Lake Sammamish makes a kokanee comeback

ISSAQUAH, Wash. - Biologist Chad Jackson peers around trees and blackberry bushes into the rushing waters of a small creek on the east side of Lake Sammamish. A flash of red catches his eye and he almost instantly identifies it.

Late-run Kokanee salmon tend to bring a smile to many faces. They are the last of a once vast population of fish that filled Lakes Washington and Sammamish, but have nose-dived toward extinction over the last century.

The discovery of several males was cause for optimism this fall, and the discovery of some females was cause for outright celebration.

Jackson, a State Fish and Wildlife biologist, is capturing the rare salmon and taking them to the nearby Issaquah hatchery where they will be harvested for eggs and sperm that will hopefully spawn a comeback of the fish.

Kokanee are loosely defined as landlocked salmon, fish cut off from the ocean where they would normally go to live for before returning to their birth streams.

While Lake Sammamish kokanee could go to the ocean if they chose to, they have, for some reason, adapted to living in the fresh water of the lake and spawning in its tributaries. At one time there were so many in Lake Washington and Lake Sammamish that Indian tribes lived off them, and early sportsmen enjoyed catching them.

But declining water quality is believed to have nearly wiped them out.

So now that the kokanee appear to be enjoying a small rebound, the State and King County are pouncing on the opportunity to capture and breed what they hope is the first generation of a healthy, new population.