Spawning Ground and Creel Monitoring Technician (Scientific Technician 2, Career Seasonal)

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The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) is hiring a Spawning Ground and Creel Monitoring Technician (Scientific Technician 2) within the Fish Program’s Fish Management team, based at the Montesano duty station in Grays Harbor County. This career-seasonal role runs for five months, from 1 August to 31 December, and collects information used to assess stock status, build fishery models and forecast salmon returns. The optimal applicant has experience identifying river and ocean stage salmonids, juvenile salmonids and other game fish species.

Responsibilities span three areas. Spawner surveys and stock assessment involve conducting salmon spawner surveys following Region 6, District 17 and Willapa Bay procedures, collecting data to estimate stock status of hatchery and natural stocks by measuring abundance, productivity, diversity and spatial distribution, and calculating spawning escapements within the Willapa Bay watershed in Pacific County. Stream surveys are conducted on foot or by raft, pontoon, drift boat or jet-powered river sled, and biological collection of carcasses includes identifying mark status, scale sampling for age and origin, coded wire tag recovery, fork length and sex identification, and DNA tissue sampling. Marine recreational creel monitoring involves collecting data from the marine recreational fishery in Marine Area 2.1 through angler interviews and examination of landed salmon to estimate catch, effort, species origin, age, stock composition and encounter rates of Chinook or coho. Commercial fishery monitoring and sampling includes on-board observer monitoring and examination of landed salmon at fish-house buyer locations, and from August through November the position may participate in commercial gillnet fishery sampling and on-board monitoring within Willapa Bay and Grays Harbor.

Work is primarily outdoors in and around water, rivers and streams, with seasonal high-workload periods during the salmon and steelhead seasons. Field work can be strenuous and hazardous, requiring comfort working alone or with a partner in remote and isolated environments in all weather and in swiftly moving water for up to ten hours a day, and the position may snorkel and must be able to navigate cold, fast-flowing whitewater. Work hours vary with weather, river conditions and daylight, and often fall outside a normal schedule, including weekends, non-consecutive days off, and occasional night and holiday hours. All travel is by state vehicle from the duty station to assigned ports or freshwater river systems within Pacific or Grays Harbor Counties.

Required qualifications are graduation from high school or GED including one year of high school science, plus either two years of experience as a Scientific Technician 1 or two years of laboratory or field experience as an assistant to a biologist, chemist or zoologist; relevant college coursework substitutes year-for-year. A valid driver’s licence is required. Preferred qualifications include knowledge of salmonid species, their spawning behaviour, life histories and sampling methodologies, experience identifying river and ocean stage salmonids and other game fish, careful data collection, the ability to work independently and in teams, safe watercraft operation through instream obstacles, navigation with maps and GPS, and experience with ArcGIS. Applications require a completed online application, resume, cover letter and at least three professional references.