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Keeping an eye on the future Plan to increase released chinook set to temper loss of fish from hatchery mishap By Mark Freeman TRAIL � Biologists are increasing their releases of Rogue River spring chinook salmon smolts at Cole Rivers Hatchery over the next four years to help offset some of the future loss that sport-fishermen will feel from a massive fish-kill at the hatchery last January. Hatchery workers will grow 300,000 extra spring chinook this winter for release next summer into the Rogue to join the 1.62 million smolts sent from hatchery ponds to the ocean annually. The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife will repeat the releases three more times to help fill in the gaps in the hatchery spring chinook run from 2003-2008, with some significant catches beginning in 2003. Based on average ocean-survival rates, the extra smolts should generate an estimated 975 more adult hatchery chinook caught by sport-anglers in the Rogue in 2003, and another 975 caught in 2004, according to Tom Satterthwaite, an ODFW scientist researching Rogue chinook. Yet those extra fish will account for only less than a third of the adult hatchery chinook catch lost for those years because of the January fish-kill in the facility�s hatch house. The Trail-area hatchery, which raises spring chinook along the upper Rogue, lost 1.4 million spring chinook fry that died in a Jan. 6 hatchery pump and alarm system failure. It was the largest fish kill in the hatchery�s 28-year history. An early-morning water pump failure at the facility�s hatch house stopped the flow of clear, oxygen-rich water to about 1.8 million tiny spring chinook. Alarm systems meant to alert hatchery workers in their homes failed. All but 429,000 of the tiny salmon died before a janitor discovered the breakdown. Hatchery workers have since installed more alarms and added enough extra safety measures that the hatch house is better alarmed than even the Governor�s Mansion. Yet those measures cannot make up for the devastating loss. The agency looked into raising enough extra fish and manipulating their release times to fill in the gaps, but it would require millions of excess chinook to be reared and released next summer. Biologists instead settled on releasing an extra 300,000 smolts each of the next four years, says hatchery Manager Bill Otto. The program will cost about $25,000 per year, with the money added to the annual budget request from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which funds most of the Cole Rivers Hatchery programs as mitigation for building Lost Creek dam. Cole Rivers Hatchery normally releases about 1.62 million spring chinook smolts into the Rogue annually. Most come back as adults four years later, with smaller percentages returning as 2-, 3- and 5-year-olds. To get those 1.62 million chinook annually, hatchery workers normally keep 1,135 of the chinook that swim past anglers and enter the hatchery, Otto says. To get the extra 300,000 smolts, hatchery workers will spawn an extra 165 salmon � 110 females and 55 males � each of the next four years, he says. The extra fish already are on hand at the hatchery, where they were set aside from the normal set of excess spring chinook salmon sold annually to a commercial seafood processing firm. This year, American-Canadian Fisheries of Bellingham, Wash., bought 17,491 spring chinook for a total of $104,041, according to hatchery records. The salmon represented the largest share of the 20,336 spring chinook that swam into Cole Rivers Hatchery through Aug. 24. The fish that made it to the hatchery represent more than two-thirds of the 30,265 spring chinook that crossed Gold Ray Dam and into the upper Rogue this year. Adults accounted for the bulk of the salmon sold this year and fetched $6.25 apiece, the highest bid Cole Rivers Hatchery received, records indicate. The price is 15 cents higher per fish than last year�s winning bid by American-Canadian Fisheries (which was then known as Ocean Beauty Seafoods), but lower than Ocean Beauty�s �97 bid of $9.50 per high-grade adult chinook, Otto says. Also sold this summer were 705 jacks, which are younger salmon under 24 inches long, at 50 cents apiece as well as 199 1-year-old "subjacks" that sold for 10 cents apiece, records show. The money goes into the ODFW�s Carcass Fund, which helps pay for hatchery projects and operations across Oregon. Cole Rivers also supplied 174 chinook to Native American tribes as part of Oregon�s treaty obligations, records show. Last year, hatchery workers sold 11,700 of the 16,169 chinook that entered the facility�s collection ponds. The sale raised $77,895 for the carcass fund last year. Staff writer Mark Freeman covers the outdoors for the Mail Tribune. Call him at 776-4470, or e-mail him at [email protected] ) Outdoor Journal Obituaries | Sports | Business | Classifieds | Tempo | Prime Times | So Oregon Sites | Outdoor Journal | Subscribe | Contact | Movies | Advertise | Real Estate Showcase | Archive | Editorials | Letters to the editor | Religion | Wake-up Call | NIE | Cyber Chef | Job Network | So Oregon Weather | WSJ Northwest | Forums | AP Wire | AP Money | F.A.Q. | Awards Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. The Community Newspaper Subsidiary of Dow Jones & Co, Inc Copyright �The Mail Tribune 2000, Medford, Oregon USA