{"id":43083,"date":"2021-12-23T17:30:00","date_gmt":"2021-12-24T00:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/colorado-parks-and-wildlife-sees-banner-year-for-kokanee-spawn\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T03:11:29","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T09:11:29","slug":"colorado-parks-and-wildlife-sees-banner-year-for-kokanee-spawn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/colorado-parks-and-wildlife-sees-banner-year-for-kokanee-spawn\/","title":{"rendered":"Colorado Parks and Wildlife sees banner year for kokanee spawn"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Mike
Mike Japhet, left, Pete Deren, center, and Jim White, aquatic biologist with Colorado Parks and Wildlife, spawn kokanee salmon at Lake Nighthorse in 2014. CPW biologists collected 2.8 million kokanee eggs from Lake Nighthorse and a record 1.2 million eggs from the Dolores River in 2021. (Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald file)<\/span>du1-i-syn<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Southwest Colorado reported a record kokanee salmon spawn this year.<\/p>\n

Colorado Parks and Wildlife aquatic biologists spawned roughly double their usual kokanee salmon at Lake Nighthorse and the Dolores River in 2021, making up for slow spawning efforts elsewhere in the state and allowing the agency to fully stock broodstock lakes in 2022.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe really had a banner year,\u201d Jim White, an aquatic biologist with CPW, said in a news release. \u201cIt was not a year we were expecting, as we\u2019ve typically been around 1 (million) to 1.5 million eggs at Nighthorse. With the water level so low in the Dolores River and McPhee Reservoir, we really weren\u2019t expecting many fish to make it upstream there, either. But there was a nice, single-thread channel they were able to make it up from, and it turned out to be a great year there with close to 2,000 females spawned.\u201d<\/p>\n

CPW biologists collected 2.8 million kokanee eggs from Lake Nighthorse and 1.2 million eggs from the Dolores River, according to CPW.<\/p>\n

The Dolores tally marked a record for the river, more than double the annual average take of 500,000.<\/p>\n

At Lake Nighthorse, CPW broke its record for spawns in a single day. A crew of three collected eggs from 1,743 kokanee over three or four hours, White said on CPW\u2019s podcast Colorado Outdoors on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

That comes out to about 10 spawns per minute.<\/p>\n

\"Aquatic
Aquatic biologists with Colorado Parks and Wildlife harvest kokanee salmon from Lake Nighthorse and the Dolores River every fall to spawn the next generation of fish. (Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald file)<\/span>Jerry McBride<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

The total from Dolores came as a particular surprise.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur first spawn take was out at the Dolores State Wildlife Area, and when we showed up out there in mid-October, there were hardly any fish,\u201d White said on Colorado Outdoors. \u201c\u2026 We were really concerned that the fish were all bottled up and trapped in the low reservoir.\u201d<\/p>\n

White attributed the successful spawn later in the fall to reservoir levels and storms that energized the fish.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith the Dolores operation, we have had a series of these low reservoir levels interspersed with some higher reservoir levels and that seems to kick off this productivity and growth in the fish,\u201d White said.<\/p>\n

While Lake Nighthorse and the Dolores River fared well, parts of the state struggled to bring in the fish they normally do.<\/p>\n

Blue Mesa Reservoir and the Roaring Judy Fish Hatchery near Gunnison usually have one of the largest kokanee runs in the country. Roaring Judy collects on average 7.2 million eggs per year and has taken up to 17 million in extraordinary years.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe do depend on Blue Mesa to provide often the bulk of eggs for restocking,\u201d CPW aquatic biologist Dan Brauch said on Colorado Outdoors.<\/p>\n

In 2021, Blue Mesa produced just 2.3 million eggs, marking the second consecutive year with a spawn less than 3 million. CPW took 34,000 eggs from Ridgway Reservoir.<\/p>\n

CPW aquatic biologists attribute the decline in spawning to drought, predation from lake trout and gill lice, which attach to the gills of kokanee and prevent fish from breathing normally.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were dealing with reduced habitat for kokanee due to the drought,\u201d Brauch said. \u201cIn past years, we\u2019ve been in a situation where we can provide eggs for other waters from Blue Mesa, but this year we will depend on other waters, primarily Nighthorse, to help us cover what we need next year. There is year-to-year variability in egg take numbers, and we hope to see our numbers here rebound in the near future to where we have extra eggs to support other waters again.\u201d<\/p>\n

In all, CPW collected 8.5 million kokanee eggs in 2021, down from the annual average of 11 million, said John Livingston, spokesman for CPW\u2019s Southwest Region.<\/p>\n

CPW needs about 11 million eggs to restock 26 lakes and reservoirs across the state.<\/p>\n

The agency relies on eight of those lakes and reservoirs for the broodstock that sustains Colorado\u2019s kokanee population. The other 18 serve as recreational waters.<\/p>\n

\"Milt
Milt from a male kokanee salmon fertilizes eggs at Lake Nighthorse. CPW needs about 11 million eggs to restock 26 lakes and reservoirs across the state. (Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald file)<\/span>du1-i-syn<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

\u201cWith that 8.5 million (kokanee), they\u2019ll be able to fully stock those broodstock lakes and then also have some for those recreational waters,\u201d Livingston said.<\/p>\n

Eggs collected from Lake Nighthorse and the Dolores River were more than CPW\u2019s Durango hatchery needed, so CPW sent the remaining eggs to other hatcheries across the state to help with reduced spawns, said senior aquatic biologist John Alves.<\/p>\n

The hatcheries will raise the fish over the winter and stock them out when they reach 2 inches in length next spring.<\/p>\n

Blue Mesa Reservoir receives on average 3.5 million kokanee salmon per year, while Lake Nighthorse receives about 160,000 and the Dolores River 200,000.<\/p>\n

The banner year for Southwest Colorado kokanee was a pleasant surprise for White, who could return the favor to Brauch and other aquatic biologists across the state.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are years we rely on other parts of the state when we are down on egg takes, so it\u2019s awesome in a year like this to turn around and be able to help other biologists and bodies of water that traditionally have more kokanee in them,\u201d White said. \u201cIt was surprising for us down here this year, but we were fortunate to have a lot of fish.\u201d<\/p>\n

Livingston said 2021 once again highlighted CPW\u2019s collaborative efforts to maintain healthy fish populations in Colorado.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s always good for us as a team to be able to keep this program going and help each other out,\u201d he said. \u201cIt may not always be a record year down here in the Southwest, and we\u2019ll be relying on getting eggs from elsewhere. It\u2019s great during a year like this to be able to help out some of those other hatcheries and make sure we\u2019re stocking those other waters as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

ahannon@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Southwest Colorado will send a surplus of eggs to supplement other hatcheries in state<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":43084,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[2395,120,1031,529,1909,950,1030,885,2043,28,2216,280,145,603],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-43083","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-animal-science","tag-colorado","tag-colorado-parks-and-wildlife","tag-conservation","tag-dolores-river-state-wildlife-area","tag-durango","tag-environment","tag-fishing","tag-fishing-industry","tag-headlines","tag-lake-nighthorse","tag-mcphee-reservoir","tag-science-general","tag-wildlife"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43083","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43083"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43083\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":85566,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43083\/revisions\/85566"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43084"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43083"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43083"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43083"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=43083"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}