[Water_news] 3. DWR'S CALIFORNIA WATER NEWS: WATERSHEDS - 10/17/08

Department of Water Resources

California Water News

A daily compilation of significant news articles and comment

 

October 17, 2008

 

3. Watersheds –

 

 

Salmon's return to be feted

Hatchery hosts Saturday festival

Redding Record Searchlight – 10/17/08

By Dylan Darling, staff writer

 

If you're going

What: 18th annual Return of the Salmon Festival.

Where: Coleman National Fish Hatchery, free shuttles to the hatchery leave from Wal-Mart Supercenter parking lot in Anderson.

When: 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday.

Activities include: Salmon viewing, 63 information and vendor booths, children's games.

Also: Anderson Rotary Salmon Bake, 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Wal-Mart Supercenter parking lot. Salmon plate $8.

 

People might outnumber the salmon at a north state hatchery's annual celebration of the ocean-going fish's return - but the party goes on.

Seeing salmon up close and personal in Battle Creek and holding tanks at Coleman National Fish Hatchery near Anderson is still the main event of the 18th annual Return of the Salmon Festival, said Scott Hamelberg, the hatchery's manager.

 

"It never fails to impress people," he said.

 

The festival is set to run from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday at the hatchery, with visitors shuttled in by bus from the Wal-Mart Supercenter in Anderson.

Hamelberg said he expects to see a crowd of people close to last year's record 15,000.

 

The numbers don't look so good for the fall-run chinook salmon, which have had low runs in recent years, he said. Hatchery workers usually hope to see at least 20,000 salmon return from the Pacific.

 

"Our current estimate in the creek is 9,000," Hamelberg said.

 

Salmon experts are still trying to determine the cause of the dramatic salmon decline.

 

In conjunction with the festival at the hatchery put on by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Anderson Rotary Club is hosting its annual salmon bake Saturday at the Wal-Mart parking lot.

 

The bake will likely feed 1,000 people and features salmon that returned to the hatchery, where their eggs were harvested. The Wintu American Indians sold the fish to the group, said Rotary member Keith Webster.

 

Cost for a plate is $8, he said. This year volunteers will bake 650 pounds of salmon between 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. "That's a lot of salmon," Webster said.#

http://www.redding.com/news/2008/oct/17/salmons-return-to-be-feted/

 

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