Once extinct run of salmon on its own now

BELFAIR, Wash. (AP) - Since 2004, biologists and volunteers have been working to restore an extinct population of summer chum salmon on the Tahuya River, which drains into southern Hood Canal southwest of Belfair.

Now it's time to find out whether Hood Canal summer chum can survive on their own in the Tahuya, said Clayton David, salmon and steelhead biologist for the Hood Canal Salmon Enhancement Group.

This will be the last year that summer chum from the Union River will be spawned artificially and released into the Tahuya, David said. "Hopefully, they will do their thing and keep on producing."

Even before Hood Canal summer chum were declared a threatened species in 1999, work had begun for restoring populations in several rivers where populations were barely hanging on. Remaining wild fish were caught and spawned. Their eggs were hatched in small portable incubators, and the young fish .... http://www.komonews.com/news/local/Once-extinct-run-of-salmon-on-its-own-now-275518511.html

I've been seeing summer Chun throughout the canal. Those are some big toothie brutes.

MY family has owned a cabin on the Tahuya since the 60s. The chum summer chum run was never all that big as I recall, but the coho came in by the thousands. Before they ley the cowboys net the canal for four straight years.

Extinct? Wow. The next thing you know, passenger pigeons and dodo birds will be on their own.