Sacramento: Hatchery salmon shortage means fewer fish in fall run

[Scott V]

Taken from the Sac Bee:

The Mokelumne River salmon hatchery will fall far short of its production quota this year, and state officials will not bolster its production with eggs from another hatchery, as originally announced.

This means at least 3 million fewer fall-run chinook salmon in a population already running a steep deficit.

The Mokelumne hatchery produced only 275,600 eggs from just 234 returning adult chinook. On average, 5,500 adults return to spawn.

As a result, the hatchery is far below its of at least 3.4 million juvenile salmon to atone for the loss of habitat caused by upstream dams.

The California Department of Fish and Game said in a news release Dec. 29 that surplus eggs from Nimbus Hatchery on the American River would be used to cover the shortfall.

But Fisheries Branch Chief Neil Manji said Nimbus didn't have any surplus eggs.

[Mik]

I am surprised Nimbus has a surplus.

[huntindog]

But Fisheries Branch Chief Neil Manji said Nimbus didn't have any surplus eggs.

I am surprised Nimbus has a surplus.

last line of the article nimbus does not have a surplus

[Darrin.Deel]

Makes you wonder...

[JJohnson]

Nimbus did, in fact, have a surplus of salmon eggs 6 weeks ago. Mokelumne requested 800,000 of those, but Nimbus officials refused, saying the eggs were to be destroyed. Mokelumne complained up the chain, and the chain authorized the release of eggs to Mokelumne. Unfortunately, Nimbus officials had already destroyed the eggs. It was an absolulte fiasco, and Mokelumne has released this information (angrily) to local news outlets for release which will coincide with this year's salmon fishing announcement (moratorium). This information can be confirmed by contacting Hatchery Management at the Mokelumne River.

[Tony Buzolich]

Any idea WHY Nimbus would destroy a surplus of eggs when the whole state is suffering with this salmon moratorium?

A few years ago I was aware that the Oroville hatchery did the same with their eggs but it was because the hatchery had maxed out it's capacity. This was when there were plenty of salmon around.

Now, I've heard that F&G or whoever wants to re-establish more "Native" fish and less hatchery fish because we have too many hatchery fish in proportion to the whole population. Whew! that really sucks.

As long as we have dams blocking natural spawning grounds how will we ever have natural populations of anything. Wouldn't it be better to keep the hatcheries producing at capacity rather than closing the seasons because of lack of fish?

We will never be able to go back in time to the way things were. So, lets just not make things worse.