FISHERY BULLETIN VOL 77, NO. 1 



0,0 



1890 



1900 



1910 



1920 



YEAR 



19 30 



1940 



I960 



FIGURE 1,— Commercial catch of sockeye salmon in the Columbia River, 1889-1967. (Data for 1889-1936 from Craig and Hacker 

 (1940), for 1937 from Ward et al. ( 19631 and for 1938-67 from Fish Commission of Oregon and Washington Department of Fisheries 

 (1968),] 



Lakes where they were alIowe(i to spawn natu- 

 rally (Figure 2), 



Supplementary to adult relocation, an artificial 

 propagation program was planned. A hatchery 

 was constructed on Icicle Creek, a tributary of the 

 Wenatchee River near Leavenworth, Wash, (Fig- 

 ure 3). Smaller substations were built on the 

 Entiat and Methow Rivers. The sockeye salmon 

 production progi'am was to be concentrated at 

 Leavenworth National Fish Hatchery, 



Fish produced at Leavenworth were stocked 

 into Wenatchee and Osoyoos Lakes. Success of the 

 sockeye salmon relocation program was indicated 

 in 1947 when the largest run recorded since 1926 

 appeared. This raised the question of whether the 

 remaining available spawning habitat was over- 

 populated, prompting annual inventories that 

 continued for many years (Gangmark and Fulton 

 1952). 



How much of the apparent improvement in 

 sockeye salmon runs was attributable to hatchery 

 production was unknown. Importance of the 

 Wenatchee system for total sockeye salmon pro- 

 duction was obvious. Data indicated that an aver- 

 age of 33''f of upper Columbia River sockeye salm- 



on homed to the Wenatchee River in the 7 yr just 

 prior to this study (French and Wahle 1965). 



Wenatchee System Sockeye Salmon Stock 



For over 25 yr Leavenworth Hatchery produced 

 sockeye salmon which were stocked and reared in 

 Wenatchee River tributaries. During this time, 

 five major dams were built on the main Columbia 

 River downstream. These structures, combined 

 with growth and expansion in population and in- 

 dustry, added greatly to existing problems which 

 confronted both downstream migrants and return- 

 ing adults. 



The Wenatchee River system was historically 

 an excellent salmon producing system. It was 

 comparable, for sockeye salmon production, to the 

 Arrow Lakes, Yakima Basin, and Okanogan Lake 

 areas, formerly the primary producers of this 

 species in the basin (Figure 2). In the early 1900's 

 the runs in the Wenatchee became severely de- 

 pleted because of construction of impassable mill 

 and power dams and unscreened irrigation proj- 

 ects. These conditions prevailed until the early 

 1930's, at which time about 85% of the Columbia 



230 



