Steelhead PIT tagging

On February 5th Mel and I assisted the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe and Gary Wynans from NOAA with PIT tagging and tissue sampling of juvenile steelhead. This is part of the re-colonization project that Gary is spearheading. Gary is a fish geneticist for NOAA and just an all around great guy. The purpose of this project is to tag and gather genetic samples via tail fin clips, then use this genetic information to catalog families of native Elwha Steelhead. The tribe uses this genetic information when they get ready to spawn these fish to maximize genetic diversity by not breed siblings to each other. The fish we handled today are the future of the native steelhead runs in the Elwha River when the dams come down their prodgengy will the future steelhead runs of the Elwha. I believe this is the fifth year of this project. I guess you are wondering how we got these little guys. When I say little guys they were naturally spawned in the Elwha this spring and I helped other members of the tribe gather 981 fry this summer by electrofishing the side channels of the Elwha. The preferred method of gathering these fish is by pumping redds (fish egg nests) but we were unable to do that this spring because of the high flows.

My favorite part of this project is being able to insert the PIT tag. We do this with a large gauge needle. We put the tag which is similar to a big grain of rice inside of the hollow needle and then inject it on the underside of the fish. All the fish we tagged were in the 100mm range. When we got done tagging and clipping we put these guys out in the raceways at the hatchery where they will be reared until they are ready to spawn.