Nez Perce Tribe to build facility catering to kelts this summer

LEWISTON – The Nez Perce Tribe expects to begin construction this summer on a new kelt rehabilitation center at its Cherrylane Hatchery.

Kelt are adult female steelhead that have spawned and attempt to do so again. Unlike salmon, steelhead have the ability to spawn more than once. The behavior is more common in coastal streams but less so in the Snake River that is more than 400 miles from the Pacific Ocean. Survival of kelts during their return trip to the ocean ranges from 4% to 35%.

In order to do it, the spawned-out fish that are low on energy reserves must repeat the downstream journey they made as juveniles, negotiate their way past eight dams and reach salt water with enough strength left over to forage and grow strong enough to surge upstream, pass all eight dams one more time and spawn.

The Nez Perce Tribe and Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission run a program that attempts to boost wild steelhead production by capturing and reconditioning kelts in hatcheries. The program targets wild, mostly B-run steelhead. The fish are captured in the juvenile fish bypass systems at Snake River dams as they are moving downstream. The ones judged to have the best chances of survival are trucked to Dworshak National Fish Hatchery and held and fed for one or two years. When they are ready to spawn again, they are released below Lower Granite Dam.

“Right now we recondition fish at Dworshak Hatchery. It’s outside in elements and it’s on a water supply line that was really not intended for fish production and it regularly needs to be patched and repaired,” said Becky Johnson, production director of the Nez Perce Tribe’s Department of Fisheries Resources Management. “It’s really not very secure and dependable. It’s something we have patched together to do the work. This is something that is going to be much more secure and good for the fish and for the people who do the work.”

Johnson said the goal of the program is to be able to handle several hundred fish.

“It’s amazing what a big impact you can have on a low return.”

Wild steelhead are listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act. Returns have been especially low over many of the past several years.

In 2021, analysis by the tribe showed 19% of the steelhead populations in the Snake River Basin had reached the quasiextinction level – an analytical tool used by the federal government to assess the risk of extinction. The threshold is tripped when a wild fish population has 50 or fewer spawners return to natal streams for four consecutive years.

Johnson said last year two kelts were captured at the dams that had previously been reconditions in the program – meaning they could potentially spawn a third time.

In addition to adding to the spawning population, kelts are valued for their fecundity.

“Usually, a maiden spawner has about 6,000 eggs and reconditioned fish can have 9,000 or more.”