Education for the public and elected representatives is critical for the recovery of salmon and Steelhead.

Asking County Board of Supervisors to declare October Salmon and Steelhead Awareness Month can bring attention to the plight of threatened and endangered Salmonids and give a face to the watershed groups, agencies and advocates who are working for the recovery of these fish.

These easy steps can unite watershed groups to briefly bring the Board of Supervisors up to speed on the watershed groups' current efforts—especially creek clean-ups and restoration projects.

These are the steps the Steelhead and Stream Recovery Coalition of the South Central California Coast made for the Awareness month project:

1. Identify a lead coordinator: Coalition, RCD, California Conservation Corps.
2. Interview three of the five supervisors for support and ask one to be the presenter for the declaration.
3. Set a date in late September or first week of October for the presentation. (Set date about three months before.)
4. Pull up the California state resolution on this site (found at steelheadrecovery.org/ca-resolution.html).
5. Give the resolution to your county. They will revise the resolution to fit the county of origin.
6. Your county should print this to give you at the Board of Supervisors meeting.
7. Call all the watershed groups to commit to attending the meeting.
8. Identify the length of the presentation with the supervisor you are working with. A full presentation might run twenty minutes, but if the supervisors have a full agenda, it might only run five minutes.
9. Be sure to stress in the presentation how critical the decline of Salmonids is. Otherwise the perception could be that the threat to Salmonids is a small problem with lots of people doing something about it—and the seriousness is lost to the public.
10. Identify if the Board meeting will be broadcast on public access TV or the radio. Here is where the message can get out. Call the local papers and TV stations to run coverage.
11. Be sure watershed groups can all stay within the time limit. Going over could cut people off at the end, which isn't fair, or irritate the Board.
12. The Board will present the declaration to one person-rotate each year who receives it and let the next person receiving make the arrangements for next year.
13. Give something to the Board: a card or poster, etc. (Board members have been known to ask for smoked salmon!)
14. Once you have collected these watershed groups together, it is a great opportunity to have a county-wide meeting to expand on Salmonid recovery, networking, collaboration and agency coordination.

Good luck!