South Sound’s premier trail for watching salmon spawn is about to open to the public. – South Sound’s premier trail for watching salmon spawn is about to open to the public.

The Kennedy Creek Salmon Trail offers an up-close look at thousands of chum salmon splashing around in an end-of-life mating display, scratching beds in the stream gravel to deposit their eggs, then succumbing to become a source of food for 137 species of fish and wildlife.

The trail, midway between Shelton and Olympia, just above the Kennedy Creek estuary off U.S. Highway 101, is open to the public from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays throughout November.

Now in its ninth year, the half-mile trail meanders through 5 acres of stately second-growth Douglas fir and Western red cedar trees, maple trees still partly cloaked in golden leaves in early November and an understory of ferns, vine maple and snowberry bushes, to name a few of the native plants on display.

But it is the chum salmon, which spawn in masses in the lower reaches of the stream, that are the main attraction.

“It’s a great opportunity to view these fish,” said Lance Winecka, executive director of the South Puget Sound Salmon Enhancement Group, which, with help from the Mason Conservation District, maintains the trail and 11 learning stations for the public. “They’re not spooky, and unlike coho and steelhead, they don’t disperse to spawn.”

Last week, the fish were just starting to trickle back to the spawning grounds, still waiting for some fall rain storms to elevate flows in the stream. By mid-November, the spawning grounds should be full of an equal amount of live and dead fish, which marks the peak of a spawning season that tails off by mid-December.

The chum fry, or small fish, will emerge from the gravel in March and April, feed and provide food for other fish and birds in the creek estuary in the spring. Then the survivors head to sea.

After three years at sea, about 40,000 adults will return to spawn, although that number can vary depending on stream and ocean conditions.

The spawning scene along the salmon trail, the sounds of splashing fish and the thick smell of rotting fish carcasses once were commonplace in the South Sound streams in the fall, but no longer.

“All these small watersheds in South Sound are very important, very sacred, to the tribe,” Squaxin Island tribal member Jim Peters said at a November 2000 ceremony that marked the opening of the trail.

The trail, bridges, interpretive signs, open air teepee-framed kiosk and parking lot were five years and $250,000 in the making. The project was made possible by a 20-year lease with the Taylor Shellfish family, which homesteaded near the site in 1889.

About 5,000 people a year have visited the trail each ensuing November, nearly half of them schoolchildren who use the trail as an outdoor classroom.

The trail is a great place for children and adults to explore salmon biology in a natural setting, Brian Abbott, one of the original organizers of the trail project, told co-workers at the state Recreation and Conservation Office who visited the trail last week prior to the public opening.

“Typically, you’d have to go to a hatchery to see fish spawn,” Abbott said.

Trail visitors this fall will be greeted by some of the 40 or so volunteer docents who are trained in chum salmon biology.

They’ll explain that chum salmon are nicknamed dog salmon because of the canine-like teeth they develop at spawning time. They’ll teach visitors how to spot the egg nests, or redds, in the gravel and direct them to an underwater camera for a unique view of the action.

“A trip to the Kennedy Creek Salmon Trail is a chance to learn a lot about salmon in very little time,” Winecka said.

photo: Kim Gridley

THANK YOU FOR ANOTHER SUCCESSFUL YEAR AT THE TRAIL!

We hope to see you again next year!

Kennedy Creek is one of the most productive salmon runs in South Puget Sound. Don’t miss out on this unique opportunity EVERY NOVEMBER to experience these wild salmon on the 1/2 mile, ADA accessible trail, with 11 viewing stations, interpretive signage, and volunteer guides.

Please check out our Kennedy Creek Blog , and stay tuned for possible wildlife photographs.

Please contact us for further information.

See you next year!

Crews from Mike McClung Construction work in the Mashel riverbed installing one of 13 logjams designed to help restore salmon runs in the river. The crew is creating a new spawning ground and shelter for salmon. Photo credit: Steve Bloom/The Olympian

The Olympian, September 4, 2006.

Chester Allen

Two tracked excavators rumbled through the diverted, dry streambed of the Mashel River last week and dropped 40-foot trees and refrigerator-size boulders into a massive, muddy hole.

Another disaster for a river that’s taken a lot of punches during the past 100 years? Nope.

The excavators are doing the heavy work of creating 13 big engineered logjams that will soon provide shelter for young salmon and spawning grounds for adult salmon.

Think of the excavators as the instruments of major surgery – and new life – for the Mashel River, said Jeanette Dorner, the Nisqually Tribe’s salmon recovery manager.

“The Mashel went through huge transformations during the past 100 years – and they were not good for the river or for salmon and steelhead,” Dorner said. “We’re now trying to put natural wood, spawning areas and natural processes back into the system and create good habitat for fish.”

$440,000 Project

The Nisqually Tribe and South Puget Sound Salmon Enhancement Group are in charge of the $440,000 project. Three huge logjams and one smaller logjam are transforming the riverbank at Smallwood Park, said Teresa Moon, project manager.

A 10-foot-tall rock riprap berm was used to protect the park from erosion, but salmon and steelhead paid the price. The rock berm squeezed the river and speeded up the flow, which left no place for salmon to spawn or young salmon to rest or feed.

The new log jams, which will contain dozens of logs and boulders in six layers, will protect the park and create prime fish habitat, Dorner said. No cables will be used to tie the logs together. Giant logs sunk deep into the riverbed – just like pier pilings – will anchor the mass of logs, rootwads and boulders in place.

The logjams, which look like giant tangles of Tinker toys, will buffer the park against high flows and collect even more fallen trees. Logjams provide cover, pools and they help the river gouge out shallow gravel bars, which provide spawning grounds and grow insects for young salmon to eat.

Chinook Stream

The Mashel River is a major tributary to the Nisqually River and is one of the two streams that can support Chinook salmon. The Mashel endured years of abuse, including heavy logging close to the banks and the removal of logs from the water. At one time, it was thought that logs in rivers blocked salmon and hurt runs, but that was wrong, Dorner said.

Studies show that healthy rivers – and salmon runs – need a lot of fallen trees, Dorner said. Improving the Mashel will help boost runs of Puget Sound Chinook salmon to the Nisqually River. Puget Sound Chinook are now listed as threatened under the federal Endangered Species Act. Smallwood Park is closed while the logjams are built, but the park will reopen. “The park will still be protected, and we’ll have better habitat for fish,” Dorner said.

Safety Valve

The Mashel is also a safety valve for salmon if a natural catastrophe hits the Nisqually River, Dorner said. Mashel River Chinook could repopulate the Nisqually River over time, Dorner said.

Dorner and Moon are sure that the logjams will work because seven other logjams installed two years ago downstream of Smallwood Park now swarm with young Chinook and coho salmon, steelhead and cutthroat trout, Dorner said.

“We’ve snorkeled those logjams and seen a 60 percent increase in juvenile fish compared to areas upstream,” Dorner said.

Workers installed a temporary diversion dam on a 300-yard section of the Mashel River last week and relocated the fish. The diversion dam will be removed and the water will be allowed to flow back into the streambed in about a month.

October Completion

Workers will create all 13 new Mashel River logjams by mid-October, Dorner said.

The heavy equipment and muddy holes will disappear, and new brush and trees will soon heal the gouged ground near the river, Moon said. The logjams installed in 2004 now look completely natural — and they’re collecting new logs and creating gravel bars, Moon said.

The Nisqually Tribe and other groups interested in salmon plan to continue checking on the logjams for years, Dorner said. Keeping track of the logjams will help refine salmon recovery techniques and show how much salmon need wood in the water, Dorner said. “We’re going to count fish, measure pools and count wood,” Dorner said. “We’ll be able to say how successful the project is and why.”

Moon said she plans to snorkel all the logjams next summer, and she knows what she’ll see. “We should start seeing a lot of fish.”

Funding

Much of the money—$319,000—for the Mashel River logjams came from the state Salmon Recovery Funding board.

Other agencies that provided money:

• The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service: $20,000
• National Fish and Wildlife: $10,000
• Fish America: $50,000
• Pierce Conservation District: $40,000
• Pierce County: $5,000
• Pierce County Parks, the city of Olympia, Fort Lewis, Pack Forest and private donors provided many of the trees for the logjams.

For more information on Mashel River projects, go to spsseg.org or www.iac.wa.gov/srfb/board.htm or www.nisqually-nsn.gov/salmonrecovery.html.