Alaska has a large and successful Chinook Salmon fishery enhancement program. This program began in the late 1970’s and was developed in part to mitigate impacts of conservation restrictions imposed by the U.S./Canada Pacific Salmon Treaty (PSC). NOAA Fisheries has played an instrumental role in the development of broodstocks, enhancement techniques, and policy guidelines for the ocean-ranching of Chinook Salmon.

Hatchery stocks of Chinook Salmon are used by the PSC to represent exploitation patterns of wild populations. Current research at LPW, funded in part by the U.S Section of the PSC Chinook Technical Committee, focuses on the exploitation rate, age structure, and marine survival of indicator stocks, utilizing data from Alaska Department of Fish and Game (ADF&G), Little Port Walter, and the Southern Southeast Regional Aquaculture Association.

The LPW marine research station also provides a unique opportunity to compare fitness characteristics of hatchery stocks with the undisturbed natural populations that they were derived from.  MSI researchers returned to the Chickamin and Unuk Rivers in 1996 and 1998 with the cooperation of the ADF&G, to collect gametes from Chinook salmon of the same natal systems that comprised the original LPW donor stocks. Experimental groups of hatchery, wild, and hybrid brood lines are being studied for differences in behavior, life history, exploitation, and marine survival. Predation avoidance, growth and freshwater survival, and predation ability experiments are also being conducted. Marine survival is being evaluated and second generation experiments were created beginning with the adult returns in 2001-present. Data collection from the returning adults and culture and behavioral trials on the second generation experimental fish are continuing in cooperation with the University of Alaska Fairbanks School of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences.

Contact:
John Joyce
Auke Bay Laboratories
Alaska Fisheries Science Center, NOAA Fisheries

Ted Stevens Marine Research Institute
17109 Pt Lena Loop Rd
Juneau AK 99801
(907) 789-6618
John.Joyce@noaa.gov