Wednesday February 26, 2025
Northwest Sportsman —
A failure to first determine whether an Oregon Coast slough was actually a good place to release 37,000 fall Chinook smolts last September contributed to the deaths of the young salmon soon after.
That’s the nut of what ODFW is saying about its recently completed investigation into the fish loss on Beaver Slough, a tributary of the Coquille River east of Bandon, and in its wake, the agency said it is reviewing and strengthening protocols around all of its salmon, steelhead and trout releases.
“The agency takes full responsibility for this loss,” stated ODFW Director Debbie Colbert. “Losing these fish impacts our future fisheries and the relationships we have in this community. It is a priority for me and my staff to prevent this type of loss in the future and to repair the trust in our agency.”
ODFW acknowledged in an October 4 joint statement with the Coquille Indian Tribe that its biologists thought the slough would be a good spot for the salmon and that it had assured tribal comanagers they would test and confirm that the fish could migrate out of it, but that conditions weren’t in fact conducive for fish survival, took full responsibility for the loss, and said it was investigating further.
“The investigation revealed that human error contributed to the loss,” the agency said this week, “specifically a failure to gather sufficient and reliable data before determining the site’s suitability for fish survival.”