TRIBAL PROGRAM NEWS
^tan van de Wetering shows baby coho
to visiting students from Siletz School.
BilBtz Middle School students visiting the Siieiz Tribal hatchery on Siletz River Dav Tn
April include (I to r) Sean Feller, Lacey Lyons, Joey Garcia, Jamie Mason, Michelle
Diehl, and Tony Johnson.
Llukee lllahee Hatchery Supports
Baby Coho
John Bergquist (I) and Stan van de
Wetering move a fish pen filled with
baby coho.
by Stan van de Wetering
Water News
Three years ago this summer, Tom
Downey secured grant dollars to restore the
old hatchery pond on Rock Creek. Since
then, we have been applying for grant dollars
through tribal, state, and federal
governments. These grants have been
directed at three basic needs.
The first is to create a water source
and sewage facility for a camp host who can
act as a watch-person for the hatchery. The
second is to build a chain-link fence to curb
the vandalism that occurs regularly. The third
is to restore the basics of one of the two
dilapidated buildings — electrical, windows,
roof, doors, and drywall.
We recently met with success through
tribal funding. We received a $3,000 grant
to work on sewage and water and a $5,000
grant to work on fencing. We have used funds
from other non-hatchery grants to create a
small laboratory setting that allows us to
perform basic experiments examining fish
survival relative to water temperature and
sediment pollution.
The state of Oregon has a
management objective of providing 50,000
coho smolts a year to the tribe. We would
like to raise these fish ourselves at our own
hatchery but we haven’t yet developed the
ability to do this. A second project we hope
to run through the hatchery is a fry release
program where we utilize wild broodstock
from the Siletz Basin. These fish would be
spawned at Llukee lllahee, the eggs
incubated, and fry released into local
streams where we have little or no salmon.
This year we performed a “dry run” with
the incubation facility we built last year. So
far, everything has gone well. The baby coho
(20,000) are very healthy and are living
solely on natural food sources - bugs.
These fry will not be released this summer
but will be held until they smolt next spring
and then released. This year’s fish represent
a small experiment to determine how many
fish we can raise in a natural setting without
manmade food. If we get a good fish survival
rate this year, we likely will expand to other
ponds next year.
We will continue to use small amounts
of money from other grants to keep our
hatchery laboratory operating. We also will
continue to apply for funds to complete the
hatchery restoration and employ a full-time
hatchery technician.
Frank Simmons has done a wonderful
job of keeping the hatchery site well
groomed, which makes it a pleasant place
to visit. The maintenance crew also does a
good job of mowing every spring, which
keeps the pasture grass down.
We welcome your visit to Llukee
lllahee. Stop by and watch your fish or enjoy
the creek and its surroundings.
by Stan van de Wetering
This quarter, we are introducing what
should be seasonal articles describing
various projects and proposals involving
tribal water resources staff. Our articles
usually will cover a single completed project
in detail and provide short updates on other
ongoing projects. Articles will cover work
done by tribal members, community
members, and others involved with
water resources.
Project Eel Life Histories
This issue’s topic has to do with eels.
Tribal members recognize two kinds of adult
eels in our rivers - day and night eels. As
you know, night eels are the ones selected
for harvest. Because eel numbers have
dropped so dramatically during the last 20
years, we became interested in learning
more about the eel’s different life phases. Our
project goal was to determine how old, what
sex, how many, and when baby eels were
migrating to the ocean.
For two years, we trapped fish that
were migrating downstream during all
seasons of the year. The trap was shaped
like a large cone and faced upstream,
capturing fish as they swam downstream.
(See Water on page 10)
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