For the past three years staff from Nez Perce Tribal
Fisheries (NPT), Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission (CRITFC), and the
University of Idaho (UI) have come to the hatchery to collect female North Fork
Cleawater steelhead for their kelt reconditioning program (see "What is a Kelt" March 8, 2012, for details). It’s rather hard to recondition a dead fish, so we use non-lethal
spawning techniques to provide live female steelhead in good condition for this
project.
Join me on this photographic journey of the air-spawning
process.
I’m sure you have heard the saying “It takes a village to
raise a child”. Well, it also takes a village to spawn a fish!
Staff from
USFWS, IDFG, NPT, CRIFC, UI, and FWS Volunteers work together to get the job
done!
Females
are anesthetized with AUQI-S, a synthetic form of clove oil that is much
gentler on the fish than other anesthesia.
Next the female is scanned for a coded-wire tag….
…and then she is spawned. Air is delivered into her abdomen to help push out all of her eggs. Fish health also collects a sample of ovarian fluid to test for disease.
Length, weight, fat content, and a fin clip are collected
from the fish….
…and then she is taken by truck to the kelt tanks.
Males are live spawned too. Milt is collected….
…and then length and genetic samples are gathered from the fish.
After all data is collected the fish is returned to the
holding pond.
If
you would like to see this for yourself we will be air spawning again next
Tuesday, 3/5/13. We would love to see you!
No comments:
Post a Comment