FEDZ: Stock Assessment & Enhancement
|
Juvenile sockeye salmon in kelp forest. |
|
|
Sampling plankton in bongo nets. |
|
|
Coho salmon smolts in net pin. |
The FEDZ Program at Auke Bay Laboratories conducts stock assessment and enhancement research on Pacific salmonids. This is an important group of keystone fishes that are widely distributed, generally abundant, commercially valuable, and historically and symbolically important in the cultures of peoples around the North Pacific Rim.
FEDZ stock assessment research includes working with Genetics staff for operation of counting weirs at Sashin Creek and Auke Creek, working with EMA staff for epipelagic trawling for juvenile salmon and associated fishes in key migration corridors, modeling and genetic studies to evaluate interactions between wild and hatchery salmon, and forecasting to predict adult returns and run strength for harvest management. FEDZ stock assessment research also uses tagging technologies, such as coded wire tags, to document migratory patterns, fishery contribution, exploitation rates, and interceptions of ESA listed stocks.
Juvenile rockfish stock assessment is focused on behavioral responses to different types of benthic habitat in the presence and absence of predators. This research is designed to evaluate the impacts of disturbed seafloor habitats from commercial groundfish fishing on the well being and survival of juvenile rockfishes using those habitats.
FEDZ enhancement research centers around interactions between hatchery and wild stocks of salmon, genetic studies and hatchery effects on two introduced stocks of anadromous Chinook salmon and an endemic stock of steelhead at the Little Port Walter Marine Station on Baranof Island. Chinook salmon studies include comparing stock differences and effects of 7 generations of hatchery culture with the original parental wild populations. Steelhead studies, focused on potential ESA recovery principles, examines relationships between the extant anadromous run in Sashin Creek and an 80-year old isolated freshwater population in Sashin Lake derived from the same stock. Other enhancement related research includes interactions between wild and hatchery juvenile salmon in various marine habitats. These studies are possible because a large percentage of hatchery salmon in southeast marine waters are marked either with otolith tags or coded wire tags that identifies which hatchery they came from.
Featured Research, Publications, Posters, Reports, and Activities
- HEARD, W. R.
2012. Overview of salmon stock enhancement in southeast Alaska and compatibility with maintenance of hatchery and wild stocks. Environ. Biol. Fishes 94:273-283.
- TRUDEL, M., J. FISHER, J. A. ORSI, J. F. T. MORRIS, M. E. THIESS, R. M. SWEETING, S. HINTON, E. A. FERGUSSON, and D. W. WELCH.
2009. Distribution and migration of juvenile Chinook salmon derived from coded wire tag recoveries along the continental shelf of western North America. Trans. Am. Fish. Soc. 138:1369-1391.
See the publications and poster databases for additional listings.
To view and print these documents, you must install
Adobe Acrobat Reader
freeware. Adobe also offers
free tools
for the visually disabled
|