Images

Brian Ekstrom and Lance Downing of USGS are pulling a beach seine to collect juvenile fish for monitoring at a restoration site on the lower Columbia River. The restoration site was created with dredge material in October of 2020 and USGS is monitoring juvenile salmon use, community assemblage, and predator presence.

Sampling drifting invertebrates from a stream in the North Cascades of Washington State. We perform drift sampling to determine the invertebrate prey quality and quantity available for drift feeding fish. Data gathered from this sampling are used in bioenergetics modeling, a method of estimating fish growth potential.

Picture of Cape Alava at sunset.  Cape Alava is a point of land on the outer coast of the Olympic Peninsula. The cape is situated within Olympic National Park, and the Makah Indian Reservation.

USGS scientists surgically implanting acoustic transmitters into juvenile Chinook salmon on the Shasta River, California.  Study fish are tracked in the Shasta and Klamath Rivers as they migrate to the Pacific Ocean.  Collected data are used to determine fish survival and migration behaviors.

Photograph of a fish release at the Keller Ferry Marina, Lake Roosevelt, Lincoln County, Washington.

Photo taken from Magnuson boat launch before conducting water quality and light at depth measurements during Landsat-8 overpass windows on Lake Washington for the U.S. Geological Survey. 

To learn more about this project and other related research you can visit the WFRC Ecology Section website.

Lighting from the Kirkland waterfront viewed from the Seattle shoreline.

Photo taken from Magnuson boat launch before conducting a synoptic light survey of Lake Washington for the U.S. Geological Survey.

Photo taken from Magnuson boat launch before conducting a synoptic light survey of Lake Washington for the U.S. Geological Survey.

Western Fisheries Research Center, Center Director, Michael Schmidt, spending time with his dog, Echo, doing their version of outdoor activities “in the backyard” during a peak in COVID cases.

Researchers perform gastric lavage on a rainbow trout to sample its stomach contents. This fish was sampled as a part of a food web study on Ross and Diablo Lakes in Washington State to evaluate fish growth and limitations to production.

Marshal Hoy, a Biological Science Technician, angling on Ross Lake for Western Fisheries Research Center (WFRC) food web study in October 2021. As a part of this study, fish are sampled for stomach contents, scale samples to assess age and growth, and fin tissue for stable isotopes and genetic analysis.

USGS boat tied to dock at Ross Lake during a week-long sampling trip for a food web study.  Ross Lake is a large reservoir on the Upper Skagit River in the North Cascade mountains of northern Washington state.

Researchers stage sampling equipment at the Ross Lake boat ramp and wait for boat to arrive to transport them to camping area. Food web sampling on large lakes requires a substantial amount of sampling gear. Ross Lake is a large reservoir in the North Cascade mountains of northern Washington state.

Ross Lake is a large reservoir in the North Cascade mountains of northern Washington state.  This photo was taken while conducting food web research to support the Skagit River Hydroelectric Dam FERC relicensing process. To learn more about this project and other related research you can visit the WFRC Ecology Section website. 

USGS scientist, Jill Hardiman, working on a screw trap on the White Salmon River to assess anadromous fish recolonization following removal of a large dam.

White River spinedace. Photo taken Wayne E. Kirch Wildlife Management Area, Lund, NV.

Passive integrated transponder detection antenna located in the Flag Springs Complex in eastern Nevada. This is the only place on earth where White River spinedace still exist.

White River spinedace. Photo taken by Summer Burdick, USGS, Klamath Falls Field Station.

White River desert sucker. Photo taken Wayne E. Kirch Wildlife Management Area, Lund, NV.

White River spinedace. Photo taken Wayne E. Kirch Wildlife Management Area, Lund, NV.

A native crayfish collected in Diablo Lake for an investigation into food availability for native fish and limitations to their growth. Crayfish are invertebrate prey for salmonids and provide useful representative stable isotope values for benthic members of the food web.