Wildlife Officials to Enrich Salmon Rivers

[bajaspecial]

http://www.kgw.com/kgwnews/story.html?StoryID=30975

Wildlife Officials to Enrich Salmon Rivers
November 13, 2001, 07:30 AM

By AP Staff

The US Forest Service and Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife plan to drop 14,000 hatchery coho salmon carcasses from a helicopter to enrich rivers.

In the past, wild salmon died in the rivers after spawning, recycling nutrients from the ocean into the headwaters and providing food for juvenile fish and other wildlife. As wild salmon populations decreased, the rivers have lost those nutrients.

Officials say a helicopter will drop the carcasses on Thursday and Friday, weather permitting.

The Forest Service has been doing this for a few years now, but the numbers have been very small.

The unusually large hatchery returns this season allow the larger numbers of fish to be dropped.

The drops are scheduled for the Hot Springs Fork and Collawash River in the upper Clackamas River drainage and Camp Creek, Clearfork and Clear Creek in the Sandy River drainage.

(Copyright 2001 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

[Pete]

Sorry, but when I read the header, I thought they were going to throw wildlife officials out of helicopters. Ooops!