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

The study will provide information about the spatial distribution and relative abundance of juvenile coho salmon in the Redwood Creek basin by conducting snorkel surveys in sections of stream selected according to a spatially balanced, randomized sampling design. The project design will allow statistical inferences to be made regarding the entire basin based on data collected in the selected survey reaches. The Redwood Creek population of coho salmon was listed as threatened under the Federal Endangered Species Act (ESA) in 1997 and the California Endangered Species Act (CESA) in 2004. To address the ESA listing requirements, the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) classified coho populations into reproductively isolated, evolutionarily important groups called Evolutionarily Significant Units (ESUs). Redwood Creek coho salmon, which have been characterized as a functionally independent population, were included within the Southern Oregon/Northern California (SONCC) ESU. For functionally independent, core populations, NMFS recommends performing juvenile distribution surveys during the initial phase of recovery based monitoring.