Published: Tuesday, September 1, 2009
Uphill swim for salmon
Chinook returning to the Skykomish River face water running warm and low, just as their forebears did.
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Dan Bates / The Herald
Fred Sicade of the Tulalip Tribes Fisheries holds a female summer chinook Monday at the Wallace River State Salmon Hatchery in Gold Bar.
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Dan Bates / The Herald
Washington State Fish and Wildlife workers (from left) Erin Wright, Matt Heil and Scott Meechan drag one end of a net through an area on the Wallace River in an attempt to trap spawning summer chinook salmon so they and Tulalip Tribes Fisheries personnel can hand-catch females Monday at the Wallace River State Salmon Hatchery in Gold Bar.
TULALIP — It was a warm summer four years ago, much like the one the region is experiencing now: hot temperatures, dry conditions, low river levels.
That’s a curse for chinook salmon trying to return to the Skykomish River to spawn, said Mike Crewson, a fisheries biologist for the Tulalip Tribes.
Spawned four years ago, the chinook are the offspring of fish that suffered due to warm water temperatures and other poor conditions. Many ailed as fingerlings because they were spawned from diseased adults and struggled to make their journey to the ocean, Crewson said.
Now, those fish are being hit again, by the same conditions their parents faced.
“Our summer chinook are probably the poorest returns we’ve seen,” Crewson said.
State and tribal hatchery biologists usually expect at least 3,200 and as many as 6,000 summer chinook, he said. This year, early estimates concluded that they might not get 1,000.
That means local hatcheries would only get about 2 million eggs to use, rather than the 4 million or so they usually rely on, Crewson said.
This summer, the fish have languished in warm, shallow water, unable to move upriver to their spawning grounds. They’re expected to spawn within a few weeks. If the fish don’t move beyond where they are now, Crewson said, they’ll spawn there — or, in some cases, not at all.
“The conditions are so bad that the fish won’t come into the hatchery at all,” Crewson said. “They’ll start spawning in two weeks, and it’s unlikely we’ll get enough rain to raise the river levels before then.”
Biologists in recent weeks have been helping the salmon along. They opened the fish ladder at the Bernie Kai-Kai Gobin Hatchery on the Tulalip Indian Reservation, and have been collecting fish near the Wallace River Hatchery. So far, they’ve caught more than 1,000 fish, Crewson said. Those fish will be held and spawned in the hatcheries.
Biologists at the Tulalip facility already have about 700 fish, each ready to spawn, in the hatchery, Crewson said. With a few more days of fishing, he said, the hatcheries might gather enough fish to expect a normal egg harvest.
“We just might get our egg take,” Crewson said.
Once the chinook spawn, state and tribal biologists share the eggs, according to the Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission. When there’s an egg shortage, the state takes the first 1 million eggs, the Tulalip Tribes get the next 800,000 eggs, and the remaining eggs are divided.
Krista J. Kapralos: 425-339-3422, kkapralos@heraldnet.com.
That’s a curse for chinook salmon trying to return to the Skykomish River to spawn, said Mike Crewson, a fisheries biologist for the Tulalip Tribes.
Spawned four years ago, the chinook are the offspring of fish that suffered due to warm water temperatures and other poor conditions. Many ailed as fingerlings because they were spawned from diseased adults and struggled to make their journey to the ocean, Crewson said.
Now, those fish are being hit again, by the same conditions their parents faced.
“Our summer chinook are probably the poorest returns we’ve seen,” Crewson said.
State and tribal hatchery biologists usually expect at least 3,200 and as many as 6,000 summer chinook, he said. This year, early estimates concluded that they might not get 1,000.
That means local hatcheries would only get about 2 million eggs to use, rather than the 4 million or so they usually rely on, Crewson said.
This summer, the fish have languished in warm, shallow water, unable to move upriver to their spawning grounds. They’re expected to spawn within a few weeks. If the fish don’t move beyond where they are now, Crewson said, they’ll spawn there — or, in some cases, not at all.
“The conditions are so bad that the fish won’t come into the hatchery at all,” Crewson said. “They’ll start spawning in two weeks, and it’s unlikely we’ll get enough rain to raise the river levels before then.”
Biologists in recent weeks have been helping the salmon along. They opened the fish ladder at the Bernie Kai-Kai Gobin Hatchery on the Tulalip Indian Reservation, and have been collecting fish near the Wallace River Hatchery. So far, they’ve caught more than 1,000 fish, Crewson said. Those fish will be held and spawned in the hatcheries.
Biologists at the Tulalip facility already have about 700 fish, each ready to spawn, in the hatchery, Crewson said. With a few more days of fishing, he said, the hatcheries might gather enough fish to expect a normal egg harvest.
“We just might get our egg take,” Crewson said.
Once the chinook spawn, state and tribal biologists share the eggs, according to the Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission. When there’s an egg shortage, the state takes the first 1 million eggs, the Tulalip Tribes get the next 800,000 eggs, and the remaining eggs are divided.
Krista J. Kapralos: 425-339-3422, kkapralos@heraldnet.com.
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