Redmond Rain . . . can help fish thrive!
What is that thing floating in the creek? That is the Bear Creek Fish Trap. There is no need to go near or onto the trap that is clearly marked no trespassing and dangerous.
FTF: DM&K Cachers
Chinook Salmon (also known as King Salmon) are listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). To protect Chinook and other species, local governments work together to care for the Lake Washington/ Cedar/ Sammamish Watershed, also known as Water Resource Inventory Area (WRIA) 8. This watershed runs from the Puget Sound nearshore and inlands from the north end of Elliott Bay to south Everett, and east to the Bear Creek basin, the Issaquah Creek basin, and upper Cedar River basin.
In WRIA 8, local governments, community organizations, scientists, businesses, and state and federal agency partners are working together to protect and restore salmon habitat guided by a science-based salmon conservation plan. Funding from the 29 local government partners and the state of Washington support salmon recovery in the watershed. Bear Creek is identified as a Tier 1 area in the WRIA 08 Conservation Plan and as a moderate watershed core area with high chinook production. The Bear Creek basin supports ESA listed fall Chinook, winter steelhead, coho, sockeye and resident rainbow and cutthroat.
The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife has used the fish trap to monitor fish at this location for over twenty years. They monitor downstream migrant production of wild sockeye fry, chinook, coho, steelhead, and cuthroat smolts. This monitoring helps to better understand the successes and failures of salmon recovery efforts.
The City of Redmond has invested in restoring reaches of Bear Creek and is also building stormwater treatment and flow control facilities in areas that drain to Bear Creek, like the Monticello Creek Basin on Education Hill. In this way, Redmond Rain is cleaned up and slowed to protect the fish that are monitored in this fish trap from pollution and erosion caused by stormwater runoff.