Next year, Douglas Island Pink and Chum (DIPAC) Macaulay Salmon Hatchery will be celebrating its 50th anniversary. A stroll through the facility brings you eye-to-fin with the millions of chum, king and coho that are hatched and released here each year, a process critical to maintaining Southeast’s economy, subsistence lifestyle opportunity and culture – all through their commitment to provide for the long-term availability of salmon in this region.
“That was one of our founder’s main things: he just wanted there to be enough to go around for everyone and everything that relies on salmon,” said Executive Director Katie Harms. “For now, our programs are kind of at a stability standpoint, so we’re just making sure we continue to put fish out there so people can keep harvesting without over-harvesting wild stocks, and kind of offset that pressure on those wild populations totally.”
In response to critically low salmon populations caused by overfishing, the Private Nonprofit Hatchery Act was passed as a way to offset pressure on some of those dwindling wild stocks while still providing opportunity for fishermen to practice their livelihood. Only a few regions in the state wanted to pursue a hatchery model: namely Southeast, Prince William Sound, Cook Inlet and Kodiak.
“The intent was that these salmon were put in what you call a terminal harvest area,” Harms said. “They’re put in a place where they’ll return to that spot and be caught, so fishermen can concentrate in that area and allow wild fish to go elsewhere.”
DIPAC runs two of the 27 total private nonprofit hatcheries in the state. They also operate the state-owned Snettisham Hatchery, a sockeye facility located about 40 miles south of Juneau.
In the wild, young salmon face an onslaught of factors that reduce their mortality rate. Pollution, predation, storm disturbances, and subtle changes in stream temperature, among many other things, are a constant threat to wild eggs. Born into this dicey situation, less than 10% of wild salmon eggs will even survive into the smolt stage.
A controlled environment, the hatchery removes some of the risks salmon face in the first stage of their life. Any salmon that might not make it to smolt are separated out during a shock-and-pick process.
At this stage, the team can quickly pick out any dead eggs and enumerate any loss. By nursing salmon from egg to smolt, DIPAC generally sees about a 90% survival rate of their eggs through that process.
“I think I’ve always found the egg picking process interesting, even though it’s all done in the dark,” shared Harms. “When you can hold them in your hands and you can see their eyes moving around, that’s pretty neat.”
A lot of the information the hatchery needs in order to determine hatchery stock versus wild stock is written directly into the otolith, or ear bone, of each salmon. By changing the temperature of the water, they’re able to stress mark the otolith. Then, they can go back and retrieve this otolith during different runs to take stock of the makeup of the population.
Beyond their salmon hatch and release operations, DIPAC also runs a visitors center and a number of educational programs that bridge the gap between the scientific process behind their operations and the economic and cultural value of what they provide.
Looking toward the next phase of operations, Harms and the rest of the DIPAC team are considering a step into Southeast’s quickly evolving maritime industry. There’s a potential for hybridizing the net pin site spaces to accommodate some mariculture growth.
“We’re kind of in the process right now of evaluating some of our release sites to see if the water quality could support that type of mariculture in those locations,” Harms said. “I am personally really excited about the potential of having kelp and salmon in the same kind of location.”
Few and far between are the folks around Southeast Alaska that don’t have some sort of connection to the salmon throughout this region.
“The adult return is one of my favorite things to witness and be a part of – just to see all the fishing effort from the commercial fishermen to the personal use fishermen to the roadside fishermen that maybe can’t afford a car, but they can afford to take the city bus and come down to the dock right next to DIPAC and fish, and awkwardly, will take their fish back on the bus,” Harms said. “Yeah, it’s really neat to see people from all walks of life being able to enjoy and harvest these fish.”
Rachel Levy is a Juneau-based photojournalist whose work culminates at the intersections of environmental justice, arts and culture, and sustainable tourism. A 2022 graduate of Harvard University's Environmental Policy program, she is also the director of the award-winning documentary "Hidden in Plain Sight" that exposes the labor exploitation and colonial framework burdening Tanzania's safari industry.
