Lower American River Juvenile Salmonid Monitoring Project

Funding is available through the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Anadromous Fish Restoration Program to develop and implement a program to monitor the egg, larvae, and juvenile life stages of Chinook salmon and steelhead in the lower American River (LAR), Sacramento County, California. The purpose of the work is to assess the effectiveness of Central Valley Project Improvement Act (CVPIA) habitat restoration actions on Chinook salmon and steelhead populations in the LAR and to provide guidance for future actions. The fundamental objective for this project is to assess the effectiveness of Central Valley Project Improvement Act (CVPIA) habitat restoration actions on Chinook salmon and steelhead populations in the LAR and to provide guidance for future actions. The project will design and implement a monitoring program that will inform what restoration actions are needed to maximize the number and condition of fall-run Chinook salmon smolts leaving the American River and evaluate the effectiveness of habitat restoration projects. In-river, life-stage specific population parameters in addition to adult spawning success that may be influenced by habitat restoration include egg viability, fry and juvenile growth and survival, and smolt outmigration timing. The purpose of this project is to: • assess the effects of gravel augmentation, habitat restoration, and other program actions on Chinook salmon and steelhead populations in the LAR; • identify population “bottlenecks” that may occur during salmonid egg, larval, and juvenile life stages; • evaluate the relative benefit of no action versus that of small or large gravel injection, gravel placement, or floodplain enhancement actions; and • consider the effects of alternate flow regimes and time frames (e.g., 1, 5, and 10 years) on restoration action outcomes