August 7, 2013 — Kodiak Regional Aquaculture Association crews conducted their annual egg take of sockeye salmon in Afognak Lake this week and noticed higher than normal mortality rates among the adult salmon. Tina Fairbanks is the production and operations manager for KRAA and said she wasn’t there during the take, but also isn’t concerned about the higher mortality.
“That’s not going to keep us from meeting our egg take goal. You know we had hoped to conduct only a single egg take this season, but to conduct two egg takes for a single stock is not uncommon. When we have larger production goals we collect more brood stock and plan to do additional egg takes. In this circumstance we had hoped to be able to do it in one, but we will be conducting a second egg take and have every anticipation we will meet our production goal.”
She said the increased deaths are definitely a result of greater amounts of sun this summer, which warms the water and can often create a breeding ground for disease.
“As with anything, you know Kodiak is an area that is used to having a lot of water. And so when we go for long, dry periods, water levels tend to drop fairly rapidly and as we’ve had recently, water tends to warm up. And when you’re looking at what effects those warmer water temperatures may have on fish, you’re going to see higher rates of infection with bacteria, more rapid spread of any disease, and that’s going to be true in the wild and in a hatchery setting.”
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