Glossary of Terms
Alevin:
A larval salmonid that has hatched but has not fully absorbed its yolk sac, and generally has not yet emerged from spawning gravel.
All-H management:
All-H is an approach to salmonid management in which decisions about harvest, hatcheries, and habitat are coordinated at multiple scales to recover species and provide sustainable fisheries.
Anadromous:
Migrating between fresh water and salt water. For example, salmon hatch in fresh water, migrate to salt water as juveniles, and return to fresh water as adults to spawn.
Broodstock:
The adult fish used to provide eggs for a hatchery program.
Carrying capacity:
The maximum number of organisms that a specified environment can support.
Coded-wire tag:
Coded Wire Tags are small pieces of stainless steel wire that are injected into the snouts of juvenile salmon and steelhead. Each tag is etched with a binary code that identifies its release group. This stock identification tool is used by researchers and managers to evaluate success of hatchery practices, estimate survival, and find out where release groups are caught.
Co-management:
The process under which Washington State and the treaty Indian Tribes cooperatively exercise their authority as managers of the salmon resource. The co-management structure was created in 1984, in response to a U.S. Supreme Court decision upholding U.S. District Judge George Boldt's 1974 ruling in US v Washington (the "Boldt Decision") that the tribes have a treaty right entitling them to half of all harvestable salmon returning to their "usual and accustomed" fishing areas. The Boldt Decision also requires the state to maintain the habitat on which salmon depend.
Conservation hatchery:
A hatchery whose programs are intended to protect, restore, rebuild, or otherwise benefit a naturally spawning population. In contrast, other hatchery programs are focused on creating fishing, educational, research, or cultural opportunities.
Ecosystem:
An environment and the community of organisms that inhabit it.
Endangered Species Act:
An act of Congress signed into law in 1973 that offers federal protection to species, or distinct populations of a species, deemed to be threatened or endangered with extinction, along with the habitat on which they depend.
Escapement:
The number of fish that have survived all causes of mortality and will make up the spawning population. Used by the co-managers to regulate harvest.
Estuary:
Coastal waters, typically found at the mouths of rivers, where freshwater flows meet saltwater tides.
Eyed egg:
The stage at which the eyes are discernible for a salmon or steelhead embryo still encased in its egg sac.
Fingerling:
A young fish, usually in its first or second year.
Fishery:
The commercial, sport, or Tribal fishing associated with a fish population.
Fry:
Small, juvenile fish that have absorbed their yolk sac and have begun to feed.
Genetic diversity:
The total amount of genetic variation within and among all members of a species or population of species.
Genetic fitness:
Genetic diversity and health sufficient to allow a population to adapt successfully to normal changes in environment.
Habitat:
The location where a particular species (or identified subspecies) of plant or animal lives and its surroundings, both living and nonliving. Habitat includes the presence of a group of particular environmental conditions surrounding an organism including air, water, soil, mineral elements, moisture, temperature, and topography.
Harvest:
The intentional take of fish in a commercial, sport, or Tribal fishery.
Hatchery reform:
The reform of hatchery operations to recover wild salmon and support sustainable fisheries.
Imprinting:
The attribute of salmon that allows them to identify and return to their natal stream.
Integrated hatchery program:
A hatchery program in which the goal is to maintain the hatchery population as genetically integrated with a naturally spawning population. Can be for conservation and/or harvest purposes. the size and health of the natural population sets the limits for how large or small the hatchery population can be.
Life cycle:
The accumulation of life events as a salmon hatches in its gravel nest, migrates out to sea, and returns to its natal stream to spawn and die.
Life history:
The set of life strategies employed by an organism or species to maximize fitness throughout its life cycle. For salmon, life history includes where and when they choose to spawn, how long they spend in fresh and salt water, where they seek refuge from predators, how and when they feed, etc.
Marked selective fishing:
Most salmonids reared in hatcheries in Washington State are mass-marked by removal of the adipose fin. This allows fishers to distinguish between wild and hatchery fish. To preserve the wild fish, fishers are encouraged to harvest only marked hatchery fish, while leaving the wild fish in the oceans and rivers to survive and spawn.
Marking/tagging:
Methods used to track hatchery fish and differentiate them from naturally spawning fish and/or fish from other hatcheries. Adipose fin clipping and otolith marking are common mass marking techniques. Coded wire and passive integrated transponder (PIT) tags are common tagging methods.
Natal:
Of birth or origin. Salmonids return to their natal streams to spawn.
Natural rearing:
Creating hatchery environments that more closely resemble conditions salmon and steelhead encounter in the wild.
Naturally spawning:
Spawning in the wild, without human assistance or intervention.
Outmigration:
The migration of juvenile salmon or steelhead smolts from fresh to salt water.
Parr:
A young salmonid, in the stage between alevin and smolt, that has developed distinctive dark "parr marks" on its sides and is actively feeding in fresh water.
Population:
A group of salmon stocks that are genetically distinct from other groups (for example, Puget Sound fall chinook).
Rearing habitat:
Habitat with characteristics that support growth and maturation of juvenile salmon and steelhead prior to their outmigration as smolts.
Recolonization:
The successful reintroduction of organisms into a specific habitat where they previously existed, but were extirpated.
Recovery:
The process by which the decline of an endangered or threatened species is arrested or reversed and threats neutralized so that its survival in the wild can be ensured.
Redd:
A stream-gravel nest containing salmon or steelhead eggs.
Refugia:
Areas or habitats that provide protection, food, and rest.
Riparian habitat:
Habitat near or along river banks.
Run:
The accumulated number of adult fish returning to spawn in a specific stream at a specified period of time.
Salmonid:
Any member of the taxonomic family Salmonidae, which includes all species of salmon, trout, and char.
Segregated hatchery program:
A hatchery program in which the goal is to maintain the hatchery population as genetically segregated, or separate, from a naturally spawning population, usually for harvest purposes. Strict guidelines must be met to ensure the hatchery fish do not influence or alter the wild population.
Selective fishing:
As salmon migrate back to their spawning grounds, they are often intermingled with other species and stocks. To protect the weaker stocks in the presence of commercial fishers, restrictions are set on the times and areas in which harvest can occur. “Selective Fishing” refers to the ability of a fishing operation to either: 1) avoid weak or threatened species or stocks, and/or 2) release those animals alive and unharmed when they encounter them.
Smolt:
A juvenile salmonid undergoing the physiological changes necessary to migrate from fresh water to salt water.
Spawning habitat:
Habitat with the environmental characteristics necessary for successful spawning.
Stock:
A population of fish spawning in a particular habitat in a particular season that are somewhat reproductively isolated from other such populations.
Straying:
Emigration of a returning adult salmon to a spawning area other than its natal stream.
Supplementation:
Introduction of hatchery fish to increase the numbers of an existing, naturally spawning population.
Threatened species:
A species with a significant probability of becoming endangered.
Watershed:
All the land area that drains to a given body of water.
Zero-age:
A generation of hatchery fish released into the wild before they are one year old.
