Artificial Spawning Beds Offer
New Hope For Salmon Industry
An experiment, started this year,
may have a far-reaching effect on
the salmon fisheries in the state
for years to come.
Artificial spawning beds, the
first of their kind in Alaska, are
being prepared on two streams in
the Ketchikan area.
The experiment, a joint ef
fort by the Forest Service and the
Ketchikan Pulp Co., is being car
out with the blessings of the state
Dept, of Fish and Game.
The artificial spawning bed#
are under construction on Indian
Creek and the Harris River in
the Maybeso Experimental Forest,
on Prince of Wales Island approx
imately 42 miles west of Ketchi
kan.
The two streams are in an area in
which extensive logging is taking
place.
"We realized that commercial
fishing is very important to the
economy of Alaska and we wanted
to find out what we could do on
forest streams, through a con
trolled environment, to increase
the productivity of the streams,”
Mason Bruce, chief of resource de
velopment for the Forest Service
in Alaska, said.
In 1956, the Forest Service en
tered into a contract with the U.S.
Bureau of Commercial Fisheries
to identify the environmental ele
ments which encourage the produc
tivity of young salmon to the mi
grant fry stage.
The Bureau of Commercial Fish
eries, in turn, contracted the work
to the fisheries research institute
of the University of Washington’s
College of Fisheries.
The institute found, during in
tensive study, that the main factors
in the success or failure of spawn
ing areas were water temperature,
the amount of oxygen in intra
gravel water and the movement of
the gravel itself .
Falling back to some extent on
information gathered by the prov
ince of British Columbia during
highly successful experiments at
Robertson Creek, the fisheries re
search institute recommended the
construction of a 1,200-foot arti
ficial spawning bed on Indian
Creek and a 300-foot artifical
spawning bed on the Harris River.
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British Columbia’s Robertson
Creek bed showed a migrant salm
mon fry mortality rate of only 5
per cent for 1.6 million pink sal
mon eggs, compared to a mortality
rate of up to 95 per cent in other
streams where only natural spawn
ing beds existed.
In preparing the Indian Creek
and Harris River beds, all silt and
gravel will be taken from the
stream beds, to be replaced with
carefully graded gravel.
The artificial beds will be con
structed so the flow of the two
streams can be regulated, an im
portant factor in the success of the
pilot project.
When finished, a cross section of
the spawning beds will show a flat
area 10 feet wide at the center of
the stream, five feet below the
surface of the water.
Gently sloping sides will bring
the overall width of the artificial
spawning bed to 18 feet, with the
flood plain carrying the width of
the stream to 28% feet.
One foot of graded gravel will
line the bed and sloping sides of
the artificial spawning area.
To keep oxygenated surface wa
ter flowing through the spawning
gravel 2x12 planks will be buried
on edge, crosswise, in the spawn
ing bed every 50 feet.
The water turbulence created by
the planks is designed to assure
complete exchange between oxy
genated surface water and intra
gravel water every 50 feet.
“On the basis of the fisheries re
search institute’s preliminarr
study,” Bruce said, “we believe
that p 1,000-1,2000-foot scientific
ally prepared spawning bed will
produce as many fish in one year
as the entire stream would produce
in its best year.
“This is essentially a pilot pro
ject to determine if this type of
work can be successful on a small
scale in southeast Alaska. If it is,
we will encourage further work
and the Forest Service is prepared
to cooperate, at least to some ex
tent, financially.
“We are pushing the Harris
River-Indian Creek project, with
equipment furnished by Ketchikan
Pulp, so the artificial beds will be
ready when the first pinks arrive
to spawn in early September.
“The fisheries research institute
will make a complete evaluation
and will also try to determine how
long these artificial spawning beds
will last. That is an extremely im
portant factor itself.”
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