Your phone could help protect a salmon stream.
Freshwater bodies with anadromous fish receive special protections. Anadromous fish are born in streams, go to sea, and return to streams to spawn. Salmon, lamprey, cut-throat trout, and steelhead are anadromous fish.
Fish that spend their entire lives in freshwater, like rainbow trout, are called resident fish. Streams and lakes that only have resident fish do not get special protections.
The Alaska Department of Fish and Game has mapped over twenty thousand anadromous streams, rivers, and lakes. Alaska law gives them special protections.
That may be the tip of the iceberg, though. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of waters in Alaska that probably should have protections. Some streams have only been mapped in the lower sections, even though fish may use the higher reaches as well. Or maybe a beaver dam is providing fish habitat where there wasn’t any before. Or a new tributary developed out of thawing permafrost.
Fish and Game is reaching out to people that go out on the land. They created the Fish Map App in collaboration with the Aleut Community of Saint Paul and others. Fish and Game wants to know where anadromous fish are seen, what species they are, and what they are doing. Are they swimming or spawning? Are they juveniles, eggs, or adults?
Whether you are headed out to fish, packraft, or exercise your dog, the app will help you document the fish. You don’t need cell or internet connection. Once you are back in wi-fi range, the information will be sent to Fish and Game.
They then begin the process of nominating the waterbody for the state’s Anadromous Waters Catalog. If validated, the waterbody will be put on an interactive map where you can see it.
You can look at the map online. If you see that it is missing places, make a plan to head out there when the fish are running.
You can also provide information about the habitat with the Fish Map App. Is the water level high? What is the air temperature? How wide is the stream? Is it muddy or clear? Is there a culvert nearby?
Sometimes culverts get blocked or eroded out from below leaving them too high for fish to reach. Fish and Game wants to know about these places.
You may think that the Mat-Su Borough has been pretty well mapped out by fisheries biologists. But even here there are unmapped areas.
Last year a fish biologist from Chickaloon Village nominated thirteen salmon streams in the Matanuska Valley as new locations, new species, or new fish life stages.
So, head over to the App Store or Google Play store and download the Fish Map App before your next outdoor adventure. You may be the next person to get a new section of stream designated on the map.
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Kendra Zamzow reported this Page Two article and yours truly, Lee Henrikson produced it. If you have an idea for a Page 2 topic, please email us at page2@radiofreepalmer.org.
That’s it for today and the news on Page Two on Wednesday August 12, 2026.
Image is from the Fish Map App in Google Play