Hatchery Chinook salmon returning to Whatcom Creek

BELLINGHAM, Wash. — Drawn by late-summer rains, hatchery-produced Chinook salmon are returning to the mouth of Whatcom Creek in downtown Bellingham, said the Washington Department of Fish & Wildlife (WDFW) in a social media post on Thursday.

The post says, though they’re following the same instinctive urge to swim upstream and spawn as their cousins in nearby rivers, the Chinook are not intended to reproduce in the wild or even to make it more than a mile up the urban creek.

The Chinook in lower Whatcom Creek originate from the Samish River, where WDFW says Samish Hatchery staff take eggs and milt (sperm) from adult broodstock. At the hatchery, WDFW is joined by students from Bellingham Technical College’s (BTC) Fisheries & Aquaculture Sciences program, who assist with the egg collection, spawning, and fertilizing process before transferring more than half a million eggs annually to BTC’s Perry Center in Maritime Heritage Park.

WDFW says, there at the park, students and faculty incubate the eggs until they hatch and grow into fry, then feed and rear the tiny Chinook until they’re big enough to head out to sea. With support from the Lummi Nation and Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission staff, they carefully clip their adipose fins to mark them as hatchery-raised salmon. Finally, the BTC students release the fish near where Whatcom Creek flows into Bellingham Bay—all with three specific goals in mind:

• To provide an additional food source for struggling Southern Resident Killer Whales (SRKW) during the salmon’s return migration through the Salish Sea.
• To create opportunities for BTC students to learn how to raise salmon and operate a fish hatchery, preparing them for jobs with the state, Native American tribes, or other agencies or private aquaculture businesses.
• To support tribal and recreational salmon fishing opportunities throughout Puget Sound and in an accessible urban area where a boat or other expensive fishing gear is not required.

“We ask Bellingham residents and visitors to please be respectful of fishers,” said Julie Klacan, district fisheries biologist for WDFW. “The hatchery Chinook salmon returning to Whatcom Creek are a collaborative success story between Bellingham Technical College, the state, co-manager tribes, and the City of Bellingham.”

The state-managed salmon fishery in lower Whatcom Creek is open Saturdays and Sundays through Sept. 15.

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