Four Years After Elwha River Dam Removals, Much More Than Samon Runs On The Rebound
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The lifecycle of salmon — from stream to ocean and back to natal stream again — makes them a crucial part of the watershed and a keystone species that numerous other kinds of wildlife depend on. “It’s going to take a while for salmon to come back in large numbers,” says Kim Sager-Fradkin, a wildlife biologist with the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe. “But they’re hugely beneficial to pretty much everything out there.” Salmon put on the bulk of their mass during their time in the ocean, where they pack their tissues with enriched sources of carbon and nitrogen, she explains. When the salmon return to the river to spawn and die, these marine-derived nutrients are then brought back to riverine and terrestrial environments as, essentially, fertilizer.
“When you think about what salmon do to a river, it’s almost like this infusion of giant vitamin pills up into the river basin,” adds Kober. As the salmon die or are eaten, they nourish plant and animal life along the riverbank. The impacts can be felt for miles, as far-ranging animals like bears also spread these marine-derived nutrients deep into the forest.
Since the Elwha dams have been removed, at least one species has started taking advantage of salmon’s greater range in the river. Research published in the journal Ecography in 2015 showed that access to salmon dramatically improves the lives of a riparian bird species called American dippers (Cinclus mexicanus). “It changes everything for them,” says a co-author of the report, Christopher Tonra, now an assistant professor in avian wildlife ecology at Ohio State University.
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Despite some initial concerns that the arriving sediment would line the coast at the river mouth with mud and turn it into an ecological wasteland, Miller says nothing close to that happened. He’s part of a team of divers that have monitored 15 sites before and after dam removal. Some of those sites, he says, did receive a heavy dose of sediment — one to three feet of sand — as the river moved the accumulation from the reservoirs. But it was far from an ecological disaster. Instead Dungeness crab, shrimp and forage fish liked by salmon, birds and other marine life quickly moved in to colonize the new sandy terrain.
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https://therevelator.org/elwha-dam-removal/
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