Summer 2015 was record-setting across the Pacific Northwest. Low snowpack, soaring air temperatures, and low flows combined to create one of the most stressful summers for cold-water fish species ever. While some salmon and trout populations were able to find critical lifesaving stopping points in cold-water refuges along their upstream migration, others were exposed to lethal water temperatures and temperature-driven mortalities were common. 

Enter Native Fish Society’s new Wenatchee Watershed Cold Water Campaign, which is being created to identify, assess, and conserve critical cold-water habitats for threatened salmon, steelhead, and trout in Washington’s Wenatchee River.

To accomplish this NFS Wenatchee River Steward Russ Ricketts, NFS staff, and local partners seek to raise $20,000 to monitor 12 thermal refuges during the summer of 2017. As a result of this campaign, temperature, spatial, and species information will be crunched into a scoring system that will help wild fish advocates, fisheries agencies, and habitat restoration partners prioritize habitat protection and restoration actions that best protect and enhance the Wenatchee’s cold water habitats.

“As an additional outcome of this project, what we learn about identifying and protecting cold water refugia will be refined and passed along to our over 80 River Stewards across the Northwest, who can use the CWR toolkit and equipment from this campaign to conduct similar efforts in their own watersheds.”

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Tom Bie
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Tom Bie is the founder, editor, and publisher of The Drake. He started the magazine in 1998 as an annual newsprint publication based in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. He then moved it to Steamboat, Colorado (1999), Boulder, Colorado (2001), and San Clemente, California (2004), as he took jobs as managing editor at Paddler, Senior Editor at Skiing, and Editor-in-Chief at Powder, respectively. Tom and The Drake are now both based in Denver, Colorado, where The Drake is finally all grows up(Swingers, 1996) to a quarterly magazine.

Category: Daily Drake
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Author: Tom Bie

Tom Bie is the founder, editor, and publisher of The Drake. He started the magazine in 1998 as an annual newsprint publication based in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. He then moved it to Steamboat, Colorado (1999), Boulder, Colorado (2001), and San Clemente, California (2004), as he took jobs as managing editor at Paddler, Senior Editor at Skiing, and Editor-in-Chief at Powder, respectively. Tom and The Drake are now both based in Denver, Colorado, where The Drake is finally all grows up(Swingers, 1996) to a quarterly magazine.

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