1. Provides a significant year round freshwater sport fishery near a large population centre by producing coho, summer and fall chinook,summer-run and winter-run steelhead, and sea-run cutthroat trout. Many fisherman also catch and release the thousands of chum produced by the hatchery;
2. Provides an educational experience and recreational outing to hundreds of school children, visiting tourists from many countries, and the general public daily year round;
3. Stimulates the local economy through the sport fishery, tourism, the purchasing of supplies for operations, and by providing employment;
4. Provides information for fisheries management and research. Harrison chinooks tagged at the facility provide management with an important source of information relevant to the large wild Harrison chinook population that drives the Georgia Strait chinook fishery. Chehalis tagged coho provide data on exploitation rates and survival rates;
5. Produces chinook,coho,and chum for the saltwater sport and commercial
fisheries. Saltwater sport head recoveries for Chehalis coho and chinook
indicate most fish are taken in the Deep Bay, Campbell River, and Nanaimo
areas. Some Chehalis fish are caught in Washington, Oregon, and Alaska,
although Canadian catch is 80-90% of the total catch.
Coded-wire tag recoveries in 1992 in sport fisheries and commercial
fisheries showed a catch of 87,100 coho, 12,600 chinook, and 46,800 chum
from Chehalis Hatchery.
6. Produces chinook,coho, and chum for the Fraser River Indian food fishery;
7. Starting in 1992, in cooperation with Fraser Valley Trout Hatchery, rears 30,000 summer-run steelhead fry to smolt size for release in the Coquihalla River near Hope;
8. Restored the red summer-run chinook population in the Chehalis River by the use of transplants. In cooperation with Fraser Valley Trout Hatchery, produced a fishable summer-run hatchery steelhead population;
9.Provides information on water conditions, fish numbers, angling success, and river access to sport fishermen on a daily basis;
10. Provides a centre for the reporting of fisheries violations on the river;
11. Provides eggs and fry to Community Advisor and small projects. Currently providing 200,000 chum fry for release into the Serpentine River and 50,000 chum fry for release into the Nicomekl River;
12. Provides advances in fish culture through isolation incubation techniques,
fish rearing and release strategies, disease treatments, pond cleaning,
and adult salmon sorting and enumeration procedures.
chehatch@uniserve.com
if you like.
