Some of the specifics on the hatchery to clear up some things.

Hatchery rearing: Very little, the eggs are incubated and the fish released into the river at the time they would naturally be emerging from the gravel. This is possible because of the species. Sockeye naturally travel imediately to the lake. The hatchery uses a heat exchanger to maintain water temperature to match river levels so that the eggs hatch at the same time as the ones in the river. Disease is not an issue durring rearing because there is none. This all eliminates any chance of "learned behavior" issues and really produces a "wild " fish because the facility is really only a hatchery for the eggs.

Hatchery production: variable. adults will allways be collected, but the actual releases will be bassed on a variety of factors including flooding dammage to natural reds and monitoring of lake cappacity. Flexibility is the goal.

Adult Collection: lower river collection at different times of the run, not all early fish, not all late fish.

Fisheries and excapement: Continued escapement at current level. Continued system of counting at the locks for run size prediction. Fisheries conducted on river incubated wild fish and hatchery incubated wild fish. No marking/clipping.