The State legislature also appropriated monies to be 

 used to finance nonprofit, low-interest, State-secured 

 loans for fish culture. The initial facilities built with 

 these funds are still in the developmental stage. Re- 

 leases made from both these private facilities and the 

 FRED Division incubation stations are not included in 

 this report because they normally consist of unfed fry. 



Presently, the two agencies rearing fish in Alaska are 

 concentrating on chinook and coho salmon (Table 4). 

 Since a large majority of the chinook salmon plants have 

 resulted from eggs taken from native stocks which closely 

 approximate the spring race as we have defined it, we 

 have called all of the chinook salmon plants spring 

 chinook. 



In 10 yr, releases of migrant chinook salmon went from 

 a meager 400 fish weighing 4 lb (1.8 kg) to almost 600,000 

 fish weighing 33,000 lb (15,000 kg) in 1974. Coho salmon 

 have also increased, from 171,000 migrants weighing 

 9,000 lb (4,000 kg) released in 1968 to approximately 1 

 million migrants weighing 50,000 lb (27,700 kg) in 1974. 



Five of the Alaskan rearing facilities presently oper- 

 ating are noteworthy. The first of these, Fire Lake Hatch- 

 ery, is actually a complex made up of a main hatchery 

 and satellite ponds located at nearby Ft. Richardson and 

 Elmendorf Air Force Base. These ponds are unique as 

 they are the only ones currently using condenser cooling 

 water heated as a byproduct during the thermal gener- 

 ation of electricity. This free supply of warm water allows 

 fish to easily reach migrant size in an area were extreme 

 weather conditions and cold-water temperatures would 

 normally necessitate the use of expensive heating equip- 

 ment to achieve similar growth. 



Little Port Walter is a NMFS Research Station which 

 was established in the late 1930's. It was expanded to in- 

 Table 4. — Migrant releases of chinook. coho, and sockeye salmon and 

 steelhead Irout— Alaska' (in thousands). 

















Winter 



Release 



Spring c 

 No. 



hinook 

 Lb. 2 



Coho 



Sockeye 

 No. Lb. 



steelt 

 No. 



lead 



year 



No. 



Lb. 



Lb. 



1960 



0.0 



0.0 



0.0 



0.0 



0.0 



0.0 



0.0 



0.0 



1961 



0.0 



0.0 



0.0 



0.0 



0.0 



0.0 



0.0 



0.0 



1962 



0.0 



0.0 



0.0 



0.0 



0.0 



0.0 



0.0 



0.0 



1963 



0.0 



0.0 



0.0 



0.0 



0.0 



0.0 



0.0 



0.0 



1964 



0.4 



1 



0.0 



0.0 



0.0 



0.0 



0.0 



0.0 



1965 



8.8 



0.3 



0.0 



0.0 



0.0 



0.0 



0.0 



0.0 



1966 



166.9 



1.7 



0.0 



0.0 



0.0 



0.0 



0.0 



0.0 



1967 



538.3 



11.6 



0.0 



0.0 



0.0 



0.0 



I'.O 



0.0 



1968 



82.4 



2.8 



171.7 



8.9 



0.0 



0.0 



0.0 



0.0 



1969 



95.9 



5.7 



187.4 



13.8 



0.0 



0.0 



0.0 



0.0 



1970 



45.7 



1.6 



227.0 



21.5 



0.0 



0.0 



0.0 



0.0 



1971 



217.4 



11.6 



92.7 



6.5 



0.0 



0.0 



0.0 



0.0 



1972 



71.8 



3.8 



309.7 



20.1 



0.0 



0.0 



0.0 



0.0 



1973 



177.3 



11.0 



143.3 



15.9 



0.0 



0.0 



0.0 



0.0 



1974 



598.8 



33.3 



969 i 



50.1 



0.0 



0.0 



0.0 



0.0 



1975 



154.8 



6.9 



1,032.1 



72.1 



0.0 



0.0 



17.5 



0.6 



1976 



225.7 



9.7 



930.6 



48.1 



16.2 



0.6 



16.5 



1.4 



Total 



2.384.2 



100.0 



4.063.5 



257.0 



16.2 



0.6 



34.0 



2.0 



Derived from Wahle et al. (1975) prior to 1974 and from Alaska De- 

 partment of Fish and Game and National Marine Fisheries Service 

 release reocrds thereafter. 



-1 lb = 0.454 kg. 



'<100 lb. 



elude saltwater net pen rearing of coho salmon in the 

 mid-1960's. The net pens are suspended from a floating 

 platform anchored near the shore of a small saltwater 

 bay. The salinities of the net pens are controlled using 

 freshwater piped from nearby Sashin Creek. To obtain 

 the initial supply of coho salmon for rearing, fingerlings 

 were seined from the bay and placed in the pens. After 

 migrating to the ocean, the adult fish return to the area 

 of the net pens where they are trapped and spawned. 



The Starrigavan net pens are patterned after the Little 

 Port Walter facility. They are anchored in the bay near 

 Sitka. Like its prototype, the facility pipes water from a 

 nearby creek to control salinity. Local and Crystal Lake 

 Hatchery coho salmon fry were initially reared. As they 

 become more available, endemic stocks are replacing 

 those from Crystal Lake. 



Halibut Cove is the saltwater net pen facility south- 

 west of Anchorage. It is also an offshoot of the Little Port 

 Walter and Starrigavan facilities. Rearing salmon in this 

 near Arctic environment is challenging because the 

 lagoon freezes in the winter and the water temperature 

 drops to -2 C C (18°F). Freshwater from a nearby lake is 

 available only during the warmer months. There are no 

 local salmon stocks available and no hatching facilities 

 on the site, so Fire Lake chinook and coho salmon fry are 

 brought in for rearing. 



Mendenhall Rearing Pond is located just off the 

 Mendenhall River near Juneau. It is supplied with water 

 from the melting Mendenhall Glacier. This pond is cov- 

 ered by ice each year from October to May so fish can be 

 fed only during the warmer months. During the winter, 

 water under the ice must be aerated with an electric 

 pump. Coho salmon eggs are obtained from returns to 

 the rearing pond. Because of the cold water, eggs taken 

 from Mendenhall Pond are transferred to Crystal Lake 

 Hatchery near Petersburg for hatching. The fry are then 

 brought back to the pond for rearing and release. 



British Columbia 



The program of anadromous fish propagation in 

 British Columbia began in 1884 with the establishment 

 of a hatchery on the Fraser River near the town of New 

 Westminster. From 1901 through the mid-1930's addi- 

 tional facilities were constructed and operated by the 

 Provincial government and private fisheries organiza- 

 tions on the Finger and Skeena Rivers, at Rivers Inlet, 

 and on Vancouver Island. As in Alaska, all of these 

 hatcheries concentrated on sockeye salmon production, 

 but also intermittently hatched a few chum, coho, 

 chinook, and pink salmon. All fish were released as fry. 

 From 1885 to 1927 more than 2 billion sockeye salmon 

 fry were released. 



The operation of hatcheries decreased and then finally 

 stopped completely in the late 1930's due to the De- 

 pression and the outbreak of World War II. Nothing was 

 done on a production basis again until 1967 when a pilot 

 project began at the newly constructed Big Qualicum 

 Hatchery on Vancouver Island. At present, Canadian 

 Fisheries and Marine Services (CFMS) operates six fa- 



