Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Units Program: Alaska
Education, Research and Technical Assistance for Managing Our Natural Resources

This project describes research and monitoring work to be done at Coal Creek (Yukon-Charley Rivers National Preserve, Alaska). It is intended to span a one-year period encompassing a ramp-up of activities to restore Coal Creek from its presently degraded channel caused by prior mining. The research centers on three themes: 1) fish origins and habitat use, 2) aquatic habitat assessment and characterization, and 3) partnership-building with Alaska Native communities in support of the restoration and broader activities to support Pacific salmon population recovery throughout the Yukon River Basin. The first two themes are intended to form the bulk of the research here, with the human-centric theme designed as exploratory in this first year. This research is expected to be implemented in close collaboration with the National Park Service (NPS), and to form the basis of a graduate thesis and additional products from scientists based at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. For fish, we will seek to better quantify present and potential (restored stream) future use of Coal Creek by Chinook and other Pacific Salmon species, in addition to other fishes. For habitat, we will work with NPS staff to determine the potential habitats that would be highest value for restoration to support salmon in Coal Creek, as well as any existing habitat characteristics that should be maintained. The bulk of our efforts in support of this objective will be to characterize the energetic requirements and potential for salmon growth in Coal Creek, based on temperature and food web sampling. For people, we will work with a social scientist and Alaska Native communities and organizations to contextualize the Coal Creek restoration from a human, and particularly an Indigenous, lens. A major intended outcome of this research overall is to help meet the interests of the National Park Service and restoration practitioners in understanding what benefits Coal Creek is currently providing to salmon and other fishes, particularly Chinook, and to the people who rely upon salmon. It also seeks, critically, to provide recommendations and predictions about how restoration activities may impact and ideally improve these conditions to aid in salmon recovery, both locally within Coal Creek and basin-wide.