Live Recovery Video

A video showing the efforts that individual gillnetters are making to help save wild salmon from extinction while harvesting hatchery salmon during the mark-selective fishery for Columbia River spring Chinook.

During the spring Chinook fishery, gillnetters use a “live recovery box,” which revives wild fish before they are returned to the river as safely as possible. They also use a small mesh “tangle, or tooth” net, which prevents fish from entangling their gills and drowning. Yes, fish can drown!

Hatchery fish are identified by the absence of their adipose fin, which is removed when the fish are juveniles in the hatchery. Sports fishermen are critical of of the commercial gillnet fishery because they contend gillnetters cannot fish selectively. This video demonstrates otherwise.