[Split Bamboo]

DATA ALERT: The DCPUD adult passage reports for Wells dam are delayed due to the large number of passing sockeye. Counters expect to eliminate the delay by the end of the month.

From the fish passage website: http://www.cbr.washington.edu/dart/adult.html

A good problem to have!

 

[Salmo_g]

Yeah, I heard yesterday that the fish counters were working their fingers to the bone tapping the "sockeye" key as rapidly as humanly possible. They'll deserve a well earned break at the end of the season.

 

[Jerry White]

Hey guys,
Probably should do the homework myself (and will) but I was just wondering if you knew right off hand what % of these are wild?

 

[Old Man]

Aren't all Sockeye wild. I didn't think that they fin clipped any of them fish.

 

[Split Bamboo]

I don't think they fin clip any of them, but I am pretty sure some are hatchery fish. However I believe they try to keep the genetics close to the native fish, spawning wild fish ect, as opposed to introducing strains that work well in hatcheries like they did with steelhead.

 

[BDD]

The general consensus is sockeye fry are too small to clip before releasing into a lake to rear a year before heading out as smolt the following year. There was an effort to mark with Calcein, a marking chemical/technique but the mortality rate was too high (sockeye fry are pretty delicate and fragile) so it was discontinued. Rather than using an adipose clip, otoliths are collected as juveniles (to differentiate between hatchery sockeye and kokanee) and adults to differentiate between hatchery and wild origin. Not all the Columbia sockeye are wild. There have been at least 4 million hatchery sockeye fry released into Skaha and Osoyoos lakes since 2004. Brood is collected from the Okanogan River (upstream from Osoyoos Lake) right along wild spawning fish. Naturally produced fish emerge and drift down to rear in Osoyoos before making the trip down the Okanogan River to the Columbia.

 

[Salmo_g]

Jerry,

They are preponderantly wild, but as BDD points out, some artificial propagation is occurring. Can't tell how that figures in the mix though because we don't know how many wild fry there are to calculate a hatchery percentage.

Sg

 

[c1eddy]

Couple interesting reads concerning the Sockeye run:
http://www.cbbulletin.com/391925.aspx
and this one from 2008: http://www.obwb.ca/99/?tx_ttnews[tt_news]=97&tx_ttnews[backPid]=97&cHash=e4112482c2

 

[wetline dave]

At first look it appears that the increased water releases from the dams are doing what was thought to be a solution for moving juvenils down river and increasing returns. A few more cycles and maybe we will have a grip on the problem.

Dave

 

[BDD]

Jerry,

They are preponderantly wild, but as BDD points out, some artificial propagation is occurring. Can't tell how that figures in the mix though because we don't know how many wild fry there are to calculate a hatchery percentage.

Sg

They do some acoustic work, in-lake trawls, and RST (with otolith recovery and analysis on the latter two) to determine a wild fry/pre-smolt estimate.