1 Rearing of Juvenile Salmon in Recovering Wetlands of the Salmon River Estuary: Functional Development with Marsh Age

Widespread decline of salmon stocks throughout the Pacific Northwest has stimulated interest in the restoration of freshwater and estuarine habitats. Because many salmon stocks rear in estuaries for an extended period before migrating to sea (Reimers 1973; Simenstad et al. 1982), and estuarine marsh channels are used by some salmonids as nursery habitats (Levy and Northcote 1982; Simenstad et al. 1982), the salmon crisis has lent new urgency to ongoing efforts to restore estuarine wetlands lost to decades of filling and diking of intertidal lands. Removal of tidegates and dikes has been a primary focus of recovery efforts because such “passive ” restoration methods offer the most cost-effective means for returning significant quantities of wetland habitat to estuaries. Ongoing research in the Salmon River estuary (Oregon) is providing much-needed information about the responses of estuarine-rearing salmonids and prey resources to wetland restoration. The effectiveness of estuarine restoration for salmon has rarely been investigated. Although use of tidal wetlands as salmonid rearing habitat has been documented in some estuaries (e.g., Levy and Northcote 1982), little is known about the specific wetland attributes favored by salmon, the relative rates of recovery of various types of diked wetlands, or th