Record Run

Record Run

David Sparks Ph.D.
David Sparks Ph.D.
Ed Schriever, Head of fisheries for the Idaho Fish and Game Department gave me an explanation for the fabulous fall Chinook run. "A perfect storm where these things come together so that you get a couple of consecutive generations for the naturally produced fall Chinook. They are predominantly from the Hanford reach of the Columbia, the hatchery propagation and good ocean survival and fairly good conditions being managed in the Columbia River for those fish when they are juveniles going out and here we are looking at record abundances of adult fish and really dynamic sport fisheries, not only in the saltwater but from Astoria up through the Hanford reach and the Snake River, a dramatic turnaround for fall Chinook runs over the last decade predominantly as a result of hatchery influence, mitigation and supplementation. So everybody says, they must all be actually fish. We are expecting that if we don't set a contemporary record, that is since lower Granite dam has been in place for fall Chinook returns, then it will be really close to last year's record run. The interesting thing within that run is that this year we are expecting over half of the adults returning in that run to be natural origin fish. That is, fish who originated from eggs that were laid in the environment and not coming from a hatchery.
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