Endangered salmon on the move

BOISE – So far this year only one endangered sockeye salmon has returned to the headwaters of central Idaho’s Salmon River, but biologists with the Idaho Department of Fish and Game say more might arrive.

Fifteen sockeye have made it past Lower Granite Dam on the Snake River in Washington this year. That’s the last of eight dams the fish must pass on their 900-mile trip from the ocean to Idaho. Based on past experience, biologists said, about half of the 15 will survive the final 452 miles to complete the journey.

“They’re starting to come back,” Paul Kline, the Idaho Department of Fish and Game biologist in charge of the sockeye captive breeding program, told The Idaho Statesman.

The fish have been closely tracked since being listed as endangered in 1991, and a captive breeding-and-rearing program has been in place to try to prevent the salmon from becoming extinct.

An Independent Science Review panel earlier this year said the program was ineffective because there are so few sockeye they have reduced genetic resiliency, and those fish face downstream threats that include dams, predators and fishing.

Despite that finding, the Northwest power and Conservation Council in June approved spending $2.7 million on hatchery facilities to keep the run alive. That money will pay for about 260,000 smolts, or young sockeye salmon, to be released for the trip to the ocean.

About 35,000 sockeye used to return to Redfish Lake, the traditional spawning area for the fish, scientists said.

Now, the sockeye return to a weir on Redfish Creek that connects the lake to the Salmon River, or to a trap farther upstream at the Sawtooth Hatchery. Only six fish returned last year after 23 were counted at Lower Granite.

“These fish are barely on life support,” said Amanda Peacher, outreach director for Idaho Rivers United in Boise. “It’s a miracle that even one can make the 900-mile journey through eight dams and reservoirs back to Redfish,” she said.