Progress on salmon project

Press, 12 August 1980, Page 7

Progress on salmon project

Developers of a salmon industry, using the “ocean-ranching” concept on the Rakaia River, are aleased with progress .so i’ar.

Mr A . W. Crowe, a principal of the South Pacific Salmon Company, expects >t .o harvest the > first t fish reared under the scheme in January or February. They are expected to return up the Rakaia River to specially constructed where they were reared before realease to sea in April. Mr Crowe says that just over 200,000 fish were res leased. They responded well to rearing in the five raceways, on the western bank of the river below the Lake Coleridge Powerhouse, and weighed about 35 grams each at release.

The company had a minor setback in December when the river flooded

over the raceways and a •number of fish escaped. To prevent this recurring, a-flood bank will be built upstream of the raceways this summer.

Stocking ,of salmon for & , second rearing J season has begun. The company has collected 80,000 salmon ova from wild stocks in Lake' May and has per-, mission ,to collect a further 500,000 fry with traps in spawning streams. Of the fish released to the sea in April, the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries tagged about 10 per cent, Mr Crowe says. These fish have their adipose fins removed and a coded tag implanted in the nose. The Ministry hopes it will be notified of tagged fish caught at sea or in the Rakaia River or other rivers.

" “We expect some two year olds to return in January and February of 1981.” Mr Crowe says.