IDAHO, USA — The Idaho Department of Fish and Game is taking steps to protect sockeye salmon, an endangered species, from the extreme heat.
More than a hundred fish are now at the Eagle Hatchery after the state agency started trapping them at the Lower Granite Dam near Lewiston earlier this summer.
"With warm water conditions this year and the extended heatwave that we're having, the river temperatures are starting to warm up, and we're expecting a lower survival than we'd like to see," hatchery manager Dan Baker said.
The water in the hatchery tanks is about 55 degrees — compared to the Lower Snake River, which he said is more than 10 degrees warmer.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration manages species under the Endangered Species Act, including sockeye. Ritchie Graves, Columbia River hydropower branch chief, said Fish and Game's actions are "explicitly allowed" in their biological opinion for the Columbia River Power System.
"Not only are these fish important for their own sake, but they're also very important culturally and spiritually to our tribal co-managers," he said. “We think it's a wise decision; a good thing to do for the species.”
Graves said sockeye are relatively fragile animals, especially when temperatures get high. Warm rivers can cause stress and lead to the fish losing scales.
Some fish also get secondary bacterial or fungal infections, which he said can lead to death.
"I think of it as an insurance policy," Graves said. "This is making sure that even if something bad happens, some of those fish are going to survive.
Baker echoed a similar sentiment. He said bringing the fish to Eagle as part of the Captive Broodstock Program helps keep the numbers up.
He said they are trying to rebuild the population, so the species is taken off the endangered list. Fish and Game will continue trapping and bringing them to Eagle for the next week.
“These fish will stay here until we either take them up to Redfish and release or until we spawn them here at the hatchery," Baker said.
The last time Fish and Game trapped fish from the dam was in Summer 2021, he said. Before that, 2015.
"Hopefully, it's not any sooner than that again," he said. "I'd like to see some cool years with good snowpack and then migration conditions would really help all this all the salmon populations."