The Takshanuk Watershed Council will be revising its estimate of the eulachon run to Chilkoot River following a resurgence of spawning there last weekend.
Council executive director Meredith Pochart said the second surge lasted only two or three tide cycles but represented at least twice as many fish as the first surge.
Because the council already had removed traps for a tag-recapture project used to measure the return, they’ll try making an estimate using a measurement of eulachon DNA in the water there.
The council estimated the initial run at 1.8 million fish. An estimated 300,000 eulachon returned to the Chilkoot last year and previous returns have gone as high as 12 million.
The return continues on the west side of Chilkat River, where swarms of gulls are still visible. “They tend to trickle in for a while,” Pochardt said.