Olympic Peninsula – The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in coordination with the Makah Tribe has taken steps to adaptively manage coho salmon at Makah National Fish Hatchery (MNFH) in the face of this year’s unprecedented high temperatures and critically low water in the Tsoo-Yess River. In an effort to save the returning adult fall Chinook and juvenile steelhead on station, and to avoid continued decline in fish health, the remaining 85,000 juvenile coho salmon were humanely euthanized on Thursday Aug. 20 at MNFH.
“We evaluated our potential courses of action and this was the best of several very undesirable options,” said Mark Ahrens, acting chief of fisheries operations for the Service’s Pacific Region. The Hatchery Evaluation Team, a group of federal experts dedicated to ensuring efficient hatchery operations, weighed releasing the fish elsewhere in the river, releasing them in a different river, or continuing treatment with antibiotics.
Makah NFH is a co-managed facility operated cooperatively by the Service and the Makah Tribe. Co-managers work together to develop hatchery production strategies and adjust hatchery production to allow for changing habitat conditions that affect fish populations.
The Tsoo-Yess River system is unique in that it is primarily fed by perception precipitation. While the Tsoo-Yess River typically experiences low flows during the summer period, fisheries managers have not encountered conditions like this before and because of the resulting severe fish health issues are concerned for returning adult Chinook.
As co-managers, the Makah Tribe along with the fish health services provided by the Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission (NWIFC) participated in the review that has led to the decision to euthanize the remaining 85,000 juvenile coho on station in effort to protect the remaining hatchery steelhead.
“This was a decision that no one wanted to make but after working closely with the Fish and Wildlife Service, we realized it was the right decision,” said Russell Svec, Fisheries Director for the Makah Tribe. “The Makah Tribe and the Service will continue to evaluate the environmental conditions of the Tsoo-Yess River to identify the best strategy for the returning Tsoo-Yess fall Chinook in effort to meet its hatchery brood stock target level for 2015.“
After careful consideration of each option co-managers agreed that euthanization was the best path forward. This is the second action in response to the deteriorating water conditions at MNFH. Earlier in August, 49,000 juvenile steelhead and 163,000 juvenile coho were released into the Tsoo-Yess River below MNFH, eight months prior to their scheduled release date. These releases reduced the amount of water needed by MNFH, and it was hoped that the hatchery would then be able to stay ahead of the deteriorating conditions and keep the remaining juvenile coho and steelhead at MNFH.
However, conditions continued to decline leading to Thursday’s actions. All of these actions were taken to provide the best possible chance of survival for the juvenile fish remaining at the hatchery and both the returning adults and juveniles already in the river.
