What Do Our Chinook Salmon Need?

SUMMARY: Kollin Higgins with King County describes the primary factor driving the reduction in Chinook salmon in the Green River.  He will provide examples of how rearing habitats have been altered throughout the subwatersheds of the Green River.  He will review new data from groundbreaking analytical approaches showing that the juvenile Chinook reliant on the Duwamish for their first few months of life are not surviving to adulthood.

BIO: Kollin Higgins is a Senior Ecologist with King County Department of Natural Resources and Parks for the last 19 years.  He primarily works on salmon recovery efforts in the Green Duwamish Watershed and the Snoqualmie River system and on marine shoreline management issues.  He has worked on several large multi-objective planning efforts like the ‘Farm Fish Flood’ in the Snoqualmie River and the Lower Green System Wide Improvement Framework.  He started working on salmon recovery in the Green River watershed shortly after Chinook salmon were listed on the Endangered Species Act in 1999.  He has a B.S. in Marine Biology and Zoology from Humboldt State University in 1992 and a MMA (Master of Marine Affairs) focused on fisheries management from the University of Washington in 1999.

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