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HAMMA HAMMA WINTER STEELHEAD PROJECT

HOOD CANAL STEELHEAD PROJECT

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Hamma Hamma Winter Steelhead Project

The management and recovery of steelhead require a solid understanding of the viability of steelhead populations, accounting not only for wild fish abundance, but also the existence of hatchery fish spawning in the wild and the effect they have on the wild populations.

Since 1998, the Hamma Hamma Winter Steelhead Project, led by NOAA scientist Dr. Barry Berejikian, with rearing and release activities centered at LLTK’s Lilliwaup Hatchery, has investigated the benefits and risks of steelhead supplementation in the Hamma Hamma River. This has been the only project in Washington State to harvest wild steelhead eggs, then rear and release steelhead as either adults or two-year-old smolts, and monitor their migration patterns through the use of acoustic tags.

The project has proven to be both a significant recovery effort and a way to determine which of the two release strategies is more successful in bringing back fit adult fish to the spawning grounds. At the project’s start, an estimated 18 adult steelhead were returning to the Hamma Hamma River. Eight years later, the river is consistently showing returns of 100 or more spawners annually.

This project, slated to end in 2009, has led to the creation of the new one-of-a-kind Hood Canal Steelhead Project, a larger-scale supplementation experiment incorporating all steelhead-bearing Hood Canal river systems and expected to last for 16 years.