Spawning Ground & Creel Monitoring Technician- Scientific Technician 2- Career Seasonal

Working Title
- Spawning Ground & Creel Monitoring Technician

Classification
- Scientific Technician 2

Job Status
- Full-Time/Career Seasonal

Appointment/Season Length- 5 Months –August 1 – December 31

WDFW Program
- Fish Program – Fish Management

Duty Station
- Montesano, Washington – Grays Harbor County

Team WDFW

Are you passionate about conserving and protecting native fish?

This is an opportunity to collect information that is needed to assess stock status, build fishery models, and to forecast salmon returns.

The optimal applicant has experience identifying river and ocean stage salmonids, juvenile salmonids, and other game fish species.

WHAT TO EXPECT - Among the varied range of responsibilities held within this role, this position:

Spawner Surveys – Stock Assessment.

• Conduct salmon spawner surveys according to Region 6 - District 17 - Willapa Bay procedures and protocols.
• Collect data used to estimate stock status of hatchery and natural stocks by measuring abundance. productivity, diversity. and spatial distribution of salmon on the spawning grounds. These data will be used to calculate the spawning escapements of each salmonid stock by origin within the Willapa Bay watershed in Pacific County.
• Conduct stream surveys on foot and/or by raft, pontoon, drift boat, or jet powered river sled following Region 6 standard practices and procedure protocols.
• Biological collection of dead fish (carcasses) includes identification of mark status (adipose/dorsal fin, scale sampling (age/origin). coded wire tag recovery (CWT: stock composition). fork length, sex identification. identifying opercle punch presence or absence, t-tags or jaw tags. DNA tissue samples. or collect other biological samples, as needed.
• Maintain regular and professional contact and continue positive relationships with landowners to gain access to surveyed reaches through private property.

Marine Recreational Creel Monitoring.

• Conduct recreational creel monitoring according to region 6 District 17 - Willapa Bay procedures and protocols.
• Collect data from the marine recreational fishery (Marine Area 2.1) through angler interviews and examination of landed salmon that are used to estimate catch, effort. species origin, age, stock composition, and encounter rates of Chinook or coho.
• Conduct angler interviews and identify, record, and sample salmon and other species landed and/or released (encounters throughout the marine recreational fishery in Willapa Bay marine area 2.1).
• Fieldwork requires identifying, recording, and sampling of salmon and other species landed and/or recording data regarding the encounter of released fish in the marine recreational fishery in Willapa Bay. Data collection is recorded, summarized, and tabulated utilizing electronic devices (iPads) through the iForms program and/or paper field forms.
• Maintain regular and professional conduct and continue positive relationships with recreational anglers to facilitate public cooperation in reporting of encounters and overall fishing effort. Respond to questions with the highest level of proficiency. contacting your supervisor or other management staff with questions unable to be answered.

Commercial Fishery Monitoring and Sampling.

• Collect data from the commercial fishery through observer on-board monitoring and examination of landed salmon at fish house buyer locations that are used to estimate catch, effort, species origin, age stock composition, and encounter rates of Chinook, coho, and chum.
• From August through November, this position may participate in the commercial gillnet fishery sampling landed catch and/or commercial on-board monitoring within Willapa Bay and/or Grays Harbor.
• Commercial on-board monitoring duties may include documentation of gillnet soak times, summarize catch for retained and released fish by species, identify mark status (adipose fin presence or absence), determine presence or absence of coded wire tag (CWT), collect genetic DNA tissue sample, document bycatch and incidental encounters, and collect any other biological samples, as needed.
• Commercial biological sampling duties include sampling catch for scales (age composition), identification of mark status…