'Sockanee' freed after 80 years

By Phil Melnychuk
Staff Reporter
Jun 15 2005

After 80 years of being trapped by concrete and steel, they swam free the first chance they got.
About 10,000 kokanee salmon used a month-long opening of the spillway on B.C. Hydro's Alouette River dam in May to head downstream bound for the open sea.
And now Geoff Clayton and the Alouette River Management Society are getting excited about something they've always suspected: the kokanee in the Alouette are actually landlocked sockeye, cut off from their seaward migration when Hydro built the dam in 1925.
"That's why we were just blown away. We're just starry eyed," he said Monday.
He's even made up his own name for the fish, cautious of jumping to conclusions without scientific backing.
"We're calling them sockanee," he said.
"We might have a return from these. This could be the nucleus of our sockeye re-introduction."
Kokanee, found in B.C. Interior lakes, are considered sockeye which have been trapped in lakes, either because of relatively recent man-made events such as building hydro-electric dams, or by pre-historic natural causes such as glaciers.
Clayton said the Alouette River and Gold Creek in Golden Ears Provincial Park were traditional runs for sockeye until the dam blocked their route back to the sea.
The original purpose behind B.C. Hydro agreeing to opening its spillway was part of an experiment in which 10,000 juvenile coho salmon were tagged then released into the reservoir.
If the fish made it over the spillway, [under minimum water flows, about seven centimetres deep] and downstream to a trap where the South Alouette crossed 216th Street, it would show that building a fishway or fish ladder around the 11-metre-high dam could be feasible. That could lead to eventually re-establishing the sockeye run.
Clayton said coho salmon were used because Alouette sockeye were thought to be extinct, until now.
"It's really exciting, really exciting," said Jenny Ljunggren with ARMS.
"The big test now is - to see if they'll migrate back."
Maurice Coulter-Boisvert with Fisheries and Oceans Canada, said the Pacific biological station in Nanaimo is doing DNA tests to see if the fish are kokanee or sockeye -- and if they are sockeye, whether they're related to the Pitt Lake, Cultus Lake or Harrison Lake systems.
But he's leaning towards the theory the fish are descendants of those trapped there 80 years ago.
"It's likely that they were sockeye," he said.
But, "Until we have the actual DNA confirmation we can only speculate that they're sockeye."
Clayton, though, said the scientists are confident, the fish will survive salt water.
"There seems to be some level of confidence that they'll complete the cycle and come back."
Coulter-Boisvert didn't know of any other lake where salmon migrate down a dam spillway.
Kokanee smolts were also found in the Coquitlam River following a recent similar study on that river, he said.
"It looks very promising, especially on the Alouette," he said.
"If there's 10,000 [10-centimetre] smolts that left the system - we should see adults swimming at the base of the dam in three more years," he said.
Then it will be one step at a time and subject to the "mercy or generosity" of B.C. Hydro in being willing to adjust its hydro-electricity generation operations. Alouette Lake reservoir feeds through an underground pipe into the Stave Lake reservoir, which has a power station.
As for the 10,000 coho which were released, only about 3,500 were trapped, down from the 80 per cent expected by scientists.
"Those numbers, though, are very successful," Clayton said.
Currently, the kokanee are thriving in the Alouette Lake reservoir.
Thanks to a B.C. Hydro feeding and fertilization program, the number of kokanee has increased from 20,000 to about 400,000 in the past five years, said Clayton.
Hydro spokesman Charlotte Bemister said the experiment required the company to maintain a steady level in the reservoir and had minimal effect on power generation.

SIMONE PONNE/NEWS
Jenny Ljunggren of ARMS holds up a 'sockanee' salmon smolt.