ee te 18 Terrace Review — Wednesday, August 5, 1987 Live CHINOOK SALMON: Two Capllano troughs at the Pine Lake Hatchery hold 50,000 salmon fry each. In the background, the Incubator (teft)-holds the @ggs until they hatch into alevin. Water distribution is controlled by the regulator (top). A new log structure offers shelter for the raceway and two Ca building at the teft contains an aerator system to oxygenate Manager Steve Roberts the present water source Is hi necessary training through te Mk we ‘ TERRACE — The addition of a mew concrete raceway: at the _Pine Lake Hatchery promises to increase production by more than eight times, according to Program ‘Manager Steve Roberts, - Roberts said that the raceway, @ concrete fish rearing pond measuring 12 by 40 feet and 58 inches deep, will hold about 500,000} salmon fry and significantly increase the Kit- sumkalum Band’s contribution to the Salmonid Enhancement Program. — He said the hatchery is presently operating with two aluminum Capilano troughs which only held 50,000 fry each, The Capilano troughs will still be used to start the fry feeding, said Roberts, but they will then be transferred to the new raceway where the deeper water Should improve the survival rate, Roberts said the ground work for the Pine Lake Hatchery, located seven miles north of Ter- face and west of the Kalum River, was started in 1982 when ™. the Kitsumkalum Band Council obtained a LEAP grant which allowed them to receive the plano tanks at the Pine Lake Hatchery site. The small the water supply. According to Kitsumkalum Program gh in nitrogen and low In oxygen, a problem he hopes will be in the spring. 1 Pine Lake Hatchery expands Capacity. > various Salmonid Enhancement - Programs in Malispina College int’ Nanaimo and NWCC in Ter- race... . He said construction of the hatchery began in the fall of 1984 with the help of a io Development Program, enabling them to begin operating with one vertical incubator, two Capilano troughs and a 16 foot travel trailer for an on-site of- fice, The site now boasts the nearly completed raceway under a new- ly completed log shelter, - Roberts explained that the Kitsumkalum Band works under contract with the Department of Fisheries on the Salmonid Enhancement Program where they collect chum and coho eggs for the hatchery under permit. “We get the coho eggs in November from Kalum River, along a stretch we call the 14 Mile Boat Launch, and chum eggs in September from the Skeena side channel at | Erlandson Creek,’’ said Roberts, _He said the eggs are taken to the hatchery site where they are mixed with sperm and placed in an incubator, hatching as alevin the lower. The alevin rémain in the in- cubator, he explained, until they develop into. the fry stage, when’ they are released into the troughs, a The time the fish spend in the trough is the most expensive part of the whole operation. Roberts said the fish were fed soft pellets as many as ten times: every day. ‘‘We’ve been going through about 50 pounds of feed a week with the small fry,’’ he . said. © os The fry remain in the trough ‘until they reach the smolt stage, about 13 to 16 grams, after which they can be released int the wild, he added. - The chum are transported to Erlandson Creek for release, while the coho are released into beaver ponds near the hatchery site where they winter before swimming tothe Kalum River, — and eventually ‘the Pacific Ocean, in the spring. The return on the Band’s an- nual investment in salmon stocks takes about four to seven years, but: Roberts showed fisheries figures to demonstrate how the increased survival rate of hatchery bred salmon makes chery Is nearing completion. When in The new raceway at the Pine Lake Hat imated 500,000 salmon fry, compared operation, the raceway will hold an est to 50,000 in a Capilano trough, significantly increasing the output of the hatchery. Here, Ministry of spects the facility while Challange 87 stu isheries engineerftechniclan, Norm Hill, in- nts, Rod Solan and Lyle Bolton, clean the raceway in preparation for pouring the concrete center divider. - corrected when Pine Lake is tapped as a water supply. * The Pine Lake Hatchery site Is adjacent to rs * chain of 14 beaver following spring, the coho begin thelr journey to the Katum and 8 Png) nds where coho amolt are released in the fall. The % Skeena Rivers, and eventually the Pacific Ocean. - the project valuable to the fishing industry, = —-_ For coho in the incubation stage, for example, the survival rate jumped from 15 percent in the wild, to 90 percent in a hat- chery environment, and in the fry stage, the percentage of sur- vival jumped from eight to 75 percent. . eo The survival rate of coho ‘in the. wild was unchanged at 15 percent but the number of fish returning to spawn had jumped from .18 percent to 10.13 per- cent because of the protected en- i . vironment in the hatchery, Roberts said he had one more improvement to the hatchery: planned which would increase production even further. “The Deep Creek Hatchery switched over to creek water which is warmer than our water by about four degrees Celsius, and their fish are growing faster than ours.’’ “Right now we're working with spring water that stays at a constant six degrees year round, |’ What we'd like to do is tap into . Pine Lake next year, or-the year after, and get some warmer water into the hatchery. “If we get 10 to 12 degree water we'll be satisfied,’’ said Roberts. . -