Since 2012, TTCD has been working towards complete watershed connectivity across the District by removing fish passage barriers along the 260 miles of remote roads. Undersized and/or poorly installed culverts can cut off access to upstream habitats for aquatic organisms, including all five species of pacific salmon. As of 2024, TTCD has replaced 13 culverts, restoring access to 60.2 stream miles and over 500 lake acres.
Water quality is critical for the health of our District ecosystems and the people that depend on them. The West, Susitna, and Yentna areas of West Cook Inlet provide important spawning and rearing habitat for many of the Chinook salmon destined for Tyonek setnets. With ongoing warming air and water temperatures, altered flow regimes, documented vegetation shifts, and invasions of northern pike (Esox lucius) and the aquatic invasive plant Elodea canadensis in southcentral Alaska, establishing a baseline for important spawning and rearing locations is critical to identifying areas of high-priority locations for conservation work.
TTCD established 5 water temperature and water quality monitoring sites in 2015. Since then, TTCD has added 16 additional water temperature monitoring sites across the District, strategically sampling a variety of stream types in lower and upper sections of District watersheds. Water temperature data is available publicly at AKTEMP.
TTCD currently monitors the salmon population in Northern Pike-infested waters through juvenile salmonid minnow trapping, coho salmon spawning ground surveys, and redd counts. Spawning ground surveys provide a count of salmon redd abundance and an estimate of the breeding salmon population. Conducted at regular intervals, spawning ground surveys can detect salmon population trends and potential salmon recovery related to a decreasing Northern Pike population. TTCD is continuing long term monitoring on Threemile, Robert’s Creek and Chuitbuna Creek, begun in 2018. In addition to population monitoring, TTCD works to increase habitat protections for salmon by surveying streams for anadromous fishes. In 2024, TTCD added 18 new nominations to the anadromous waterways catalog (AWC), documenting them as salmon streams and adding protections to critical fish habitat. See all identified anadromous waters in the Anadromous Waters Catalog.
