An estimated 61,000 king smolt left the Chilkat River drainage in 2015, the lowest on record according to new Alaska Department of Fish and Game statistics released this spring.

Those fish were spawned from returning kings in 2013, the third run at the time that failed to meet the department’s escapement goals. In 2014, about 64,000 from brood year 2012 survived their rearing habitat before leaving for the ocean. Between 1999 and 2013, an average of 185,000 smolt left the Chilkat River drainage for the ocean.

“We’ve had two brood years back to back with below average smolt production,” Fish and Game biologist Brian Elliott said. “A really telling statistic about those two populations is that we found a decent (number) of juveniles in the fall and they survived really poorly between fall and the following spring, probably due to harsh winter conditions.”

Overwinter survival for brood year 2012 and 2013 was 15% for the juvenile king salmon, compared to the average 35% survival rate.

Elliott said smolt estimates will likely continue to dwindle. King runs have failed to meet escapement goals six times in the last eight years. Last year’s run was the first since 2015 that met the goal.

“I don’t think we’ve reached the bottom of our juvenile estimates because we’ve had, except for 2019, escapement levels much lower than these two broods and that should result in fewer juveniles and smolt.”

Juvenile kings emerge from their eggs each spring and rear for a year in the river system before swimming out to sea.

Fish and Game biologists say poor marine survival accounts for low king returns that are occurring across the state. Historically, only about 2.6% of kings survive the marine environment on average, Elliott said. Even a small downturn in marine survival would have detrimental effects on the local population, however the opposite is also true; an increase in marine survival could help mitigate low abundance leaving the drainage.

“We’re trying to monitor this population and get it back on its feet and it’s hard to do that if there’s so few smolt leaving the river in the spring,” he said.

Elliott and a team of Fish and Game techs began their spring counting project last Monday. Because of COVID-19 restrictions, staff will not put coded-wire tags in juveniles’ noses, but will clip the adipose fin. Coded-wire tagging operations require several technicians to be within very close contact for hours at a time. Biologists will instead rely on genetic sampling to estimate future returns from this year’s population.

While biologists in other Southeast river systems can quarantine and then work from an isolated field camp during counting projects, Haines Fish and Game staff go home each day and could come into contact with the coronavirus.

“We’ll still externally mark the fish so we can identify them when they return,” Elliott said. “This is what we have to do to keep the crew safe and keep distance, to follow all the protocols that everybody else is following,” Elliott said.

Elliott said crews tagged more than 10,000 juvenile king salmon last fall.

The Chilkat Valley received above average snowfall this winter, which biologists hope provided good winter habitat for eggs and rearing salmon. Snowpack helps insulate the river and keep fresh water from freezing. Salmon eggs need flowing water to provide oxygen and to flush metabolic waste from the egg.

As of Monday, a week into the project, Elliott said crews have counted 100 smolt. They typically count about 3,800 each spring. The average Chilkat king smolt is about 3 inches long and weighs 5 grams, Elliott said.

Two Fish and Game technicians are trapping by foot along the Haines Highway from 12 Mile to 23 Mile. Another is trapping from a skiff downstream from 21 Mile. Water levels are still low, which is preventing staff from accessing a wider range of habitat.

Last year’s king escapement was estimated at 2,028 large fish, above the minimum escapement goal of 1,750.

King salmon typically return as five- and six-year olds, although the bulk of the run between the last five to ten years consist mostly of five-year-olds, Elliott said, citing a pattern of returning age classes across most king stocks coastwide.