Klickitat Hatchery Fish Culture Staffing for Harvest Production

This project provided staff support to implement a Spring Chinook Integrated program at the Klickitat Hatchery (KH) in order to increase harvest and natural production. This award created a full-time tribal fish culturist employed in the spawning, rearing and release of spring Chinook, Pool-Upriver fall bright Chinook, and coho salmon in the Klickitat River Basin. Tasks specific to this culturist were in the holding, treating, sampling and spawning of Klickitat spring Chinook adults, the incubation and associated tasks therein of spring Chinook eggs and ponding of the same as fry; the handling and spawning of fall bright Chinook from Little White Salmon National Fish Hatchery, transport and fertilization of fall eggs and subsequent incubation procedures; the handling, transport and incubation reception protocols for coho eggs for Klickitat Hatchery production. This culturist spent considerable time in the culturing of spring Chinook juveniles/smolts, fall Chinook sub-yearling smolts, and Coho juveniles/smolts, as well as in maintaining the vessels, buildings, vehicles, and equipment used in salmon hatchery production. The fish culturist gained additional knowledge and skills through participation in the spring chinook adult transfer pilot project (May 2019), where adult (hatchery origin) salmon were trapped at the Lyle Adult Trap (LAT) and transferred to the KH, as fish handling/live fish transport protocols are vital as the YN segues into the Integrated Hatchery Program for spring Chinook in the Klickitat Basin.

This project is related to the Yakama Nations (YN) 2014 14-Yaka-02 PCSRF project. The project will continue the actions directed at the conversion of the segregated harvest program by incorporating an increasing proportion of natural origin recruits (NOR) Klickitat River spring Chinook into the broodstock over time.The pace of broodstock conversion will depend on the size of the spring Chinook run which is expected to vary over time. To reduce impacts to the wild spring Chinook population, no more than approximately 25% of the run’s wild component will be taken for hatchery broodstock in any year.

Worksite #1 (YKFP Lyle Falls Adult Trap):

Under this project, the YN staff person assised with loading Spring Chinook into the adult transport truck for delivery to the Klickitat Hatchery throughout the entire run period. Brood were transported to the Klickitat Hatchery adult holding ponds and monitored until spawning occurred in August/September. Returning adults from the integrated program (F1) were placed in the Upper Klickitat to seed available habitats.

Worksite #2 (YKFP Klickitat Hatchery):

The YN staff person assisted with culturing Spring Chinook eggs, modulating incubation water temperatures to meet growth requirements within the Incubation Building, and performing other related tasks. Once the fry were ready, they were transferred to a raceway for initial programmatic grow out. In the fall, the sub-yearling Chinook were transferred to the new circular release tanks for seven or more months of rearing on Klickitat River water. This staff person assisted with volition release of Spring Chinook smolts in April. All rearing vessels were cleaned for the next brood year’s juveniles. This staff person also assisted with spawning during each year’s brood production.

The National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) priority addressed by this project is Priority (1) Projects that address those populations necessary for the exercise of tribal treaty fishing rights or native subsistence fishing in the Klickitat River and Columbia River basins, in maintaining populations of salmonids while working to restore depressed populations of spring Chinook salmon and ESA listed steelhead in the Klickitat River Basin. Over the last several years on average only 400 spring Chinook naturally spawn in the Klickitat River. The overarching goal is to provide harvest to tribal, sport fisheries, and commercial fisheries while preserving and protecting the indigenous spring Chinook population; to provide fish production to sustain tribal Zone 6 fisheries, sport and tribal fisheries at the mouth of the Klickitat River, in-river sport fisheries, and mixed stock ocean fisheries. (Harvest Goals in Master plan are 1,000 for combined mainstem fisheries (Zones 1-6: treaty (600), sport & commercial (400)) and 3,000 for combined terminal fisheries (1,800 treaty, 1,200 sport); and to produce spring Chinook salmon to help mitigate for fish losses resulting from development activities within the Columbia River Basin that have decreased salmonid populations.

In the the current KH program approximately 308-549 adults are collected throughout the spawning run in proportion to timing, age and sex composition of return. Of these approximately 68-138 will be natural origin adults for the conservation program broodstock and no more than approximately 25% of the natural origin run will be used. Within season LAT entrainment rates will be monitored to determine the percentage of ladder usage to ensure not more than 25% of the NOR will be collected. It is possible that all NOR broodstock collected at the LAT will be transported for to the KH for brood purposes. The remaining brood needed to make production goals will be broodstock from the current segregated program. Over an extended period of time this segregated proportion will be phased out of the broodstock take.