U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

California & Nevada Region

http://www.fws.gov/cno

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

April 22, 2008

EA08-20

Contacts:

Alexandra Pitts, California and Nevada Regional Office: 916/ 414-6464

Jim Smith, Red Bluff Fish and Wildlife Office: 530/ 527-3043

Scott Hamelberg, Coleman National Fish Hatchery: 530/ 365-8622

Coleman National Fish Hatchery Will Release 12 Million Chinook Salmon Smolts

For the first time in over a decade, Coleman NFH will truck 1.4 million of the12.6 million Chinook salmon smolts from the hatchery over 300 miles to San Pablo Bay to assess the effect of the release site on salmon harvest and returns to the hatchery.

The smolts trucked to San Pablo Bay will be placed in net pens operated by the Fishery Foundation of California for acclimatization and then released in to the bay. A portion of the smolts will have coded-wire tags to identify them as part of this experiment. As these smolts are harvested or return as adults, fisheries biologists will be able to determine the rate of return of these fish.

Coleman National Fish Hatchery was constructed in 1942 as part of the mitigation measures to help preserve significant runs of Chinook salmon threatened by the loss of natural spawning areas resulting from the construction of Shasta and Keswick dams on the upper Sacramento River. One of the primary goals of the hatchery is to assure that salmon return to the upper Sacramento River. Fall Chinook salmon smolts produced at the Coleman NFH are typically released on-site so that they complete the imprinting cycle during their outmigration to the ocean.

This release strategy increases the likelihood that these fish will return to the upper Sacramento River as adults to contribute to the upper Sacramento in-river fishery, and return to the hatchery in sufficient numbers to perpetuate the runs and the programs. Another important goal of the hatchery is to contribute to the ocean sport and commercial fishery. Coleman NFH contributes up to 100,000 Chinook annually to the ocean fisheries as well as thousands of fish for the fisheries in the Sacramento River.

Situated on Battle Creek, a small, cold water tributary of the Sacramento River, the hatchery produces 12 million fall Chinook salmon, 1 million late-fall Chinook salmon, and 600,000 steelhead trout annually. Coleman NFH also has a coded wire tagging program in which young fish are taken from the raceways to the tagging trailer in an aerated tank. 

After sedation, fish are adipose fin clipped to provide an external mark that identifies coded-wire tagged fish.  After the fin clip, fish are placed in a nose cone and a small wire tag is injected into the cartilaginous portion of the nose. This small tag will remain in place for the entire life of the fish. When these fish return as adults the tag can be removed and read with the aid of a microscope. The coded-wire tag code gives the biologist information about which hatchery the fish came from, the year the fish was hatched, tagged, released, and other pertinent information such as parental lineage.

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