Inadequate Returns of Fall Chinook Salmon to the Quinault National Fish Hatchery 1983 Progress Report

摘要

The Olympia Fisheries Assistance Office (FAO) reported in 1982 (Wampler 1982) on the persistent problem of inadequate returns fo fall chinook (FC) brookstock to the Quinault National Fish Hatchery (QNFH). That report reviewed factors thought to be contributing to the broodstock problem. The most factors presented 2343: (1) the successive introduction of eight different imported FC stocks (in attempts to satisfy the hatchery's production goal) which apparently let to increased straying and a shift to an earlier time of return: (2) over harvest in the Quinault tribal terminal fishery; and (3) failure of some proportion of the spawners in Cook Creek, the hatchery stream, to enter QNFH. Another suspected factor, high rate of harvest in ocean fisheries, was not well documented. Two recommendations were made in the 1982 report. One recommendation was that the Tribe reduce its FC fishery to ensure a significantly increased escapement of fish bound fo QNFH. Quinault Tribal fisheries staff were not convinced that reduction in tribal harvest would significantly increase return to Cook Creek. They thought straying was so significant that the fish which escaped the terminal fishery would remain in the mainstem. The other recommendation was that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service construct and operate a temporary weir trap on Cook Creek to increase success in capturing FC Brookstock. A Weir trap was constructed and fished as the 1982 FC spawning run began.