Book Synopsis Spawning Abundance of Chinook Salmon in the Taku River in 2003 by :
Download or read book Spawning Abundance of Chinook Salmon in the Taku River in 2003 written by and published by . This book was released on 2006 with total page 44 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A cooperative study involving the Department of Fisheries and Oceans Canada, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, and the Taku River Tlingit First Nation was conducted to estimate the number of spawning Chinook salmon Oncorhynchus tshawytscha in the Taku River in 2003 with a mark-recapture experiment. Fish were captured at Canyon Island on the lower Taku River with fish wheels from May through August and were individually marked with back-sewn, solid-core spaghetti tags. All tagged fish were also batch marked with an opercle punch plus removal of the left axillary appendage. Sampling on the spawning grounds in tributaries was used to estimate the fraction of the population that had been marked. The estimated spawning abundance of small Chinook salmon ( 400 mm long; mid-eye to fork of tail) was 3,489 (SE = 1,052). Spawning abundance of medium-size Chinook salmon (401-659 mm) was estimated to be 16,780 (SE = 2,274). Finally, spawning abundance of large-size fish (= 660 mm) was estimated to be 36,435 (SE = 6,705), and the estimated total of all fish was 56,704 (SE = 7,158). The sum of the peak aerial survey counts of large spawning Chinook salmon conducted at five index tributaries of the Taku River was 16% of the mark-recapture estimate. Age 1.3 fish (1998 brood year) constituted an estimated 40% of the spawning population, followed by age 1.2 fish (1999 brood year), which constituted an estimated 29% of the population.
