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Forage Fish: Food for Salmon Although SFEG has focused on freshwater salmon habitat projects in the past, the recent inclusion of the San Juan Islands into our project boundaries brings to the forefront another piece of the salmon recovery puzzle: near shore marine habitat. Not only are near shore marine ecosystems important rearing habitat for juvenile salmon, they are also home to forage fish upon which young salmon depend. In order to have healthy salmon populations, we must have abundant salmon food. A forage fish is any fish eaten by large predatory fish, seabirds, or marine mammals, and they depend on near shore habitat for their survival. They are an important link in the marine food web between primary and secondary producers, such as plankton, and top predators such as seabirds and larger fish, including salmon. Humans use forage fish for bait and food, while forage fish and their eggs are critical prey for a large variety of marine organisms. Their populations are also a valuable indicator of the health and productivity of our marine environment. Because forage fish spawn in the near shore vegetation and beaches of the Puget Sound shoreline, local spawning populations are vulnerable to shoreline development. The three species of forage fish of concern in San Juan County include Pacific herring, sand lance and surf smelt. Like all forage fish, sand lance are a significant component in the diet of many commercially important species in Washington. On average, 35% of juvenile salmon diets are comprised of sand lance, and they comprise up to 60% of the diet for juvenile chinook. Friends of the San Juans and the San Juan County Marine Resources Committee are involved in a project to determine the location and extent of beaches used by spawning Pacific sand lance and surf smelt. Salmon recovery will require, in part, maintaining the near shore habitat upon which these forage fish depend. Federal, state, and county agencies, field scientists, and citizen volunteers are playing a vital role in a multi-year forage fish habitat assessment and mapping project now underway on 414 miles of San Juan County shoreline. Surf smelt, sand lance, and herring all spawn extensively in the San Juan Islands where native eelgrass beds and sandy or graveled beaches nurse forage fish and salmon alike. Mapping declining populations of forage fish is critical to protecting their habitat. Friends of the San Juans and the San Juan County Marine Resources Committee are co-managing this multi-year project to locate, map, and protect the county's active beach and near shore spawning areas. For more information about this project visit Friends of the San Juans at www.sanjuans.org.
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