Transporting Coho - The Journey from Quilcene NFH to Quilcene Bay Net Pen

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) Pathways student technician Michael Farnum and I had the opportunity to participate in transferring young coho salmon to a net pen in Hood Canal last month. During this once-a-year event, approximately 200,000 coho smolts from Quilcene National Fish Hatchery (NFH) are moved to a net pen in Quilcene Bay. This partnership between USFWS, Washington State Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW), Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission, and the Skokomish Tribe is helping to rebuild Hood Canal’s salmon population for tribal and sport fisheries.

The transfer of coho from Quilcene NFH to the net pen is a multiple-step process. The first step happened at the hatchery, where the coho smolts are moved from the raceways into the WDFW fish transport truck using a pump and tubing. During this process, I helped crowd the fish to one end of each raceway; this makes the transfer to the fish transport truck a lot easier. Once loaded, the WDFW fish transport truck headed to the harbor to meet the boat. At the harbor, we transferred the coho from the truck into a 1,000-gallon tank on the boat. Once the fish and technicians were safely aboard the boat, we set out on the final leg of our journey to Quilcene Bay.

On the way to Quilcene Bay net pen

These coho salmon will spend the next couple of months in the net pen acclimating to saltwater and growing a lot. The net pens will also protect the fish from predators that are looking to dine on a tasty and naive young fish just entering the marine food web.

Transferring coho from the boat to the net pen

My experience participating in this event was a positive one. I was able to gain valuable experience and, as usual, working at Quilcene NFH was an interesting and educational experience.
　

--Tim Grun, Biological Science Technician

 

Youth Fisheries Academy with the Skokomish Tribe

Hey there!

One of the Youth Fisheries Academies that we conducted this summer was with the Skokomish Tribe. I worked with two large groups of kids from 1st through 12th grade. I first worked with the high school students at George Adams State Fish hatchery. I started the day leading an invertebrate sampling station where students got a chance to step into the creek and see what they could catch. I had never led any stations on benthic macroinvertebrates before, but growing up fly fishing gave me the knowledge I needed to successfully lead the group.

Zach netting invertebrates

First, I explained just exactly what we were looking for-- animals that live on the bottom of a stream, are large enough to be seen without a microscope or magnifying glass, and have no backbone. Then we tromped around the creek to stir some of these animals out of the gravel and into the net.


Identifying the "catch"

Once the sample was collected, the group and I went onshore to pick through the sample container and start identifying our "catch". The students seemed blown away at the amount of living invertebrates we were able to pull out of 1 square foot of gravel; many had no idea that these animals were even around.

Later that day I switched from invertebrate sampling to fish dissections. I helped the students dissect their own trout as I demonstrated proper dissection technique on a large coho salmon. This is one of the most popular stations at all of the Youth Fisheries Academies so I really enjoyed leading the dissections (even though it got blistering hot in the dissection tent and I smelled like hot, old, dead salmon for the rest of the day).

Fish dissection

The second group of kids I worked with were aged of 5 through 13. This is my favorite age group to work with because they usually are enthusiastic, extremely curious, and ask some hilarious questions during the lessons. I helped lead a fish health and ID station for the first half of the camp and then helped the campers identify the live trout and salmon smolts that we brought. Halfway through the camp, a Skokomish storyteller told an amazing story to the children about how the Skokomish Tribe and the chum salmon came to be. After the story was finished, we transitioned to salmon dissections for the remainder of the camp. The kids and I had a blast going through each salmon organ together and explaining the purpose of each one.

This camp was one of my favorites this summer with great campers, parents, stories, delicious barbeque, enthusiastic questions, and the smell of salmon dissections in the air! What more could you ask for from a summer job?

Cheers!


--Zach Moore, STEP Fisheries Technician