Many of the activities needed for hatchery programs are conducted seasonally, hiring many temporary technicians for the time periods that coincide with fish biology and natural migrations. These are frequently funded by various outside sources such as The Pacific Salmon Commission (US/Canada), Pacific Coast Salmon Recovery, Hatchery Reform, and other state and federal grants. Some of these projects have been ongoing for decades. For the most part, residents of the Queets and Taholah villages are hired for these more than 70 seasonal positions each year.
Smolt Trapping and Seining
In the spring, wild smolts are trapped and tagged in small tributaries of the Queets and Clearwater, then seined in the in the lower reaches. This activity and the data collected are part of a long-term project to estimate the population of wild stock Coho by tagging a representative group (those that have been caught in a trap like the one pictured below). After a week of daily tagging, crews do night-time seining to capture a small number of the out-migrating tagged smolts. This number is used to estimate the total production of juvenile Coho in the river system.
