The Outdoor Line Forum

Sockeye should get boost when hatchery is done
Work on the $30.5 million Cedar River Hatchery broke ground last summer, and all seems to be going smoothly by Seattle Public Utilities (SPU) and their contractor, McClure & Sons Inc. from Mill Creek.

By Mark Yuasa

Seattle Times staff reporter



While all eyes will be on the Ballard Locks when fish counts for sockeye salmon begin June 12, others are keeping their sights on the final construction phases of the permanent Cedar River Hatchery east of Maple Valley.

Work on the $30.5 million hatchery broke ground last summer, and all seems to be going smoothly by Seattle Public Utilities (SPU) and their contractor, McClure & Sons Inc. from Mill Creek.

"They're trying very hard to complete the new hatchery, and (are doing) rigorous testing of the facilities to allow full use for the 2011 returning adult sockeye," said Frank Urabeck, a longtime sportfishing advocate and Cedar River Council member who paid a visit to the site last week.

"It will be close (but) we still have the existing temporary hatchery and a possibility of using some of the (permanent) facility until it is ready to go," Urabeck said.

The temporary hatchery facility has been in place since 1991, and can handle producing 18 million sockeye fry.

Based on the minuscule preseason forecast of 34,883 (the 2009 return of 22,166 was the worst total since 1972), the best they could do this summer is five to seven million.

The new hatchery will be able to produce more than 34 million fry. Most sockeye were first introduced from the Baker River in 1937.

All of those involved, including state Fish and Wildlife, the Muckleshoot Tribe and SPU, say the new hatchery can be successful with quality scientific work and studies.

"I am satisfied that the main players are doing their best to maximize egg take given operational constraints in part driven by the need to avoid harming (Environmental Species Act) listed chinook," Urabeck said. "The new hatchery is very impressive and will have much better capabilities."

A big concern is the whereabouts and survival once adult sockeye enter the lake.

Last year, an estimated 161,000 adult sockeye passed the Ballard Locks, but only 66,000 — or about 40 percent — made it back to the Cedar River.

"We're not sure what is the basis for the huge discrepancy, and we have to figure out where is the bottleneck," Urabeck said.

Some point to questionable lock passage estimates, uncertain Cedar River spawning counts, fish spawning in waters other than the Cedar or mortality losses in Lake Washington.

Urabeck hopes in the next few years those involved can begin to get a handle on this critical issue as it has a direct bearing on the ability to save and rebuild the Cedar River sockeye run, and establish the basis for future fisheries.

The spawning escapement goal to open the lake to any type of fishing is 350,000, and when it does happen just about the entire city goes bonkers over sockeye.

The last time the lake opened for a 13-day sport fishery was 2006 when 485,005 sockeye returned, and that fishery drew millions of dollars in economic value. Other years when a fishery occurred was 2000, 2002 and 2004.

"I want one more opportunity while I can still hold a rod, and enjoy what many of us believe is the most popular state fishery in terms of public participation and excitement," Urabeck said. "Hopefully within a decade or so that will happen."

I can't wait to add this fishery to my summer schedule every year. I think it will be interesting to find out about the fish spawning in other waters than the Cedar River. The creek behind my house saw a nice return of sockeye last year and I have to figure this is happening in many other creeks and tributaries that feed into Lake Wa.

It should be interesting to see the results of all of this. Only time will tell, I guess.


---dp---

Clearly a very popular fishery, one that many, if not most of us participate in when they let us...but from what I've seen, the numbers show that on the years we don't get enough back to open the fishery, the ramped up hatchery won't produce enough to even nearly cover the difference...meaning we'll likely have seasons exactly as often as we do now.

Also not much of a fan of putting more and more non-native fish on top of ESA listed steelhead and Chinook that are in enough trouble in the Lake Washington basin.

If the ramped up production was at least likely to give us more seasons on the sockeye, then we'd have a cost/benefit analysis to discuss...the monetary costs and biological costs vs. the monetary gains and fishery gains...but since I doubt there will be any more seasons in the future than there have been in the past, it looks more to me like we are spending more money, and causing more biological costs, with no concommitant gains on the other side of the ledger whatsoever.

Feel good waste of time, money, and energy that could have been used elsewhere, in my opinion.

Fish on...

Todd

I appreciate your perspective and understand your concerns Todd but where would you spend the money?

Habitat rehabilitation is a "gardening" cop-out to salmon enhancement that usually gets wiped out during the next high water and fish passage through the locks is not a huge issue.

It's quite unlikely that King County will petition for or spend money on cormorant removal or address aquatic sockeye predators such as squawfish.

If sockeye enhancement is your aim and you don't have the land or will to build a Weaver Creek-style spawning channel, then is seems to me that your options are limited.

In the 1980's I worked on a sockeye life history research project in Chignik, Alaska that studied coho smolt predation on sockeye fry. During the study we documented chinook and steelhead smolts also gorged on the young sockeye, increasing growth rates which in turn improved their survival. The potential for the same fortunate situation exists on Lake Washington.

Smalma? What say you?

I wouldn't spend it on sockeye, or the Cedar River...

Fish on...

Todd

Nelly -
I guess I'm with Todd on this one. The is more and more evidence that the sockeye production bottle neck for Lake Washington sockeye is the lake itself.. I guess the hatchery would assure that bottleneck is reached more frequently however if the lake is only capable of producing a limitied number of smolts put more into the system is a waste.

You mentioned the Chignik and the impact the predators had on the sockeye production. The lake systems in the Bristle Bay region of Alaska are very simple ecosystem in comparison to Lake Washington. On the Chignik and orther Alaskan systems the sockeye are the driver of ecosystem; on Lake Washington they are bit players. On the Chignik how many species compete or predate on the sockeye and what portion of the system's total biomass did they represent and how does that compare to Lake Washington?

If one is going to spend money on Lake Washington sockeye I would have preferred to have seen better base line information developed as to the system's potential, including evaluation of a realistic escapement goal (just eyeballing the data something in the 100 to 150K might be more appropriate). Once that was established I would look at hatchery strategies that might be best to deal with the potential production bottleneck in the Lake. If for example the limiting factor was the avaialable food supply for the small fry when they first hit the lake is the limiting factor (a reasonable best guess) then rearing few fry for a longer period maybe a more productive strategy.

A huge obstacle in any sort of change is getting all the co-managers to agree. Any changes in escapement goals would lead directly to changes in catch sharing between the various parties. For example currently there are 5 groups that have potential access to the Lake Washington sockeye pie - 3 tribes and the non-tribal sport and commercial fishers. Each of those player's share changes as the numbers of harvestable fish increase. Without serious consideration of both those biological and management baseline parameters if I were spending money on Lake Washington it would have been for Chinook, steelhead, and/or coho. I say that even though I throughly enjoy fishing for LW sockeye.

This issue is not unlike Baker Lake where Skagit basin Chinook and steelhead are being thrown under the bus for more sockeye.

Tight lines
Curt

The "food for fry in the lake" bottleneck is where my concern mainly lies...if there's not enough for what's there now to give a consistent season, then increasing fry production may actually decrease the amount of adults coming back, not increase them...

Somewhere out there is an optimal size/number of sockeye fry that should be put in the system to maximize the number of returning adults, and I presume that maximizing the number of returning adults is the one and only goal of the project...and spending $30Million to increase fry production doesn't give me the warm fuzzies about accomplishing that goal, not even a little.

Right now the temporary hatchery has the ability to pump out about 18 million fry, and has a hard enough time doing that due to most the time not enough adults make it back to get that many fry out of them...the new hatchery will be able to produce 34 million fry...what are the chances of it EVER having the chance to produce that many?

If the proper information were gathered, it's just as likely to find that only putting in 10 million fry will produce a more stable and consistent adult return, one that doesn't vary by magnitudes of tens of thousands every year...if consistency of fishing seasons were the goal, then I'd rather see 220K adults come back every single year, and get a shot at a share of them, rather than wait to fish every four or five years over 400k adults.

I bet if the escapement goals were lowered to accomplish that (along with lower fry plants to accomplish that), we'd have a season every year, and it would generate nearly as much economic benefits as the two or three times a decade fisheries do, only it would happen every year, not just once every few years...

I can't say for sure that is what would happen...but if I had to guess, I'd say my scenario would be more likely to play out well than just doubling the fry production capabilities (to the tune of $30 Million), and then just "wait and see" what happens. (Note that I said doubling the production capabilities, not doubling the plants...can't plant 'em if they don't come back).

Fish on...

Todd

If my memory is correct the LW sockeye returns in 2007 (the year after our last fishery) illustrated how uncertian fry contributions are to the adult returns to the lake. As I recall the number of fry leaving the Cedar the year expected to be the major contributor to the 2007 was something like 55 million fry yet the 2007 return was only something like 60,000 fish.

Tight lines
Curt

Bringing this one back up for consideration...

Here's what your $30.5 Million will likely get you...(not much, perhaps nothing, and maybe worse than nothing)...this is the exec summary, there's a link to the entire document on the page...

http://wdfw.wa.gov/publications/pub.php?id=00778

Cedar River and Lake Washington Sockeye Salmon Biological Reference Point Estimates

Category:Fish/Shellfish Research and Management - Fish/Shellfish Research

Date Published: June 15, 2009

Number of Pages: 65

Author(s): Scott McPherson, MSc., Alaska Department of Fish and Game and James C. Woodey, Ph.D., Fisheries Consultant

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY:

1.The objective of the current report is to provide Washington Department of Fisheries and Wildlife with estimates of current Cedar River and Lake Washington natural origin recruit (NOR) sockeye biological reference points (BRPs) to assist in management of the stocks. Analysis of Cedar River and total Lake Washington NOR sockeye abundances in relation to parental spawner population sizes indicated that productivity in the most recent period, 1982-2002, has declined compared to the 1967-1981 period.

2.When data from 1982-2002 were analyzed, our analysis of optimum yield via bias-corrected Ricker stock-recruit (S-R) models produced a relatively low maximum sustained yield (MSY) escapement estimate for Cedar River NOR sockeye of approximately 82,000 spawners. The combined Lake Washington NOR sockeye populations MSY escapement was estimated to be 102,000 natural spawners.

3.Further investigation revealed that even-year brood sockeye recruitment in the 1982-2002 period has been substantially higher than recorded for odd-year broods. Using the Lake Washington spawning escapements to Lock-based recruit dataset, the MSY escapement for even-year broods was relatively stable over the full time period predicting that, on average, 150,000 spawners would generate recruitment of approximately 313,000 fish, yielding 163,000 in surplus production at an optimum harvest rate (HR) of 52%.

4.For the odd-year broods, the 1983-2001 data indicated a MSY escapement of 69,500 spawners compared to 184,000 spawners for the 1967-1981period. The cause of the decline in odd-year brood productivity in the recent time period could not be determined through S-R analysis.

5.Comparative S-R parameter estimates for eight reference stocks from Washington and southern British Columbia clearly show that current Cedar River productivity is far lower than any of these stocks. The Ricker “a” (alpha) value for the 1982-2002 Cedar River NOR was 1.9 vs. a mean of 8.7 for reference stocks. At MSY, yield from the Cedar River NORs was estimated to be 35,000 from a mean recruitment of 117,000 fish giving an optimum harvest rate of 30% while the mean HR at MSY for the reference stocks was 73%.

6.Analysis of Cedar River NOR sockeye fry recruitment relationships and estimates of fry to presmolt and to adult recruit survival indicates that a bottleneck to production occurs in Lake Washington. Estimated fry to adult survival appears to be quite low and was negatively related to fry abundance. Odd-year brood fry to adult survival was substantially lower than for even-year broods at a given fry abundance, particularly at higher abundance levels. This pattern of survival was found in hatchery origin (HOR) Cedar River sockeye fry, as well. We estimated through optimization analyses that current yield is highest at approximately 12 million NOR fry for odd-year broods and 21 million fry for even-year broods. The escapements required for these levels of fry recruitment (51,000 Cedar River spawners for odd-year broods and 90,000 for even-year broods) follow the pattern estimated via S-R analysis. Recent levels of NOR fry production have been up to 39 million fry.

7.We hypothesize that foraging by large even-year brood abundances of longfin smelt and other species in late winter exacerbated by large numbers of sockeye fry entering the south end of the lake from the Cedar River prior to the spring bloom period depletes preferred food resources and leads to an extended period of low growth and high mortality that constrains Cedar River NOR sockeye productivity. Interspecific competition between large even-year age 0 smelt populations and juvenile sockeye may be responsible for the lower survival of odd-year brood sockeye fry from the Cedar River. Predation of sockeye fry by large populations of maturing even-year brood longfin smelt or by piscivorous fish after mature even-year broods of smelt spawn and die may account for the differential survival of even- and odd-year brood sockeye.

8.The productivity of the Cedar River sockeye population is very low and would generally limit harvest opportunities at any level of escapement. Yields on future odd-year returns will likely be low under current conditions (MSY yields = 28,000 and 80,500, depending on the assumption for recruitment). Even-year brood recruitment estimates at MSY would likely provide for more regular surplus production and harvest opportunities.

************

Fish on...

Todd