Transplanting Adult Pink Salmon 

 to Sashin Creek, Baranof Island, Alaska, 

 and Survival of Their Progeny 



By 



WILLIAM J. McNeil/ STEPHEN C. SMEDLEY,^ and ROBERT J. ELLIS^ 



Bureau of Commercial Fisheries Biological Laboratory 

 Auke Bay, Alaska 99821 



ABSTRACT 



The return of adult pink salmon, On c o r hy n c hu s gorbuscha , to Sashin Creek was 

 very low in the evenyears from 1946 to 1962. In 1964 an experiment tested a method 

 of transplanting adults to reestablish the even-year run of pink salmon. 



About 2,400 adult pink salmon were captured in a purse seine in Bear Harbor 

 and transported alive in brine tanks on a boat to Sashin Creek, a distance of about 

 80 km. (50 miles). Most of the fish survived the trip; 727 males and 1,139 females 

 were put into Sashin Creek above a weir. The transplanted fish were augmented by 

 166 females and 121 males of unknown origin that entered the streann naturally. 



The distribution of the spawners in the stream was similar to that of native 

 runs of the same size. Survival of the eggs and progeny from a potential deposition 

 of 2,230,000 eggs was relatively good for Sashin Creek--55 percent to the end of 

 spawning and 14 percent to fry emergence the next spring. The survival of these 

 fish in the ocean was also relatively good, and about 6,000 adults (2 percent of the 

 fry) returned to spawn in 1966. These fish spawned successfully, and survival of 

 fry in 1967 from the potential egg deposition was 12 percent. 



INTRODUCTION 



Recognition of home waters is a well-ac- 

 cepted trait of salmon; and if they are trans- 

 ferred from their native water to another 

 area as eggs or young fish, most of the sur- 

 viving adults will return to the new stream or 

 lake even though no ancestral ties exist. This 

 behavior makes it possible to transplant a 

 self-perpetuating population of salmon from 

 one stream to another. 



Salmon can be transplanted in several ways. 

 Perhaps the most common is to obtain eggs 

 from a donor stock, hatch them in a hatchery, 

 and release the juveniles in a recipient stream. 

 This procedure may be modified somewhat to 

 approximate natural conditions more closely 

 by burying eyed eggs from a hatchery in an 

 egg incubation channel which is a part of the 

 recipient stream. A third method is the trans- 



Head, Pacific Fisheries Laboratory, Marine Science 

 Center, Oregon State University, Newport, Oreg. 97365, 



^ Fishery Biologist, Alaska Department of Fish and 

 Game, Juneau, Alaska. 99801. 



Fishery Biologist, Bureau of Commercial Fisheries 

 Biological Laboratory, Auke Bay, Alaska 99821. 



plantation of unspawned adult salmon from one 

 stream to another. By this method the adults 

 are allowed to spawn naturally, and the young 

 are exposed only to natural conditions. 



Most accounts of transplants of adult salmon 

 in large nunnbers have involved chinook, On- 

 corhynchus tshawytscha ; coho, O. kisutch ; and 

 sockeye salmon,. O. nerka . Although the trans- 

 planted fish usually spawned in the recipient 

 stream, they sometimes died unspawned or 

 left the recipient stream without spawning 

 (Needham, Hanson, and Parker, 1943;Fishand 

 Hanavan, I 948; Andrew and Geen, I960; Sams'^ ). 



Past attempts to introduce pink salmon, 

 O. gorbuscha , to barren waters or to supple- 

 ment their nunnbers have usually involved 

 transplanting eyed eggs or fry. These intro- 

 ductions have generally failed to establish 

 permanent increases in the number of adults, 

 although occasionally they produced an abund- 

 ance of fry and returning spawners in the first 

 cycle (Wickett, 1958; MacKinnon, I960, 1963; 



Sams, Roy. Transplantation of adult coho salmon. 

 Proc, NW. Fish Cult. Conf., December 1967. (Unpub- 

 lished.) Author's present address. Fish Commission of 

 Oregon, Clackamas, Oreg. 97365. 



