Alouette Sockeye Enhancement Hatchery AKA: Experimental Release of Hatchery Reared Sea-Run Kokanee into Alouette Reservoir to Evaluate the Feasibility of Re-establishing a Sockeye Salmon Run – 2015 (16.ALU.02)
Alouette Sockeye Enhancement Hatchery
The purpose of this project is to determine whether extirpated sockeye salmon runs can be re-established from non-anadromous kokanee populations that have been able to persist within a dammed watershed. Sockeye salmon were extirpated from the Alouette River by dam and tunnel construction in the 1920’s.
Since 2005, an experimental spill from the Alouette Dam has resulted in “sea run kokanee” smolts and returning adults. These adults are seen as a conservation priority in the Salmonid Action Plan section of the Watershed Plan for the Alouette Watershed.
Since 2008, the Alouette River Management Society (ARMS) has captured sea-run kokanee below the Alouette Dam at the Allco fish fence, sampled their DNA and transferred them to the Alouette Reservoir by truck and trailer. Parental analysis, by the Department of Fisheries and Oceans Pacific Biological Station in Nanaimo, was used to identify the off-spring of these sea-run kokanee in samples of smolts and lake-resident juveniles, in order to evaluate the overall reproductive success of the transferred adults.
