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Rain spawns return of salmon to town

Volunteer salmon counter Craig Jordan checks out a chum salmon that was dying on the shore of Muck Creek on Friday morning after swimming upstream. Salmon are returning to the Roy, Wash., waterway after two years of absence. (Associated Press / The Spokesman-Review)
Associated Press
Volunteer salmon counter Craig Jordan checks out a chum salmon that was dying on the shore of Muck Creek on Friday morning after swimming upstream. Salmon are returning to the Roy, Wash., waterway after two years of absence. (Associated Press / The Spokesman-Review)

ROY, Wash. – The recent rainy weather is helping spawning chum salmon make it up Muck Creek all the way to this Pierce County town for the first time in two years.

And the fish are arriving in time for next weekend’s annual Roy Salmon Homecoming, celebrated by the town and the Nisqually Indian Tribe. Often they’re late or – when water is low – don’t quite make it to town.

Once the salmon reach their home waters, the females lay eggs and the males fertilize them, and then they die. Muck Creek supports about 30,000 fish in the Nisqually River chum run.

“Oh, we got one right here,” said area resident Craig Jordan, 49, as he spotted a fish early Friday.

It was a spawned-out female, resting behind a tree, its cheek on the slope of the creek’s edge, waiting for the end. Several other fish sought refuge in quiet stretches of the waterway, among rocks and fallen tree limbs.

Jordan, one of about 20 salmon-counting volunteers, counted as he walked along the creek, holding a clipboard with a salmon species identification card.

“They have been back in the creek before, but not in the number they are right now,” said Jeanette Dorner, the tribe’s salmon restoration program manager. “In the past, we would have a good run in the Nisqually River, but there wasn’t enough water in the creek” for fish to reach Roy.

Jordan began his counting visits in early October, but didn’t spot a salmon until Dec. 31. A week ago, he counted 37 fish.

A sign near a bridge across the creek declares: “The Fish Are Back.”

Roy Nixon, 92, who lives across the street, put the sign there on New Year’s Day – replacing one that read, “No Fish.”

“They were late,” Nixon said. “We didn’t think we’d have fish this year.”

For decades, there were no chum salmon in Muck Creek. They came back in 1999, after volunteers cleared the creek and planted trees along its banks. Now the waterway supports about a third of the Nisqually chum run.

On Friday, Jordan spotted four chums. The Port of Tacoma worker, who comes by the creek twice a week, began volunteering for the fish counts last year.

“I love fish, I love salmon,” he said. “In the Bay Area, you can’t go to a local creek and do this kind of stuff.”