Hatchery chums make up for sockeye
DIPAC recovers cost of operations
It's a good thing the salmon hatchery doesn't put all its eggs in one species.
This year the number of sockeye salmon was disappointing, but chum runs exceeded all expectations, said Rick Focht, director of research and evaluation for the Douglas Island Pink and Chum hatchery.
"It's been kind of mixed results this year, may be one way to say it," Focht said.
DIPAC harvests some of the returning fish to cover most of its operating expenses and loan payments. The loan payments to the state exceed $1 million this year, Focht said.
"Going into the season there was some concern we might have to dip into reserves," Focht said, but large runs of chum produced enough cash. "The cost recovery is the single largest revenue source of DIPAC for sure."
The relatively new sockeye program was anticipated to produce about 290,000 returning fish this year, Focht said. Fewer than half that actually returned - about 112,000 sockeye by Wednesday. The commercial fishery harvested about 78,000 hatchery sockeye, and DIPAC harvested about 34,000 for the cost-recovery program. The depressed sockeye returns seemed to be part of a regionwide phenomenon, Focht said.
But strong chum runs more than made up for the lack of sockeye. DIPAC harvested twice as many chum as predicted, about 1.1 million, for the cost-recovery program. The commercial gillnet fishery caught 800,000 hatchery chum in Lynn Canal, Taku Inlet and Stephens Passage.
The strong chum returns may be a sign that a new release strategy tried on some of this year's fish worked, Focht said. The hatchery experimented with holding the young fish in feeding pens a few weeks longer, so they were a little larger when released.
"We're kind of excited about that and anxious to do some more work in that area," Focht said.