FISHop Gift Shop – December Hours
The FISHop Gift Shop will be open in December by appointment only. Shop for hatchery souvenir, ornaments, gear, Native and local artist wares & clothing. Email: execdir@issaquahfish.org to book an appointment.
News – Hatchery
Activity involving the hatchery facility, including harvests, incubation updates, releases, facility improvements or changes, etc..
Coho 2024 Spawning Numbers
Coho
Spawned: 928
Trapped: 5075
Eggs taken: 1,082,000
Adults Released upstream: 2193
Adults Released into Coal Creek: 1434
Final Chinook 2024 Spawning Numbers
Chinook
Estimated through fish passage: 18,500 (10 year average 10,500 / 5 year average 14,000)
Spawned: 1,756
Trapped: 7,800
Eggs taken: 3,560,500
Released upstream: 163
So far, 729 Coho fish released upstream. And 1 sockeye sighted!
Salmon Days Fun!
HUGE Thank you to our Friends of Issaquah Salmon Hatchery (FISH) volunteers who logged 1018 hours of service to Salmon Days – the FISH organization had +51 FISH docents answering salmon questions, handing out outreach swag & educating the public about our iconic Pacific salmon! If you see a volunteer in a FISH vest while at the hatchery, please take a moment to thank them for such momentous service to the community and the Issaquah Salmon Hatchery.
2nd Spawning Week!
The WDFW staff & FISH volunteers conducted the first two days of spawning on Tuesday & Wednesday (10/1 & 10/2). New totals:
- Chinook Spawned = 1,288
- Chinook Trapped = 6,500
- Chinook Eggs Taken= 2,567,500
- Natural Origin Chinook Adults Upstream = 113
No Coho have been spawned yet, but there are about 100 in the trapping ponds.
A Busy Spring at the Hatchery
Spring has been very busy at the Issaquah Salmon Hatchery as the Department of Fish & Wildlife Staff (DFW) released Coho (April 1, 474,000) and Chinook (May 7 & May 14: 2.7M) smolt into Issaquah Creek.
First Coho Spawning Report of the Season
Issaquah hatchery staff and FISH volunteers harvested about 258,000 eggs during the first coho spawning of the 2020 season on Tuesday, Oct. 27. Eggs and milt were collected from 119 spawning pairs. The egg take represents about one quarter of the hatchery goal of 1 million eggs for the season. With a healthy return of fish so far this year, the hatchery was also able to release 419 coho upstream of the hatchery to continue farther up Issaquah Creek and spawn naturally. In addition, three late-arrival chinook were released upstream, and one rainbow trout that followed the salmon into the hatchery holding pond was returned to the wild as well. Coho spawning will continue for the next two to three weeks.
Stay tuned for more updates!
Bon voyage, little kokanee!
Almost 2,500 kokanee fry bid a fond farewell to the Issaquah Salmon Hatchery on Oct. 26 as they started their new journey to Lake Sammamish. The lake’s threatened kokanee population, whose numbers have dwindled to just a few hundred in recent years, will get a boost from this new batch of fry which were incubated and raised at the Issaquah hatchery from eggs collected in late 2019.
The hatchery rearing program is part of the recovery efforts of the Kokanee Work Group, an alliance of federal, state, county and local agencies, tribes and non-profit organizations dedicated to ensuring the survival of Lake Sammamish’s “little red fish.” The effort has conducted annual fry release programs, including educational components for local students, for the last 10 years to raise awareness about the plight of these native fish, threatened by environmental challenges due to urbanization. This year, with the hatchery closed and students attending virtual classes, a public celebration was not possible.
In the past, fry were released at very early stages of development, when they were only about one inch long. In this second year, the hatchery retained and fed the fry for a longer period, until they reached 5-6 inches in length, continuing an experiment to determine if larger size, and cooler waters, help to prevent predation by other fish in the lake that may be depleting the population.
Officials from the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife and the King County Department of Natural Resources used buckets to transport the squirming kokanee fry from the hatchery incubation building into a waiting truck outfitted with a large covered tub of water. The eggs were collected from fish in Lewis Creek, at the south end of Lake Sammamish, so their progeny were transported back to Lewis Creek for release, and they were expected to migrate quickly to Lake Sammamish. There, they will grow and mature before returning to the stream to spawn at 3 or 4 years old. Bon voyage, little kokanee!
Chinook Spawning Season Final Report 2020
The 2020 chinook spawning season is drawing to a close, and we’ve seen a lot of fish spawning in Issaquah Creek! The hatchery concluded the chinook spawning season on Oct. 13 with the fourth weekly egg take of the run. Hatchery staff and volunteers, all wearing masks, socially distanced, spawned a season total of 881 chinook hens and bucks, and collected 1.8 million eggs. Disappointingly, this number fell short of our goal of 3.2 million, so the Soos Creek Hatchery has provided 1.5 million extra chinook eggs to the Issaquah Hatchery for a total of 3.3 million eggs.
For the season, our hatchery saw roughly 2,348 chinook (35 natural origin) jump up the fish ladder and into the holding ponds. For the Greater Lake Washington Watershed, more than 12,000 chinook were counted entering the fresh water at the Ballard Locks. Some of those salmon headed to other streams to spawn, and many spawned downstream of the hatchery in Issaquah Creek.
Gallery: Spawning Chinook, 2020
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- Chinook Spawning Season Final Report 2020
Due to our warm, dry weather this fall, it was feared that a number of the chinook would not make it back to their spawning grounds. Those that did arrive were overwhelmingly male: about 75 percent, as the females are preferred by predators such as seals, sea lions and orcas.
Although the number of fish arriving at the hatchery this year was fewer than average, the hatchery released 51 chinook upstream above the weir to spawn in the upper reaches of Issaquah Creek. These were fish that were not ripe by the final spawning day at the hatchery.
The good news is that the weekend rains brought lots of coho upstream! At least 1,200 are currently trapped in the holding pond as of this writing. Coho spawning is expected to start in late October and continue through mid-November. Let’s route for big numbers this year!
Spawning Update – Oct. 9, 2020
Oct. 9, 2020: Hatchery staff and volunteers have been spawning our chinook salmon since Sept. 22. After the third spawn, the hatchery has collected just 1.7 million eggs. This year’s goal is 3.3 million eggs, so this may be difficult to achieve.
While the chinook run is bigger than average this year, the vast majority of fish returning to the hatchery are males. The reason for the lopsided return is unknown, but we do know that predators generally prefer to feed on females with their tasty and nutritious eggs. WDFE staff will be picking up chinook eggs Tuesday, October 13 from the Soos Creek Hatchery to supplement our harvest and reach our goal for egg production — as they did last year as well.
Meanwhile, Issaquah Creek is full of spawning chinook below the hatchery, and coho are starting to return as well — although they won’t start spawning until later in October. We have also seen four sockeye in the creek so far.
The unseasonably warm and dry weather this fall has kept fish in Lake Sammamish for the last couple of weeks as they wait for rain to migrate upstream. The next storm should bring an influx of new fish to the hatchery.
Updated: Mystery Tags on this Year’s Return
Updated from the original post on Friday, September 25, 2020: Some of the salmon in this year’s return are sporting a highly visible plastic string, telling any observer there is something important about this fish. In particular, this Chinook was captured at the Chittenden Locks by the Muckleshoot Indian Tribe, equipped with an internal tag (acoustic transmitter) that will ping multiple receivers in fixed positions as the fish makes it way from the Locks, through the Lake Washington Ship Canal, Lake Washington, the Sammamish River, Lake Sammamish, and finally, Issaquah Creek. The main purpose of tagging the hatchery fish is to document survival during their migration from the Locks to the hatchery. The last couple of years we have noticed a difference in numbers between the Lock counts and what shows up at the hatchery so we are trying to find out if and where we are losing fish.
Big Chinook Return! Small Spawning Results. Why is That?
Wednesday, Sept. 23, 2020: The forecasted chinook return to the Issaquah Salmon Hatchery was about 4,000 fish. The number counted through the Chittenden Locks was 12,780 as of 09/20. What?!? Historically, 50 to 70% of the fish counted through the Locks make it to the Issaquah hatchery. Some of the chinook are headed to the Cedar River, where they are considered an endangered population, but most are headed our way.
Another brush with reality: this time, the males outnumbered the females almost 3 to 1! We know that pinnipeds (and our beloved orcas) prefer female chinook – they are loaded with fat and protein-filled eggs, but this season that tendency is extreme.
The WDFW set a pretty high bar to assure the safety of the staff and volunteers at the spawning shed, but the shortfall of female chinook made it a short day, resulting in 328,000 fertilized eggs — a small but significant step to the 3,200,000 chinook egg goal for the year. The holding pond is full, the creek is full, so we are on a good path to meeting the goal.
What can we conclude from this?
Salmon return forecasting is even tougher than weather forecasting. And, we need to get good data on where the female attrition is happening, and whether something can be done about that.
~Larry Franks
Please note that the WDFW is not allowing tours on Tuesdays, spawning days, as keeping staff, volunteers and possible visitors safe is paramount.
