Mid Sound actively conducts monitoring on its restoration projects over a period of five years to identify project success and to generate maintenance needs.

Monitoring events consist of 4 steps:

• Set-up of representative 12' circular test plots to survey plant survival, percentage cover, and re-growth of non-native plants.
• Establishment of Photopoint locations to visually quantify changes over time
• Creation of an initial as-built map, which is being updated after each monitoring event, noting changes to channel morphology and habitat structure locations and functions
• Wildlife observations

After five years, the value of continued monitoring is weighed against project performance to determine the frequency and duration of further monitoring.

Site maintenance needs are generated from monitoring events and landowner obser-vations. Site maintenance generally reduces over time as plants establish themselves and habitat structures reach a state equilibrium.
 

Smolt Trap

The Smolt Trap is the major tool for measuring the success and function of our restoration projects. "Smolt" is one of the life-stages of a juvenile salmon.  This life stage occurs  when the juvenile salmon begins its migration from freshwater to the estuary and adjusts to living in saltwater.

Our survey focuses on Coho. Coho stay in freshwater for about 2 years, before they start their big journey. Spring is the season for migration, and our smolt trap stays in the water during the months of April and May. With the help of a v-shaped weir, all outmigrating Coho are forced to swim into a live box, where they wait until they are released. The trap gets checked twice daily, and the fish are counted, measured and identified before they are released. 

This method is commonly used to evaluate juvenile coho use of winter rearing habitat.

SMOLT TRAP