Salmon are Imprinting at Carkeek Park

Volunteers from the Carkeek Watershed Community Action Project are caring for 27,000 chum salmon fry at the Les Malmgren imprint pond in Carkeek park.  Each year fry are obtained from the Suquamish Hatchery and held in a pond at Carkeek for several weeks, so that they imprint the characteristics of the water in Venema Creek.  That memory is how they know to return to Piper’s Creek and Venema Creek several years later to spawn.  Volunteers feed the fry three times a day.  When the fry are ready to release to Puget Sound a high tide night is chosen for the release, to reduce the exposure to predators.  Three years or so later the adult salmon return to spawn in November and December.