CHELAN FALLS — Chelan County PUD biologists and engineers have received the “salmon stamp of approval” for their $16 million project to add nesting habitat and restore year-round flow to the Chelan River.

“The fish approved,” PUD fisheries biologist Steve Hays told commissioners Monday, of the 250 chinook salmon nests, called “redds,” observed last fall in and around the new habitat area.

An aerial photo taken last fall of the habitat area shows a river bottom virtually covered by the whitish redds.

Each redd can produce some 5,000 fish that will eventually migrate to the ocean to mature and then return in several years to spawn.

The project involved building a new stream from the ground up at the lower end of Chelan Gorge, near the dam’s powerhouse.

The area contains gravel, vegetation and stream flow that fish like for spawning. Water is released
...... http://www.wenatcheeworld.com/news/2010/apr/22/salmon-like-their-new-chelan-falls-digs/

" 250 chinook salmon nests, called “redds,” observed last fall in and around the new habitat area.

Each redd can produce some 5,000 fish that will eventually migrate to the ocean to mature and then return in several years to spawn."


1,250,000 new Chinook ! ! !! If it were only that simple .. .. . .. .

It does sound like a good project though. Hope they make it and turn into an actual run.

Great news!

That photo gives folks a pretty good idea of what "seeding to capacity" actually looks like.

Fisheries and journalism almost always are a poor mix; that is, if journalism is about accuracy. Each of those redds may contain around 5,000 eggs, but the number of emergent fry in the spring is unlikely to more than 1,500 from each redd at best, and quite possibly only half that number. Still, it's important and a significant contribution, but hey, I'm just here to help try and keep it real.

Now if they added the probable smolt mortality at each of the nine dams the juveniles must pass to get downstream of Bonneville, well, that would tell an even more important, and accurate, story.

Sg

This is good news, any restoration is. Even if 3 per adult returned you are gaining numbers and with restored habitat you gain restored numbers. I wonder if those were just native fish that found the area or hatchery fish.