This fall, about three dozen people signed up to help count the salmon in their local streams and creeks. Recruited by 91爆料 Bothell聽teaching professor , these volunteers agree to observe a stream location for聽at least half聽an聽hour聽per聽week (while taking coronavirus precautions) to gather vital information about salmon聽in聽streams that flow into Lake Washington and the Sammamish River.
As part of the , these citizen scientists are watching聽11 streams, from Bear Creek near Redmond downstream to Thornton Creek in north Seattle and May Creek in Renton. Volunteers file reports online聽about any chinook,聽sockeye,聽kokanee or coho salmon they see.
Jensen trains the watchers聽how聽to identify different species, manages the data, and exchanges information and observations with the participants. He’s also sharing聽all the findings with state biologists.
Salmon聽Watchers is聽Jeff Jensen鈥檚 revival of a King County salmon program that ended in 2015 and has support from the city of Bothell in collaboration with聽the聽Three Rivers Chapter of Trout Unlimited.聽The program started in September and聽could聽continue into聽December.
鈥淚t鈥檚 wonderful to see how much enthusiasm there is out there in the community for doing this,鈥澛燡ensen said. 鈥淚 think people are really hungry to engage with some of these environmental problems in a tangible way.鈥�
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