New website tracks salmon recovery results

CORVALLIS, Ore. – The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, in partnership with Ecotrust, today released a new website that will make it easier for the public to track progress toward restoring coastal salmon populations in Oregon.

ODFW has been developing and implementing recovery and conservation plans for Oregon salmon and steelhead. According to Julie Firman, ODFW research analyst, the new Salmon and Steelhead Recovery Tracker website compiles much of the data that’s been collected in these efforts.

“We have been actively engaged in improving salmon and steelhead populations in Oregon, and the Salmon and the Steelhead Recovery Tracker website is a key tool for evaluating our success and determining if our investments have paid off,” Firman said.

The site will allow policy makers, managers, scientists and the general public to view trends and conservation status for various populations, build customized tables with selected data and download data to be used in independent research and analysis.

Historically, there have been limited resources to compile and display data in a single place because they are collected through a variety of sources and studies. The website represents a ilestone in efforts to prepare salmon recovery data and database systems for full public access on the Web, Firman said.

The current site focuses on efforts to improve coastal coho salmon populations, but work is underway to expand the site to include other salmon and steelhead populations throughout the state.

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