Conservation and Restoration

                      There are multiple ongoing efforts to increase the kokanee numbers in Lake Sammamish. A final goal of all of these plans or organizations is to recover the salmon populations to self-sustainable numbers.

• The 21st Century Salmon and Steelhead Initiative
• This was released by the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife and aims to restore wild salmon and steelhead populations. It aims to do this through managing a variety of activities in the state including hatchery, harvest, habitat and hydro activities.
• Save Lake Sammamish
• This is a conservation group dedicated to improving the water quality of the Lake Sammamish Basin as well as promoting public awareness of issues related to Lake Sammamish; including the declining numbers of kokanee.
• Conservation Supplementation Plan for Lake Sammamish Late-run (Winter-run) Kokanee
• This plan was released by the Lake Sammamish Kokanee Work Group and was a collaboration effort of authors from the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, King County Department of Natural Resources and Parks and Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife. It aims to work with and enhance existing plans to aid kokanee numbers. It will do this by releasing hatchery raised kokanee into Lake Sammamish tributaries. The hatchery kokanee are originally from eggs collected from spawners in Lake Sammamish tributaries. Its final goal is to stop supplementation by 2022 because they hope to have a self-sustaining kokanee population in Lake Sammamish by then.

The Lake Sammamish kokanee numbers are currently threatened by a variety of factors. Because water temperatures can have a detrimental effect on salmon throughout their whole life, it is important that they continue to be monitored in order to ensure that the work being done to help re-establish this population is successful. More research needs to be done concerning the direct relations between salmon and water temperature of Lake Sammamish as well as temperatures of the creeks that kokanee spawn in. Another possible area to explore is the relationship between water temperatures affecting the native plants in the salmon habitat that then have an influence on the salmon survivability. There is still much that needs to be found out about the Lake Sammamish kokanee, but there is promising work that is happening to help re-establish them as a viable population so research will still be possible in the future.