Biologists plant Chinook in Metolius

For the second year in a row, an Oregon State University biologist has planted thousands of Chinook salmon fry in the Metolius River and its tributaries.

With a name that sounds as if it could belong to the hero of a romance novel, Jens Lovtang would rather be the hero of a salmon success story.

Prior to construction of the Pelton Round Butte project, Chinook and sockeye salmon -- as well as steelhead -- successfully spawned in the Upper Deschutes River system.

As part of the dam re-licensing process, various interested parties are exploring the possibility of returning those long-extinct runs to the rivers.

According to Lovtang, the Metolius should be poor Chinook habitat. However, before the dams, it supported a healthy Chinook population.

So, he says, "There's obviously something about the habitat that was good for Chinook."

He hopes to find out what some of those habitat features are, so a new generation of salmon might one day return to the Metolius.

Although his study is in its second year, 2003 marks the fourth consecutive year in which young salmon fry have been released into the river.

Last year, about 50,000 fry were released, but this year's release numbers nearly three times that figure.

Several years ago, Lovtang worked with the Sisters Ranger District and participated in the Squaw Creek Education and Restoration Project with local fourth, fifth and sixth grade students.

To take part in last month's fish release, he once again recruited local school children, this time from Camp Sherman's Black Butte School.

Lovtang was quite complimentary of his young assistants.

"I was very impressed with how knowledgeable they were about salmon biology and about the plight that salmon have faced in Central Oregon and the Pacific Northwest," he said.

The sites selected for salmon fry release were the same as last year: Spring Creek, Lake Creek, Canyon Creek, Heising Spring and the headwaters of the Metolius River.

One of the new aspects of this year's data collection will be for Lovtang to find out whether the increased number of fry will translate to a correspondingly increased number of surviving young fish.

Data collection will involve habitat and snorkel surveys, temperature monitoring, invertebrate (food) sampling and fish collec- tion for growth and health measurements.

Lovtang explained that traditional Chinook habitat is usually limited to rivers with large numbers of deep pools, something in short supply on the Metolius.

Lovtang hopes to determine the eventual habitat associations of juvenile Chinook salmon.

Lovtang believes that the survival strategy of the young Chinook will lead them to shallow riffles away from the fast-flowing main stem of the river.

Since the fish fare better in cold water, one surprise was the success of juvenile Chinook in Lake Creek.

Lake Creek drains out of Suttle Lake and has significantly higher water temperatures than those found in other parts of the Metolius system -- in some cases more than 20 degrees warmer.

Lake Creek was home to an historic sockeye salmon run that ended in the 1960s, but the initial success of the young Chinook there is a bit of a surprise.

Additional useful information is expected to be forthcoming from last year's data.

"I am still in the process of compiling and analyzing the results," he said.

Data gathering for this year's sampling will begin next month.

The OSU study will include data from three sampling periods in the spring, summer and fall.

Salmon research in Central Oregon is part of a continuing initiative involving OSU, the state, the U.S. Forest Service, Portland General Electric and the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs.

Together, they hope to discover the feasibility of returning salmon runs to the Deschutes Basin above the Pelton Round Butte hydroelectric project.