Juvenile sockeye salmon in kelp forest.

Coho salmon smolts in net pin.

The Genetics Program at Auke Bay Laboratories conducts stock enhancement research on Pacific salmonids. This is an important group of keystone fishes that are widely distributed, generally abundant, commercially valuable, and historically and symbolically important in the cultures of peoples around the North Pacific Rim.

Genetics enhancement research centers around interactions between hatchery and wild stocks of salmon, genetic studies and hatchery effects on two introduced stocks of anadromous Chinook salmon and an endemic stock of steelhead at the Little Port Walter Marine Station on Baranof Island. Chinook salmon studies include comparing stock differences and effects of 7 generations of hatchery culture with the original parental wild populations. Steelhead studies, focused on potential ESA recovery principles, examines relationships between the extant anadromous run in Sashin Creek and an 80-year old isolated freshwater population in Sashin Lake derived from the same stock. Other enhancement related research includes interactions between wild and hatchery juvenile salmon in various marine habitats. These studies are possible because a large percentage of hatchery salmon in southeast marine waters are marked either with otolith tags or coded wire tags that identifies which hatchery they came from.

Contact:
Frank Thrower
Auke Bay Laboratories
Alaska Fisheries Science Center, NOAA Fisheries

Ted Stevens Marine Research Institute
17109 Pt Lena Loop Rd
Juneau, AK 99801
(907) 789–6055
Frank.Thrower@noaa.gov