Helping Migratory Fish Species

Helping Migratory Fish Species

Helping Migratory Fish Species

I'm Lacy Gray with Washington Ag Today.

Whoosh Innovations of Bellevue has been working on developing a safe, efficient and cost effective method of transporting salmon through vacuum-pressurized tubes. Todd Deligan, VP of their fish transport program, says that Whoosh has been working with state, federal and tribal agencies during the development process, and have just recently delivered a system to the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife.

DELIGAN: It is to take live chinook brood-stock from the middle of a river and deliver them to the back of a truck where they're taken then back to a hatchery and they're used for next generation purposes. And we are waiting for the fall chinook run to arrive at the Washougal River, which is a tributary of the Columbia down in southwest Washington. So hopefully in the next two weeks we'll have some good data and we'll see a number of live fish moving through the system.

Deligan explains what their ultimate goals are for the system.

DELIGAN: The first goal is on the live migratory species side. If we could help these resource managers get fish back to their historic habitat that would be an unbelievable goal to help achieve. On the commercial side - if we can help seafood processors within their plants move product delicately and efficiently around plants more effectively - again another great goal.

On the commercial side Deligan says they have just delivered their first full 500 foot system to a salmon plant in Norway. As far as migratory species use.

DELIGAN: Anything in this live migratory species arena - it is a step by step process. Dams are probably down the road a little bit. Everyone has to get very comfortable here. Hopefully we're in the barrier context within the next year or two, but I think that we'll be in the transport of fish in the next 6 months to a year.

That's Washington Ag Today.

I'm Lacy Gray on the Ag Information Network.

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