Later that week we took a hike out to Ten-Mile Creek, a watershed that covers 15 thousand acres on the Oregon Coast. Besides being a gorgeous coastal temperate forest, this watershed is also the site of the Salmonoid Habitat Project, an ODFW (Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife) project that moniters fish populations.This cool gizmo on the left actually catches all of the fish moving down the river and contains them in a pen that you can access by the square door that you see closest to you in the photo. The researchers on the project were telling us how frightening it can be opening that door though. They have caught live beaver in this trap before and even a dog (who did survive by the way). The wheel at the close end is to remove leaves and debri that might accumulate on the surface of the water in the cage.
In in the photo on the right you can see the "dam" they use to ensure that all of the fish go through the device before heading downstream. Besides the occasional beaver they catch cutthroat, steelhead, coho, lamprey, smelt, and chinook salmon. They took many of these fish out and put them in a tank by the shore for us to look at. A sedative was put in the water so that they fish did not panic from being in such close quaters. Unfortunately, the sedative worked a little too well, we tried to attach the lamprey to our faces, but he was too drowsy to hold on ;(
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