Tag Archives: hatcheries
Fish Commissioner Calls For Sharp Increase In Chinook Production For Orcas
Fifty million more Chinook would be released for southern resident killer whales under a plan being pitched by a member of the Washington Fish and Wildlife Commission and which would also provide “shirttail benefits” for salmon anglers. Don McIsaac wants to release 30 million kings in four areas of Puget Sound, and another 20 million from hatcheries in the Columbia River system to help feed the starving pods. Their plight has gripped the region this summer and this past March led Governor Jay Inslee to sign an executive order directing state agencies such as WDFW to do all they can to help save the species. >click to read<20:18
Too many pink salmon in Kachemak Bay?
Tucked into a narrow fjord on the south side of Kachemak Bay is a small lagoon, 700 feet wide, and only a couple thousand feet long. At low tide, a salty trickle connects it to the ocean. At high tide, at the height of the summer, treble hooks fly between a flurry of skiffs as salmon snaggers circle the net pens in the center of the lagoon. Seines scoop up tens of thousands of fish in an attempt to pay for the hatchery, as hatchery operators collect eggs from the fish that swarm the creek. A few weeks later, carcasses rot, eggs incubate and Tutka Lagoon fades back into relative obscurity. Until this year, that is, when a wave of controversy spilled out through that narrow channel like the 100 million pink salmon they hope to release, flooding across Kachemak Bay State Park to Homer, up Cook Inlet, and down to Juneau, prompting the governor to send a fleet of commissioners to brace against the wave. click here to read the story 09:03
To Save Its Salmon, California Calls in the Fish Matchmaker
On a frigid morning in a small metal-sided building, a team of specialists prepared to orchestrate an elaborate breeding routine. The work would be wet and messy, so they wore waders. Their tools included egg trays and a rubber mallet, which they used to brain a fertile female coho salmon, now hanging dead on a hook. Diana Chesney, a biologist, studied a piece of paper with a matrix of numbers, each one denoting a male salmon and potential match for the female coho. “This is the bible,” she said of the matrix. “It’s what Carlos says.” Read the article here 12:57
