Southern Southeast Regional Aquaculture Association

The Southern Southeast Regional Aquaculture Association, more commonly known as SSRAA (pronounced “Sarah”), is a non-profit corporation whose mission is “to enhance and rehabilitate salmon production in southern Southeast Alaska to the optimum social and economic benefit of salmon users”.  SSRAA was incorporated in 1976 and began operations in 1978.  Today the value to the region of SSRAA’s annual production can exceed $25 million.

SE Alaska commercial fishermen were the initial funding source for this user-pays activity.  Regional commercial salmon fishermen voted to tax themselves 3% of the ex-vessel value of their harvest to support the organization. The willingness of fishermen to tax themselves served as long-term collateral for the capital and operational loans necessary to begin operations.  In subsequent years, though fishermen have continued to tax themselves, the primary funding for the organization comes from the harvest of some of the fish returning to SSRAA projects. There are currently five large regional aquaculture associations in Alaska.  SSRAA is unique among these associations in that we contract the processing of most of our cost recovery harvest and market the fish ourselves.

SSRAA policy is governed by a 21-member Board of Directors representing the diverse group of salmon harvesters and community organizations in the region.  The Board includes representatives of commercial, subsistence and sport fishers, fish processors, Native corporations, municipalities, the business community and the public.  SSRAA employs 25 full time staff and up to 40 seasonal employees. 

The SSRAA program includes hatcheries at: Whitman Lake on the Ketchikan road system; Neets Bay, which is a remote site in Behm Canal; Burnett Inlet, a remote site in NW Clarence Straits; and, Crystal Lake Hatchery on the Petersburg road system.  Fish from these hatcheries are released at a number of remote sites including: Nakat Inlet, Kendrick Bay, Anita Bay, Bakewell Lake, McDonald Lake and Neck Lake as well as at the hatcheries themselves. 

These salmon enhancement projects are designed to supplement wild salmon production, not to replace wild fish.  Hatchery and release sites, as well as the species of salmon cultured and released, were selected through an intensive planning and permitting process.  The goal of the process is to maximize the value of returning salmon while minimizing the impact of hatchery production on naturally produced fish.

SSRAA projects include all species of pacific salmon except pink salmon. In terms of numbers, SSRAA’s primary production in terms of fish numbers involves Chum salmon with an annual release of more than 130 million chum salmon fry.  As many as 42 million pounds of adult chum salmon have returned from these releases while it is more common for the annual return to be 30 million pounds of fish.  Returning chum are primarily harvested by commercial seine and gill net gear, while trollers target the fish in several limited locations.  Chum salmon also provide SSRAA’s primary corporate cost recovery harvest in Neets Bay.  These fish can also provide a significant mid-season regional sport fishery between early-running chinook salmon and the late-season coho returns.

SSRAA’s fall coho salmon project at Neets Bay is one of the largest enhanced coho returns in Alaska, perhaps anywhere.  Commercial fishermen annually harvest between 150,000 and 300,000 SSRAA-produced coho.  Commercial trollers captured more than half of these fish.  Sport anglers also benefited from these fish.  More than half the recreational harvest in the Ketchikan area, approximately 15,000 coho, comes from SSRAA projects, primarily releases at Neets Bay.  In late-season recreational fishery anglers sometimes harvest at an average of a coho per hour of fishing.

We have come to call summer-run coho Snow Pass coho.  A summer-run coho is basically a coho that behaves like a sockeye.  The fish return early in the summer, enter freshwater (a lake), and mature slowly.  They spawn in the fall at the same time as normal fall-run coho.  These unique fish are found in several small natural runs in SE Alaska.  The summer coho is a very high quality fish for both the sport and commercial harvester since the fish return to freshwater “bright” and fat.

SSRAA began a large enhancement project using summer coho in Neck Lake in Whale Pass, Prince of Wales Island in 1996.  The fish are reared in large net pens in the lake.  They are held dormant through the winter in the net pens, fed again in the spring and then released into the lake. Returning adults number from 30,000 to 100,000.  These fish are harvested primarily by commercial gill net and sport anglers.  Some fish are also taken for cost recovery at Neck Lake.

Chinook is the king among pacific salmon.  The troll-caught king is the finest quality wild salmon harvested.  Troll kings are at a premium in both cost and numbers; they are expensive and scarce.  A large sport-caught king is the dream of most recreational anglers.  That dream is not often fulfilled, even in Alaska waters.  Because of diminished natural production of these fish in waters south of Alaska, and the associated constraints of the Pacific Salmon Treaty on the Alaska harvest of chinook, there is a very finite number of naturally produced chinook available to the SE Alaska troll fisherman.

Chinook salmon are a difficult challenge for SSRAA and others who try to enhance traditional sport and troll fisheries.  We have often been able to produce relatively large numbers of these fish; but because of current time constraints of the troll fishery it has been difficult to get the fish harvested by those for whom they were intended.  Regardless of this, SSRAA releases close to 2.5 million chinook smolts annually.  A large number of these are produced in cooperation with the Division of Sport Fish of the Alaska Department of Fish and Game.  SSRAA chinook releases are expected to produce from 30,000 to 60,000 adult fish annually.

Sockeye or red salmon are the most commercially valuable pacific salmon.  Sockeye have historically been the most difficult of the pacific salmon for the fish culturist.  Sockeye are easy to culture but for one thing, all populations of wild sea-run sockeye carry a particularly virulent virus. In the last two decades, starting in Alaska, fish culturists in the Northwest have learned to work more successfully with these fish despite the presence of the virus.

SSRAA has recently been involved in the enhancement/restoration of several natural populations of sockeye: Hugh Smith Lake and McDonald Lake.  In addition, approximately 300,000 sockeye have been held in Burnett Inlet Hatchery and released at Burnett and Neck Lake.  The work in Hugh Smith was very successful, while the releases at Burnett and Neck Lake have produced few adults.  The project at McDonald is new, with the first release scheduled for the spring of 2009.

Are Alaska Salmon Hatcheries Programs Unique:  Because of negative publicity related to the serious decline of salmon in the Pacific Northwest and the role in that decline assigned by some to hatcheries, this is something we considered since the inception of the Alaska programs.  It certainly appears Alaska salmon enhancement has been successful.  The primary difference is that programs in Alaska were designed to separate the enhanced fish from wild production, to enhance fisheries as opposed to specific stocks of fish.

It is often hard for visitors and people working with salmon elsewhere to understand Alaska salmon fisheries, just as it is hard for Alaskans to understand what has happened to salmon in the Pacific Northwest.  Alaska salmon habitat is largely intact and unspoiled.  Alaska fishery managers have been suggested by many as a model for salmon management elsewhere.  Alaska salmon stocks remain healthy.  The diverse commercial fishing industry is still the largest employer in Alaska.  Alaska is probably the last place where an independent commercial salmon fisherman can still make a living fishing.  In part what we do is an attempt to sustain that life style across time. 

We have been asked to consider if the fish SSRAA produced simply replaced wild fish that would have been produced if SSRAA hatcheries had not been in place.  Since SE Alaska has had record salmon returns and harvests of naturally produced fish pretty much throughout the time SSRAA has operated; it would appear that these enhancements have not come at the expense of naturally produced fish.

The Alaska enhancement program is relatively young.  The program is the result of extensive planning and a difficult permitting process.  For instance, we must consider the genetic and disease consequences of any project we might propose.  Many proposals are denied because of concerns related to those issues and most of the proposals that are approved are modified to address those issues.  In addition, many of the fish culturists and enhancement biologists that initially put the program in motion were educated and worked elsewhere before coming to Alaska.  It is certainly possible for an industry to learn from things that are labeled by some as mistakes.  All fisheries enhancement projects and hatcheries are simply not the same.