A quarter million juvenile coho salmon took a quarter-mile ride through a 4-inch pipe when the Port Gamble S’Klallam Tribe recently transferred the young fish from shore to the tribe’s floating net pens in Port Gamble Bay.
The fish came from the Washington Department Fish and Wildlife’s George Adams Hatchery near Shelton. Arriving in a tanker truck, the fish first were transferred into a 2,300-gallon fiberglass holding tank, then flushed through the pipe into the net pens.
This is the second year the fish have been transported via the pipeline. For decades prior, a barge was brought to the town of Port Gamble, where the fish would be piped from the tanker truck to a tank on the barge, which was then towed to the net pens by a seine boat. The fish then would be offloaded into the pens.
“Using the pipe system means less handling of the fish and less stress on them as well,” said Paul McCollum, the tribe’s natural resources director. McCollum brought this method with him from Alaska where he previously worked.
While the tribe typically receives approximately 400,000 fish from the state, cold water disease at George Adams Hatchery killed thousands of the fish this year, McCollum said.
The fish will be reared in the pens until June, when they will be released. Coho average three years in age, with the first half of their lives in freshwater. The fish then spend 18 months at sea before returning to freshwater again as adults to spawn.
The fish are harvested by both tribal and non-tribal fishermen. Most of the fish have a tiny coded-wire tag in their snout to identify their origin and date of release, providing fisheries managers with important migration, survival and other data needed for fisheries management.
For more information, Paul McCollum, Port Gamble S’Klallam Tribe natural resources director, at 360.297.6237 or [email protected]; Tiffany Royal, Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission information officer, at (360) 297-6546 or [email protected]
