Some 102,000 spring Chinook salmon smolts destined for the Imnaha River by means of a tanker truck failed to achieve their vacation spot on March 29 when the tanker crashed subsequent to Lookingglass Creek close to the Lookingglass Hatchery in northeastern Oregon, the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife reports. The placement of the crash was, in a approach, serendipitous. Nearly 75 % of the smolts landed within the creek, which is a tributary of the Grande Ronde River. One other 26,000 died within the incident.
An ODFW worker was driving the 53-foot truck when it rolled onto the passenger aspect after going round a good curve within the highway. The Union County Sheriff’s division responded to the incident, throughout which the driving force acquired minor accidents. Responders have been additionally capable of include small quantities of diesel gas from getting into the waterway.
Each the Grande Ronde and Imnaha Rivers are tributaries of the Snake River, which lessens the severity of the misplaced salmon smolts. However when a small share of these smolts return as adults in 2026 and 2027, ODFW biologists count on them to return to Lookingglass Creek quite than the Imnaha. This might result in between 500 and 900 fewer grownup chinook coming again to the Imnaha throughout these years, based on ODFW. On the intense aspect, the company expects round 350 to 700 of the 77,000 smolts spilled into Lookingglass to return to the creek across the identical time.
The truckload of spilled smolts additionally represented solely about 20 % of scheduled hatchery releases on the Imnaha this yr, which means that some 400,000 extra Chinook smolts are destined for a similar spot. (This determine matches the 2023 hatchery smolt launch purpose for the Imnaha, based on the release program’s 2023 annual operating plan.)
The Nez Perce Tribe and the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation are co-managers of the fishery. NPT additionally responded to the scene and helped ODFW accumulate, depend, and scan each one of many 26,000 useless fish for “Passive Built-in Transponders.” PITs are microchips that primarily give a person animal a barcode for ease of monitoring.
“Info collected from PIT tags, together with people who weren’t launched, will assist guarantee the absolute best estimates of survival and future grownup returns,” the ODFW press launch reads.
The Imnaha spring Chinook run is usually impacted by early fishing closures to guard dwindling wild populations. For instance, an early closure occurred within the first week of July 2023. The Imnaha is common with anglers, therefore the aggressive stocking program to complement numbers. That supplementation plan has occurred since 1982 as a part of the Lower Snake River Compensation Plan program.
Learn Subsequent: Breach or Die: It’s Time to Free the Lower Snake River and Save Idaho’s Wild Salmon
All informed, the incident gained’t have too extreme of an affect on the general well being of hatchery Chinook runs within the Decrease Snake.
“We’re grateful the ODFW worker driving the truck was not critically injured,” mentioned ODFW’s jap Oregon fish hatchery coordinator Andrew Gibbs. “This could not affect our skill to gather future brood inventory or keep full manufacturing objectives sooner or later.”
