Assistant hatchery manager Brent Ramsey, right, and fisheries technician Donovan Ward clean algae from the Bear Springs ponds.

Featured in this season’s NWIFC Magazine is a story about how the Quileute and Puyallup tribes are picking up various aspects of the state’s hatchery management responsibilities as the state’s budget shrinks. You can download a free copy of the magazine here.

From the Magazine:

Treaty tribes in western Washington are assuming additional fisheries enhancement responsibilities to preserve hatchery programs in danger of closing because of cuts to the state budget.

…

The Puyallup Tribe of Indians is helping fund a program to restore spring chinook in the upper White River watershed.

“For more than 18 years we’ve been working with the state to release juvenile spring chinook produced at the Minter Creek hatchery into acclimation ponds in the upper White River,” said Russ Ladley, resource protection manager for the tribe.

…

The Quileute Tribe took over the lease last year of Bear Springs, a fish-rearing facility formerly run by the department of Fish and Wildlife and owned by the Department of Natural Resources.

This spring, the tribe released 50,000 chinook from Bear Springs into the Sol Duc River. The fish are part of a conservation group to bolster the summer chinook returns. The tribe is collecting data to compare
returns of fish released from Bear Springs as 1-year-olds to fish released when they were younger and smaller.

Below is a video about the Puyallup Tribe’s efforts with White River chinook: