Salmonid Restoration Federation (SRF) is offering our first (and perhaps last) virtual Salmonid Restoration Conference, April 21–23, 2021. When SRF had to cancel the 2020 Conference last year due to COVID-19, it was hard to fathom that a year later, we would still be trying to navigate new ways to provide technical education to the salmon restoration community. So much of the experience of attending the SRF Conference is the in-person convening of restoration practitioners from engineers to consultants, policy makers to planners, academics to students, and on-the-ground practitioners. Producing a virtual conference is truly a process of adaptation and learning new and inventive ways to communicate and engage.

The virtual conference will highlight ocean conditions, food webs, dam removal, reintroduction strategies, anadromous salmonid habitat suitability criteria, and strategies to accelerate steelhead and coho salmon recovery efforts.

Conference technical workshops will include a full day on Assessing Ecological Risks from Streamflow Diversions in Coastal California Streams. Two half-day workshops, Accelerating Coho and Steelhead Recovery and Speaking of Science, will allow participants to explore methods for prioritizing specific restoration projects and improving their abilities as science communicators.

The SRF Plenary session will feature Rene Henery, California Science Director of Trout Unlimited, who will present thoughts on how preserving salmon diversity requires a diverse set of approaches that foster social and scientific interactions, in a talk called Deep Restoration (Without and Within): Tending Old Wounds, Healing Systems, and Recovering Belonging. Chuck Bonham, Director of the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, will discuss The Difference A Year Makes. Nate Mantua of NOAA/NMFS Southwest Fisheries Science Center will give a talk on Ocean Conditions and the Emergence of Thiamine Deficiency in Central Valley Chinook Salmon. Dr. Drew Harvell will speak on Ocean Outbreaks Heating Up with Climate Change.

Other conference events will include the SRF annual membership meeting, access to a screening and panel discussion of the film Gather, a free professional development session, and a virtual poster session.

To see the full agenda, please visit: www.calsalmon.org/conferences/salmonid-restoration-virtual-conference