UD senior Mike Canino spent three months studying sockeye and king salmon in Alaska this past summer as an intern with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game.

Fishery internship

Marine science student studies sockeye salmon along Alaska's Copper River

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2:43 p.m., Oct. 21, 2014--University of Delaware senior Mike Canino lamented that he never saw a single star this summer during his time on the Copper River, a 300-mile river located in south-central Alaska, though he was fortunate enough to see whales, dolphins, sea lions and more.

Canino, a marine science major in the College of Earth, Ocean, and Environment, spent three months studying sockeye and king salmon as an intern with the Glennallen office of the Alaska Department of Fish and Game.

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The hands-on program gave participants a taste of the policies, procedures and techniques associated with the department’s professions, while providing them practical experience and exposure to current job opportunities in the field.

“Internships build on a student's academic training by allowing them to apply the concepts that they've learned in classrooms and in field-based courses to the real world. They also provide students the opportunity to learn more about potential professional paths and, in the best case, may lead directly to a job after graduation,” said Joanna York, CEOE research assistant professor and Canino’s adviser at UD.

From June to August, Canino examined sockeye salmon populations and king salmon spawning patterns under the advisement of biologists Scott Maclean and Corey Schwanke.

His main project was to remove inner ear bones, or otoliths, from sockeye salmon caught by local subsistence fisheries. Each week he removed 100 pairs of otoliths in order to determine what percent of fish in the Copper River were wild and what percent were from hatcheries. 

“When hatchery produced sockeye are considered fry — about four months old — they are put in a solution that has an isotope of strontium which leaves a distinct chemical signature on their otoliths until they die,” Canino explained. 

Once collected, the otoliths of the returning adult salmon were analyzed in a laboratory to determine how many otoliths were marked with strontium (meaning hatchery), and how many had no markings (meaning wild).

Adult sockeye salmon spend approximately two to three years in the ocean before journeying back to their place of origin to continue the salmon life cycle when they are approximately four to five years old. When there aren’t enough fish returning to spawn, populations begin to dwindle. 

Biologists study hatchery and wild salmon populations because scientists worry that a drop in populations of wild fish could mean losing genetic diversity among salmon that has allowed the species to survive for centuries. Salmon raised in hatcheries are bred to be hearty, and when they are returned to the river, they compete with wild salmon for food and habitats.

Canino’s team also spent time capturing, tagging and counting king salmon passing through Copper River to learn whether they spawned, or laid their eggs, above or below the Gulkana River counting tower. 

He explained, “I had to catch the king salmon with a rod and reel and tag them, which honestly, I couldn’t even consider work.” 

Radio telemetry then enabled the researchers to track and quantify how many king salmon spawned below the counting tower. To measure the number of fish that spawned above the tower, Canino and other team members took turns counting the king salmon as they passed over a white tarp draped on the bottom of the Gulkana River.

“From the king salmon tower counts and the radio telemetry project, they were able to estimate how many kings were returning to the entire Gulkana River,” he said.

Early reports indicate that the king return on the entire Copper River Basin was poor. Biologists, he said, attributed the return rates to the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, a climate index based on the surface temperature of the water that has been correlated with salmon landings from Alaska, Washington, Oregon and California.

Sockeye return, however, was at a record high, with preliminary reports indicating that despite commercial fisherman at the mouth of the Copper River harvesting around 2 million sockeye this season, 1.2 million sockeye still made it into the river.

Beyond the professional experience, Canino said one of his favorite parts of his trip was the atmosphere. He lauded the local people for their kindness, explaining how everyone would go out of their way to be helpful. He recalled meeting people on the river and speaking to them for hours because everyone around was so open and friendly.

“It was an amazing experience, and now I know I want to work in the field of fisheries,” said Canino.

Article by Cori Ilardi

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