Sammamish kokanee numbers boosted as first hatchery-reared fish returned to wild

Release during Earth Week symbolic of small fish’s big future

A group working to prevent Lake Sammamish kokanee from fading into extinction recently found themselves right back where they were six months ago – along the shores of a small, cool stream where the native fish have lived for thousands of years.

But unlike last fall, when biologists were collecting adult kokanee to spawn and rear the young in a nearby hatchery, this week members of the Lake Sammamish Kokanee Workgroup – joined by local schoolchildren, King County and Sammamish officials, area tribes, city representatives and state and federal fish and wildlife agency representatives – released the last few hundred of the offspring from adult fish collected in 2009.

“Returning these young, native kokanee to their watershed represents a significant milestone in our partnership’s efforts to restore this beleaguered species,” said King County Executive Dow Constantine.

“It is very gratifying to see these fish returning to their native habitat – especially as we honor the 40th anniversary of Earth Day. This serves as a timely reminder that we can all take part in the preservation and recovery of our natural environment.”

The hatchery program that produced these fry is one piece of a strategy to bring kokanee back to robust health. The Lake Sammamish Kokanee Work Group – the group spearheading kokanee recovery – has set a near-term goal of staving off extinction.  The group’s ambitious long-term goal is for the watershed to consistently produce so many kokanee that people can fish for them in the lake.

“This is an important day for kokanee and the community that is helping them avoid extinction,” said Sammamish Mayor Don Gerend. “These fish have taken blow after blow for decades, and are just hanging on by a thread.  It’s nice to finally take a step toward their recovery, after so many steps toward their extinction.”

Kokanee salmon are close relatives of sockeye salmon.  They differ from sockeye mostly by virtue of their freshwater-only life cycle – they enter Lake Sammamish soon after emerging from the stream or lakeshore gravel, and reside in the lake for three years before returning to their home stream or shoreline to spawn and die. They also are roughly half the size of sockeye that go to the ocean for several years prior to making their spawning run.

The Lake Sammamish kokanee population is one of only two native to the Puget Sound basin.  Historically it likely numbered in the tens of thousands and ranged around the Lake Washington watershed.  Recent spawning runs have averaged in the low hundreds, with spawning confined to just a few streams.

One of those streams flows past Sammamish watershed resident Wally Pereyra’s house. A longtime advocate for environmental protection and kokanee restoration, Pereyra was there when the adult fish were collected last year, and was present to witness the release of the offspring.

“Seeing the success from hatchery program is really heartening, especially after several years where things went poorly,” Pereyra said. “This gives us a level of protection should the kokanee run diminish further, and it gives us a little more hope.  But we can’t lose sight of our goals. We can’t achieve our goals without landowners, governments and citizens pitching in to fix the habitat and protect the habitat for the future benefit of the 'little red fish' and the citizens of Sammamish and King County.”

The hatchery program is one element of the strategy to recover kokanee.  It will serve as a temporary, stop-gap measure to ensure that the population at least holds steady while other actions are taken.  These actions include protecting stream, shoreline and lake habitat that kokanee use right now for spawning, refuge, and finding food.  They also include addressing known factors that affect their habitat, like pollution, culverts that block their spawning run, and stormwater flows that can destroy their nests.

The hatchery program is funded primarily by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and implemented with the support of the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife and King County.  Streamside landowners pitched in by helping find the returning fish in the fall and winter of 2009.  And the cities around the lake helped fund water quality testing at the Issaquah Hatchery.

Related information

Kokanee in King County, Washington

Sammamish Watershed

Salmon and trout topics

King County Water and Land Resources