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For the past six years, the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife (ODFW) has been recycling hatchery salmon and steelhead and utilizing them for carcass placement. This effort focuses on returning the nutrients that spawned salmonids provided to watersheds, which has been severely reduced since the decline of salmonid stocks in the Pacific Northwest. Observations have shown that predators and scavengers utilize carcasses as a food source, but recent research has shown that the nutrient cycle driven by salmon and steelhead carcasses is broad enough to include aquatic insects, benthic organisms, mollusks, streamside plants and forests. The Oregon Department of Environmental Quality monitors the carcass placement effort. No more than 2500 pounds of fish can be placed per mile of stream. This means that ODFW biologists and volunteers must work extra hard to distribute carcasses evenly throughout the stream bodies. In 2001, biologists and volunteers distributed 38,239 carcasses in over 664.2 miles of Oregon streams [Click here for more details]. Studies are being conducted by ODFW researchers to determine the impact that carcass placement efforts are having on stream health and salmonid returns. However, doing what we can in the meantime to lend a hand to Mother Nature cannot hurt! For more information on how you can get involved with the Carcass Placement Program, please refer to the Salmon and Trout Enhancement Program web page at http://www.dfw.state.or.us/ODFWhtml/VolunteerProg/STEP.html To access the carcass placement data we have available, please visit the Carcass Placement Tables page. |
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