From the US Fish and Wildlife Service:
Success on the first try. That’s what transpired this past December and January, when the Coleman National Fish Hatchery transported smaller fry for release into the Sacramento River. A total of two million juvenile fall-run Chinook salmon to be exact.
“Nobody here at that Coleman has ever transported that small of fry before despite staff having a lot of experience transporting fish,” said Brett Galyean, hatchery manager and project leader with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. “When you do something new, you’re always just a little bit leery of the outcome, so we started off with really small loads and then as we gained confidence in our technique and watched what the fish were showing us during the transport, we upped that number throughout the day.”
With 600,000 fish successfully released on the first try on December 17, Galyean said even he was a little amazed by how well the fish adjusted right away to the river.
Click here to read more from the US Fish and Wildlife Service.
