By Ashley Bagley

I’m avidly following my steelhead’s migration down the Skokomish River—so far it has migrated 34 miles from its rearing site, headed for the Pacific Ocean!

I recently decided to join a team and sponsor a steelhead in the name of conservation. Every spring, Long Live the Kings hosts its Survive the Sound campaign to increase awareness about steelhead survival and raise money for conservation efforts. The campaign is essentially an interactive web challenge that uses data from tagged, migrating steelhead smolts (juveniles) to allow individuals or teams to sponsor a steelhead. Once you decide to sponsor, you can create your own fish avatar, track its migration, and see if it survives.

The Survive the Sound campaign is a great illustration of the challenges steelhead face as they migrate to the Pacific Ocean. Steelhead populations have been declining for over a century. In 2007, the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) listed Puget Sound steelhead as a “threatened” species. Bridges that block migration routes (e.g. Hood Canal Bridge), disease, pollution, and predation can all impact whether a steelhead survives. Unfortunately, the odds are not in their favor – more than 80 percent of the out-migrating steelhead in Puget Sound die before reaching the ocean. This indicates that early marine survival is a huge hurdle for steelhead survival and recovery.

The silver lining to this campaign is that the data it generates allow researchers to track the survival rates of steelhead smolts in specific water body segments within Puget Sound that can then be used to identify locations with higher mortality rates and the possible mechanisms responsible. Survive the Sound is part of Long Live the Kings’ ongoing efforts to help NMFS develop Puget Sound steelhead recovery plan (it is now 11 years since the ESA listing  and the required Recovery Plan is not complete). By using the most up-to-date science from the Salish Sea Marine Survival Project and the Hood Canal Bridge Assessment and collaborating with the Puget Sound Partnership and NOAA, their goal is to create templates that can guide local-level planning efforts in a cohesive fashion.

In the Pacific Northwest, salmonids are iconic species that represent their role as economic, cultural, and natural resources. Did you know steelhead are the state fish of Washington?! Talk about an incentive to protect and restore their populations to historic levels! Long Live the Kings makes supporting steelhead recovery entertaining, competitive, and enlightening. If you are interested in participating or learning more, please visit their FAQs page for more details. Let’s do our best to ensure steelhead survive the Sound!