Carkeek Park Salmon Update


Carkeek Park is a special destination. Down the hill from the main entrance is a wide trail (to the right, North). The trail is mid-way on the the Salmon To Sound Trail. Walk up that trail and you’ll find a lot of salmon.

Right now at Carkeek Park, fish are being fed:
In the main fish pond: ~30,500 fish
In the Salmon in the Schools pond: ~4,000 fish
Already released in March 2019: ~60,000 salmon.

Salmon Imprint Stewards are there 3 times a day (morning, mid-day, and evening), 7 days a week. Watch for the “Help Feed Salmon” sign to know there is a Steward available to help feed the salmon.

CWCAP has already released nearly 30,000 salmon fry from the main fish pond and another nearly 30,000 from the Egg Incubation/Self-release Tank.

There are about 35,000 salmon fry at Carkeek Park right now being fed through Saturday, May 11. You can visit with your family and friends to help feed these fish before they are released into Venema Creek.

Salmon in the Schools fish are from 24 different schools. Public and private schools in this program raised fish from eggs in their schools and brought them to Carkeek Park as salmon fry. They will be cared for and released by CWCAP‘s well regarded Salmon Imprint Stewards.

4 thoughts on “Carkeek Park Salmon Update”

  1. I’ve been watching the salmon almost daily these past couple weeks.
    After reading about salmon in general and in Carkeek in particular I have a question.
    Given the water quality of Pipers Creek, is it expected that any of the eggs laid will actually hatch and the fish survive?
    Of are all the fry released in your program from eggs raised from other sources?

    1. We suspect most of the eggs laid in Piper’s Creek do not survive because of water quality issues and frequent flooding/erosion. We’re not able to tell for sure because we can’t distinguish the salmon born in the creek versus those raised in our imprinting program. Due to urban creek challenges and the higher mortality rate of salmon in the wild we assume most of the returning salmon are from the imprinting program.

  2. Don’t see any posts for 2020 (understand given the Covid-19 pandemic), nor for the spring 2021 imprinting season. Has the program been discontinued? Or are there any updates on the program with numbers of salmon fry and release dates?
    I don’t know if I can help out this spring, but would like to know more about volunteering if the program is still in operation.

    Thanks for your time and help,
    Chris

    1. Hi Chris,

      You are correct. We have not been posting information about the imprint pond due to the pandemic. Last year took us by surprise and Parks did not want a lot of people congregating in the Park, especially in more confined areas like at the imprint Pond. This year has started out much the same. We are in communication with parks their rules.

      That said, this year we have already raised and released one batch of 35,000 fry (33,908 fry were released) as well as raised and “self released” another 30,000 eggs (we estimate between 27.6 and 29 thousand successfully made it to the stream). We just received our second batch of 35,000 fry and have just recently made our notification signage available for our volunteers. We leave it up to our volunteers to decide if they feel comfortable having visitors within the compound.

      As for last year, we only received one batch of 22,000 fry and 10,000 eggs because the Chum return in Puget Sound was at about 17% of normal. We also received all of the Salmon in the School Chum fry when the schools shut down.

      Thank you for your inquiry,
      David

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