Salmon Hatcheries are a topic of contention and much debate in the world of fish politics and management. Some argue that they have a role to play, others argue that they are the devil. What do you think?
In 1984, the Kitsumkalum River summer chinook stock was chosen for monitoring under the chinook ‘key-stream’ program, which was initiated in response to objectives set out in the Canada-U.S. Pacific Salmon Treaty. The goal was to use escapement and exploitation information from this stock as an indicator of harvest and exploitation rates on B. C. north coast chinook. To that end, Peterson escapement estimates have been generated annually along with associated biological information. In addition, between 30 and 250 thousand coded-wire- tagged (CWTd) fed-fry have been released annually since 1979 (except 1982) to provide estimates of harvest and exploitation rates.
Since 1984, escapement of this stock has varied between 5 and 24 thousand fish, with peak abundance occurring from 1987-1990. With the exception of 1987, adult production for this stock has been declining since the early 1980’s which has led to several years of low escapement. Poor fry-to-age-two (FAT) survival of the 1986, and the 1988-1990 broods, contributed to lower escapement in 1991 and 1995, respectively. However, because the CWT fry releases used to estimate FAT survival spend a year in freshwater before entering the ocean (stream-type stock), it is not known whether this high mortality was due to poor freshwater or marine conditions, or a combination of the two. The cause of the poor 1997 escapement, the lowest recorded since the start of this program, is uncertain. FAT survival was only slightly below average for the major contributing broods to that run (brood years 1991 and 1992). However, circumstantial evidence suggests that wild fry may have suffered higher than normal mortality during the egg-to-fry stage, which would not be reflected in FAT survival estimates. While egg-to-fry survival is not currently monitored, high water events during and just after spawning in 1991 and 1992 may have adversely affected egg survival those years. Low flow conditions may have also adversely affected early survival of the 1985 brood.
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