Thousands of young trout and salmon die in California mishaps

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More than 100,000 young fish slated to restock a lake and bay have died in California hatcheries in recent days due to malfunctioning equipment.The most recent mishap happened Monday, when about 75,000 Chinook salmon smolts, or juveniles, perished while being transported in tanker trucks from a fish hatchery in Anderson, Calif., to the San Pablo Bay near Vallejo.Four days before, about 26,000 young rainbow trout died of oxygen deprivation after their pellet food clogged a screen between two ponds."The fish used all the oxygen in the water that was available," said Larry Hanson, senior biologist supervisor in the state Department of Fish and Game's Redding, Calif. office.He said a malfunctioning feeder caused the trout's food -- -- small, floatable pellets akin to cat food -- to clog the screen at Crystal Lake Fish Hatchery, cutting off two downstream ponds from their normal flow of fresh water.Mark Stopher, habitat conservation program manager at the state Department of Fish and Game, said the loss of the fish won't mean fewer will be stocked into Lake Shasta this summer.In all, 155,000 trout reared at state hatcheries are set to go into the lake, Stopher said. The 26,000 lost trout will be made up with surplus at Crystal Lake and Darrah Springs Trout Hatchery near Manton."We are not going to have a lot of extra fish at the end of the year, but we are going to be able to do everything we planned to do," Stopher said.Both Hanson and Stopher couldn't remember the last time there was a fish kill at Crystal Lake. The hatchery has been in operation for more than 50 years and has a staff of eight permanent employees, according to the Fish and Game Web site."They put a lot of themselves in these fish, so to lose them is pretty hard," Stopher said.In the later mishap, a lack of oxygen is also suspected as the reason the salmon smolts died. As the fish were being hauled in a tanker truck the 200 miles from Coleman to San Pablo Bay, as part of an experiment to see how trucking boosts ocean stocks and how many return to the hatchery, a pump failed and the oxygen supply dwindled, the officials said.rried about 100,000 fish.The first smolts to be trucked from Coleman since the early 1990s, they're part of an experiment to see how trucking might boost salmon stocks in the ocean and see how many return to the hatchery to spawn.The experiment came in response to a crash in salmon returns last year -- 22,000 returned to Coleman. The hatchery's record return was 450,000 in 2002.Salmon fishing is already severely restricted on the Sacramento River because of the weak run, and Dave Jacobs, a Redding fishing guide who owns Professional Guide Service, said it was bad news to hear that much of a future run had died before it got to the bay."That's just adding insult to injury," he said.(Contact Dylan Darling of the Redding Record Searchlight in California at ddarling(at)redding.com)