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Mark Freeman 's Commentary All for a good cause TRAIL �Salmon-killing day at Cole Rivers Hatchery always has a certain precision and businesslike air that is as efficient as it is dispassionate at dispensing with extra fish. The heaviest work comes in August, when thousands of excess spring chinook salmon � the crown jewels of this hatchery�s mega-program for the Rogue � are corralled, stunned, killed, butchered and loaded onto seafood-processing trucks by hatchery workers who display all the pomp and circumstance of Ford assembly-line workers. "The chinook kill is something we do that�s business-as-usual," hatchery foreman Matt Frank says. "It�s a long, tiring day, but we got it down to a science." But Wednesday was coho day at Cole Rivers Hatchery. And it was beginning to look a lot like Christmas. Instead of an army of hatchery technicians processing the excess fish, volunteers helped Frank and friends prepare what amounts to early Christmas presents for the upper Rogue community�s less fortunate. Cole Rivers workers are in the midst of their eighth annual giveaway of most of the thousands of excess coho that reached hatchery ponds this year but have no sales market like the excess chinook do. On giveaway day, the slick assembly line transforms to "controlled mayhem," as Frank labels the anarchy of mixing free help with the hired technicians. Their grueling task is to kill and load as many as 1,500 excess coho in a day. The fish are signed over to service organizations like CERVS or the Catfish Cove Club, which then distribute them. And it is, in a sense, the only free lunch anyone gets from the river and the state agency that manages it. "These people get some fish, they get something out of this resource," says Frank, 35. "They get something out of this hatchery, and something from the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife." Yet it�s simple giveaways like this that make hatchery workers like Frank smile because it makes the community at large smile at them. That�s no easy task these days in Southern Oregon, where hatchery practices are constantly under public scrutiny and criticism from all sides of fishery�s political spectrum. "We see people at the market, and they say good things about us without any provocation," Frank says. "I come away with a good feeling from a coho kill because we�re actually doing something good for people, giving fish to people who need them. I don�t get the same feeling when our hatchery is selling fish to a buyer. "It feels Christmassy. " It also feels like a blessing to civic groups like the Catfish Cove Club, a service club in the Prospect-Butte Falls area that tries to help area families in their daily struggles. "We�re getting around the holidays and there�s a lot of people, especially back up in this country, who sometimes end up a little bit short," says Prospect�s Gene Adams, whose Catfish Cove Club dispenses 600-2,700 of the hatchery�s excess coho annually. "It�s the first time ever, I think, that all the communities up here are all pitching in for one common goal � taking care of all these people with all these fish," Adams says. It�s a byproduct of wild salmon protection measures for Oregon, where wild coho are protected federally as a threatened species in Southern Oregon and treated much like one by the state in the rest of Oregon. For decades, Oregon�s hatcheries produced mass schools of coho that fed a lucrative ocean commercial-fishing fleet. Eventually, the sport-anglers began to take part as well. But offshore coho fishing collapsed in the early 1990s as sport, and commercial anglers were pushed off the seas to protect wild coho, which mix with hatchery coho while in the ocean. This created far more returns to rivers like the Rogue. But coho in the Rogue simply don�t bite well and are not caught in the same numbers like the river�s steelhead or chinook. All those Rogue hatchery coho not caught in the ocean or in the river have to end up somewhere. That somewhere is Cole Rivers Hatchery, where the excess coho become Frank�s problem. The extra fish are in good shape and tasty, but they simply don�t have the market value of Rogue spring chinook. Historically, the excess either were processed into fish food or killed and buried in landfills. But Frank and his hatchery brethren saw potential and instigated the aggressive giveaway program in 1993. Frank began telephoning charitable organizations like CERVS, the Gleaning Network in Central Point and the Catfish Cove Club and found a receptive audience. Now on coho killing days, the organizations provide volunteers who not only help process the fish, but also take possession of them on the understanding that they will distribute them to needy families and not sell them. Hatchery workers don�t give fish to those who contact the hatchery. They instead are funneled through the charities, Frank says. Coho days are wild days, with Frank never knowing if, when or how many volunteers will actually show up. When they do, the assembly line gets a bit chaotic, with many of the volunteers wanting to talk fishing. But that�s all OK, too. "It�s almost like we�re totally winging it," Frank laughs. "But it�s great." Chinook-killing days are business. Coho-killing days are pleasure. "A lot of my memories of big coho kills are when it�s snowing a lot like today, people all bundled up, drinking coffee and a bunch of pickup trucks parked in our parking lot," Frank says. "It feels like Christmas," he says. (Staff writer Mark Freeman covers the outdoors for the Mail Tribune. Call him at 776-4470, or e-mail him at: [email protected] ) Mail Tribune Home | Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. | Dow Jones & Co., Inc. | Privacy | Contact Us Copyright � 2000 Mail Tribune, Inc.