The University of Montana's Flathead Lake Biological Station has received a three-year, $4.6 million grant to continue research on pristine salmon and trout watersheds along the Pacific Rim.

Station Director Jack Stanford said the grant from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation will support the Salmon Rivers Observatory Network, a long-term project that started in 2003 to study the biological diversity and productivity of 15 to 20 pristine salmon-river ecosystems.

Targeted rivers are in British Columbia, Alaska and Kamchatka in the Russian Far East. The university's primary partners in the project are the Wild Salmon Center in Portland, Ore., and Moscow State University in Russia, along with Canadian First Nations and federal and state agencies.

The goal of the project is to complete a massive, in-depth study of these rivers by examining geology, chemistry, vegetation, aquatic organisms, stream flows and more.

It focuses on what Stanford calls the "shifting habitat mosaic" - the complex, continuously changing web of water and life in rivers. This approach was developed through research on the Nyack flood plain on the Middle Fork Flathead River.

"Our research is designed to provide a new approach for salmon management worldwide," Stanford said. "We need a paradigm shift in the management of wild salmon that focuses on sustaining the abundance and health of wild salmon habitat by allowing very charitable returns of spawning fish to not only produce the next generations of fish, but also add fertility to the system so those salmon youngsters grow into strong competitors for the rigors of the ocean they must return to."

Reporter Jim Mann may be reached at 758-4407 or by e-mail at jmann@dailyinterlake.com