September's Salmon

It happens every year, like clockwork.  While many people are making Labor Day weekend plans, the Tule Fall Chinook salmon wrap up their incredible journey to and from the Pacific Ocean.  Spring Creek National Fish Hatchery rears 12.5 million of these amazing fish each year.  The Tule Fall Chinook is native to this portion of the Columbia River and its tributaries.  They are listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act, making hatchery production essential to minimize impacts of harvest on wild fish.   

Their return brings employees together from all six stations in the Columbia River Gorge National Fish Hatchery Complex to spend time on the spawning room floor; rekindling relationships, sharing hunting and fishing stories, and ensuring that this legacy will persist for another generation of salmon.  It is not lost on the four employees currently stationed at Spring Creek that after spawning is finished, the additional assistance necessary for spawning will return to their duty stations. The Spring Creek crew will be solely responsible for feeding tens of thousands of pounds of feed to these fish; seven times daily, seven days a week, for five months.  This is the epitome of teamwork and dedication. It’s a collective understanding for these essential employees who come to work every day, that without the fish, there is no mission.   

This work is rewarding, exhausting, and exhilarating.  Seeing these 20+ pound salmon in the raceways brings home the reason why they go to the ocean: more food, larger growth, more eggs per females.  Our fish, in particular, are an indicator species for the Pacific Salmon Treaty between the U.S. and Canada, meaning that harvest levels throughout their range are set based on the abundance of Tules.  “Commercial fishermen come to the hatchery for a visit, to see the facility that produces the fish they are catching in the ocean,” says manager, Dave Carie.  These fish are a pretty big deal.  In addition, these same fish make up about 60-70% of the Buoy 10 fishery near Astoria at the mouth of the Columbia River.  Tule Fall Chinook represent an important harvest opportunity for Tribal gillnet fishermen.   

Humans aren’t the only mammals that benefit from these fish, Tule Fall Chinook are a critical forage fish for Southern Resident Killer Whales. Annual production has historically been 10.5 million salmon; we have increased production by two million specifically for Southern Resident Killer Whales. So the cycle continues with another spawning season at Spring Creek National Fish Hatchery.