Tag Archives: Idaho Department of Fish and Game
Nez Perce tribe hopes to spark return of chinook with artificial beds
The Nez Perce tribe is taking advantage of overproduction at the Clearwater Hatchery to seed some local streams with spring chinook redds – spawning beds or nests. Members of the tribe’s fisheries division have been busy placing 850,000 fertilized eggs into artificial nests in the beds of Newsome and Lolo creeks, where they have also done extensive restoration work. The process involves using special equipment to recreate the nests that female salmon laboriously create with their bodies and then injecting the eggs into the gravely cavities. It’s not the most efficient way to boost salmon runs, but tribal fisheries officials say it’s better than having the excess eggs go to waste. click here to read the story 16:41
Experts: Idaho hatchery built to save salmon is killing them
A relatively new $13.5 million hatchery intended to save Snake River sockeye salmon from extinction is instead killing thousands of fish before they ever get to the ocean, and fisheries biologists in Idaho think they know why. The Department of Fish and Game in information released this week says water chemistry at the Springfield Hatchery in eastern Idaho is so different from that in the central region that the young fish can’t adjust when released into the wild. Idaho Rivers United, an environmental group, blasted the report as more reason for removing four dams on the lower Snake River that impede salmon click here to read the story 10:53
