Wildlife officials say a record number of sockeye salmon returned to central Idaho this year.
According to the Idaho Department of Fish and Game, the 833 fish is the largest return since the agency started keeping records in 1985. Officials say that, historically, up to 30,000 sockeye spawned in the Sawtooth Valley’s Alturas, Pettit, Yellowbelly, Redfish and Stanley lakes.
Numbers have plummeted over the decades, and sockeye were the first Idaho salmon listed under the Endangered Species Act. The federal government started a captive breeding program in the 1990s to stave off extinction.
Young smolts are reared in hatcheries and then released to make the trip to the ocean. Returning several years later as adults, the fish travel some 900 miles up the Columbia, Snake and Salmon rivers to reach the Stanley Basin at an elevation of over 6,500 feet.
Over the last several years the program released between 150,000 and 175,000 sockeye smolts. The department would like to increase smolt production to be able to release up to 1 million annually, but officials say it would have to expand a hatchery, which is years from happening.
Adult sockeye that didn’t become part of the hatchery program this fall were released into Redfish Lake and other lakes in the area to spawn naturally. (AP)
