Whitehorse Daily Star

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Photo by Vince Fedoroff

ON HER WAY HOME – The first Yukon River chinook salmon has reached the Whitehorse Fish Ladder in what is the earliest return in at least 10 years. The chinook was a female described as healthy and large.

‘Beautiful female’ is first chinook at fish ladder

The first chinook salmon has arrived at the Whitehorse Fish Ladder.

By Chuck Tobin on July 21, 2014

The first chinook salmon has arrived at the Whitehorse Fish Ladder.

Fish ladder manager Tony Nguyen said this morning the arrival is the earliest in at least 10 years, according to available records.

“She was a beautiful female,” he said in an interview.

“She was quite healthy and quite large, which is a good sign.

“We saw her yesterday in the live camera we have on our site and when we came in here this morning at 8:30, she was in our viewing tank.”

Nguyen said the submerged camera at the bottom of the ladder was also showing another four or five chinook swimming around this morning.

The earliest arrival previously was July 23, recorded in 2004, the manager pointed out.

Last summer, the first salmon arrived on Aug. 4.

In what was a poor chinook return overall in 2013, 1,139 salmon went through the ladder headed for spawning grounds south of Whitehorse, such as Wolf Creek and the M’Clintock River.

The highest return on record was recorded in 1996, when almost 3,000 went through.

The lowest return of just under 300 occurred in 2008, according to records.

The Whitehorse Fish Ladder was built in 1959 as a means of allowing salmon to reach their spawnings grounds upstream of the newly constructed Whitehorse Rapids Dam.

The ladder also serves as a viewing facility and source of information about the annual chinook migration. There were 18,615 visitors last year.

Dr. Stephanie Schmidt, an Alaska salmon scientist, said this morning by telephone this year’s run of chinook was one of the earliest on record, but not the earliest.

The early run was predicted based on climate variables such as sea ice cover and temperatures, Schmidt explained.

“In general, we had a very mild, very warm spring,” she said. “So the river ice went out early, early this year, and we did not have extensive sea ice cover in the month of May.

“Basically, the environmental conditions were warm, so it encouraged the chinook to come in early.”

Meanwhile, there is still a ray of sunshine for this year’s return of Yukon River chinook.

Salmon managers on the both sides of the Yukon-Alaska border were forecasting another below-average year for the chinook.

And for the first time ever, all fishing for chinook has been closed on both sides of the border, including the much-cherished subsistence fishery in Alaska and the Yukon’s aboriginal food fishery.

Schmidt said she fully expects they’ll reach the minimum goal of having at least 42,500 chinook cross into the Yukon for spawning purposes.

In fact, she said, the way the run is tracking right now, she’s predicting 52,000 will cross into the Yukon.

In five of the last seven years, the minimum escapement goal of 42,500 has not been met.

Last year, for instance, just over 30,000 reached the Yukon, according to estimates from the sonar located just below the border at Eagle, Alaska.

So far this year, however, the sonar is showing 34,873 chinook had passed by Eagle as of midnight Saturday.

The total count at the Pilot Station sonar near the river mouth, with almost 100 per cent of the run having already passed by, was 136,767.

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