Piscine Prospecting: Fish Inventories in Yukon-Charley Rivers National Preserve
Cathcart N and Gieffer J. 2020. Piscine Prospecting: Fish Inventories in Yukon-Charley Rivers National Preserve. American Currents. 45(4):3-11
In 2019, the Alaska Sustainable Salmon Fund funded AFFI staff to collaborate with the National Park Service (NPS) to work out of Coal Creek Camp and sample fishes in streams within or tributary to Yukon-Charley National Preserve (YUCH), a park in far eastern interior Alaska along the upper Yukon River. We sampled nine species and collected 12 eDNA samples across 42 sites within YUCH boundaries or that were accessible by waters flowing through YUCH (Tables 1–3). Thirty-one of these sites (74%) supported juvenile Chinook Salmon and were nominated for inclusion in the AWC (n = 26). Other common fishes were Arctic Grayling Thymallus arcticus (76% of sites occupied) and Slimy Sculpin (Cottus cognatus) (71%). On the other end of the spectrum, Dolly Varden and Lake Chub (Couesius plumbeus) were the rarest species, each occurring at one site. Other resident fishes encountered included Longnose Sucker and Round Whitefish.
- Type
- Journal Article
- Authors
- Cathcart, Nate; Gieffer, Joe
- Units
- YUCH
- Keywords
- Arctic Grayling, Chinook Salmon, Dolly Varden, fish, Lake Chub, salmon, Slimy Sculpin, Yukon River