CLALLAM BAY — The dry winter season seems to be taking an early toll on wildlife on the West End.
Since February, residents and fish biologists have been coming across unusually large numbers of dead or dying fish — primarily coho salmon –trapped in drying creeks and streams that feed into waterways such as the Pysht River southwest of Clallam Bay.
While drought-like weather may be primarily responsible for the exceptionally low river flows this time of year, fish biologists from the Lower Elwha Klallam tribe and the state Department of Transportation are taking a closer look at the problem.
“Streamflows are maybe 25 or 30 percent of normal right now,” said Mike Haggerty, a fisheries hydrologist conducting preliminary research on fish habitat in and around the Pysht River as a consultant for the Lower Elwha Klallam tribe.
Haggerty said that while it’s normal for mortality rates to be higher for coho salmon and other fish during the winter, what’s happening now is definitely an anomaly.
“A lot of the fish [that have died] are already four inches long,” Haggerty said.
“Those fish are normally not going to die.
“Once a fish is that big, it doesn’t have much of a problem making back to the river and out to sea.”
This year, however, many can’t reach the rivers because they are caught in drying pools and creeks.
Haggerty stressed that coho from the Pysht River and its floodplain are not classified as threatened or endangered species.
Saving 600 fish
Don and Janeen Hamerquist, two Clallam Bay residents, have managed to save more than 600 juvenile coho that they’ve found in the drying Bradley Creek on their property.
The couple scooped them up in buckets and dropped them into streams with healthier amounts of water.
It was too late to save hundreds of other fish that were already dead when they found them.
“Our creek used to go dry about the first of June,” said Don Hamerquist of their property, located right off state Highway 112.
“Now it’s been dry since the last week of February.”