Pre-Spawning Adult Distribution of Queets River Spring-Summer Chinook and Feasibility of Radio Telemetry to Study Adult In-River Migration

摘要

The spring portion of the Queets River chinook run is depressed. One management goal is to restore the spring component by artificially propagating the progeny of wild broodstock if they can be separated from the summer component. Thus, a primary objective of this work was to identify pre-spawning holding areas from which broodstock could be collected. The pre-spawning distribution of spring-summer chinook in the Queets River just prior to spawning was determined by snorkel survey between River Miles (R.M.) 43 and 9 in the first week of Spetember, 1989. Above average densities relative to other locations occurred in the Olympic National Park wilderness between R. M. 37.2 and R.M. 30.6 as in snorkel surveys conducted in 1987 and 1988. Many pools in this areas were suitable for netting brookstock and have adjoining gravel bars where fish could be transported to a hatchery by helicopter. the limiting factors will be turbidity, which, limits the ability of snokelers to verify fish presence before netting, and possible limits on helicopter: access prior to the first week of September by the National Park Service. A second objective was to evaluate the feasibility of radio telemetry in distinguishing spring and summer returns on the basis of holding area, spawning area, or spawn timing.