Tribe gathering small fish to save dwindling Stilly run

There was a time when a net cast in the south fork of the Stillaguamish River would bring in a variety of fish.

These days, nets often pull up little more than debris.

"Nothing," said Charlotte Scofield, a technician with the Stillaguamish Tribe's Natural Resources Department.

Scofield lugged an iron-weighted beach seine net in with help from Robbie Hutton, another technician on the team. They gathered the net until most of it was on the beach, and lifted the edge up to the surface. They peered in.

"We got nothing," Scofield said.

Scofield has been wading out waist-high into the river since January, pulling a seine looped around her foot, to catch a few chinook salmon. If she doesn't find some in her net soon, the strain of salmon, genetically unique to the Stillaguamish River's south fork, could die out. With a $550,000 state grant, the Stillaguamish Tribe hopes to capture at least 30 newly hatched chinook fry, raise them for three or four years in luxury accommodations, and breed them in an effort to kick-start the struggling run.

The tribe in late 2007 received a grant to capture 15 to 20 adult chinook each year as they returned to their spawning grounds, where environmental damage made it difficult to lay eggs. Hatchery staff were prepared to collect fish eggs and sperm, fertilize them and add them to the hatchery stock. The plan was to mimic a program the tribe has used for two decades to revive the chinook population on the Stillaguamish River's north fork. There, the annual fish run is now up to nearly 1,500 mature salmon.

Chinook runs are beginning to thrive in the northern Puget Sound region, where tribal and state managers have worked for years to boost their numbers. More than 20,000 chinook are expected to return to the Skagit River this year in summer and fall runs. That's the largest run in the area.

On the Stillaguamish River's south fork, previous efforts have failed.

"The population estimate for the south fork this year was around 100, but we couldn't even locate 40 fish," Stillaguamish tribal Chairman Shawn Yanity said.

Last year, staff found just four chinook on the river's south fork, Scofield said. That means the fish are dying in saltwater, where they spend between two and five years before returning to spawn.

The only way to capture enough chinook to revive the river's south fork run is to seine the beach for two-inch smolts and keep them alive until they're mature enough to reproduce, she said.

Tribal nets have pulled in nearly 20 young chinook since January, said John Drotts, the Stillaguamish Tribe's natural resource manager. The fry all now live in what Drotts and his staff call the "fish condo," an upscale neighborhood of the hatchery where each fish gets its own compartment and is hand-fed insects and other food.

Wild smolts are at risk for bacterial kidney disease, Scofield said. Once the fish are larger, those with no signs of the disease will likely be grouped together.

There are 30 compartments in the fish condo. Scofield hopes to find enough chinook to fill them all. Then, she and other staff must make sure each fish lives to see its third birthday. That's when they'll likely be mature enough to spawn, she said.

Even if all the fish live, the results could be disastrous, Scofield said. She doesn't know whether the fry she catches on the river are male or female.

"If we keep them all alive and they all turn out to be male, I don't know what we'll do," she said. "This project is our last resort."



Krista J. Kapralos: 425-339-3422, kkapralos@heraldnet.com.