By CJ Lotz

Millions of chinook salmon are produced every year in California's hatcheries, but many don't return in the fall once they are released into the wild to grow and spawn. Commercial fishermen and the state Department of Fish and Wildlife have teamed up to find out exactly why and to hopefully strengthen the population of fall-run salmon.

The goal is to find more effective ways to release the fish in the hopes that the salmon will return to the state's prime breeding grounds. One idea is to transport fish in tanks filled with river water so the fish will have time to get used to its chemical makeup, since salmon return to streams where they are born to spawn. Researchers say the fish are currently unable to get a fix on their native streams, so they get lost on their way back during the spawning season. 

"They know how the water tastes and smells from their river of origin," Colin Purdy, leader of the three-year study, told the Contra Costa Times.

Comments (1)

from Dangle wrote 2 weeks 1 day ago

Waste of tax money. Way too many prey birds, and mammals once you dump millions of small chinook into the system. They just become forage. Then there is commercial fishing. You can just figure it out in dollars and sense why few will return. The cost of a trawler today, the license, the sonar equipment, and how many salmon each ship has to scoop up just to meet their overhead. Then there is the roe that brings big bucks being sold to Japan.

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from Dangle wrote 2 weeks 1 day ago

Waste of tax money. Way too many prey birds, and mammals once you dump millions of small chinook into the system. They just become forage. Then there is commercial fishing. You can just figure it out in dollars and sense why few will return. The cost of a trawler today, the license, the sonar equipment, and how many salmon each ship has to scoop up just to meet their overhead. Then there is the roe that brings big bucks being sold to Japan.

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All submitted comments are subject to the rules set forth in our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.