Juvenile spring chinook are swimming in Sweetwater and Lapwai creeks on the Nez Perce Reservation for the first time in nearly a century.
Soon the young fish, released by the Nez Perce Tribe on Wednesday, will begin their migration to the Pacific Ocean and within two years some of them can be expected to return as adults and provide fishing opportunity to tribal and nontribal anglers, broodstock for future hatchery production and some natural spawning as well.
The roughly 200,000 smolts were produced at Dworshak National Fish Hatchery and raised at the Nez Perce Tribal Hatchery under the Lower Snake River Mitigation program that was established to replace salmon killed by the four federal dams between Lewiston and the Tri-Cities. The release was made possible by years of cooperative work between the tribe, the Lewiston Orchards Irrigation District and the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation that has turned Sweetwater Creek in particular into a more hospitable environment for fish.
David Johnson, director of the tribe’s Department of Fisheries Resources Management said tribal fisheries workers will be able to collect fish for hatchery spawning at a weir near the mouth of Lapwai Creek and tribal members will be able to fish for spring chinook in Lapwai and Sweetwater Creeks. The fish will also be available to nontribal anglers as they pass through the lower Clearwater River. (Lewiston Tribune)
