BONNEVILLE WELCOME TO BONNEVILLE HATCHERY – FISH Supporting salmon runs since 1909 Bonneville Hatchery sits on Tanner Creek in the Following the construction of Bonneville Dam in HATCHERY Columbia River Gorge, about 40 miles east of Portland, the 1930s, the hatchery was expanded to increase Information Oregon. Tanner Creek flows into the Columbia juvenile fish-rearing capacity from 6 million to 11 Self-guided tour map approximately 145 miles upriver from the ocean. The million salmon. Another expansion took place in the Self-guided tour map for kids hatchery, managed by the Oregon Department of Fish mid-1950s as part of the Columbia River Fisheries Spawning viewing (available during spawning season) Hatchery informational video and Wildlife, raises salmon and steelhead for sport, Development Program. commercial and tribal fisheries in the lower Columbia Sturgeon Center exhibit The 1968 construction of the John Day Dam flooded River and along the northern Oregon Coast. Safety rules the spawning grounds of 30,000 fall chinook. To When visiting the hatchery, please observe the following rules: Tanner Creek and nine hatchery wells provide water for compensate for half of the loss, the U.S. Army Corps • Stay clear of hatchery equipment. Directions rearing fall chinook salmon, coho salmon, and summer of Engineers spent $8 million in the 1970s to enlarge • Keep off all pond walkways. From I-84, take Exit 40 to Bonneville Dam/Fish Hatchery. and winter steelhead. A waterfall not quite a mile above Bonneville Hatchery and increase its fish-rearing • Do not climb on equipment, ponds or rocks. Follow the signs to the hatchery and park in the parking lot. the creek’s mouth prevents fish passage beyond capacity. • Park all vehicles in the appropriate parking area. Bus and RV that point. parking are available. Visitor hours In 1998 the hatchery added a specialized rearing April – August: 7:30 a.m. – 8 p.m. • Never try to touch the fish or place your hands or foreign building to house the Grande Ronde Basin captive objects in the water. This could harm both you and the fish. September – October: 7:30 a.m. – 7 p.m. November – March: 7:30 a.m. – 5 p.m. History broodstock program for spring chinook, a threatened Special features Closed Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s Day. Bonneville Hatchery opened in 1909 as Central Hatchery species. This experimental conservation hatchery • Spawning room – so-called because the facility served as a central program rears salmon for the Grande Ronde Basin, • Adult holding ponds Office hours hatching and rearing site for eggs taken at other which drains into the Snake River, a main tributary of • Monday – Friday, 7:30 a.m. – 4:30 p.m. Rearing ponds hatcheries. Bonneville is one of the oldest hatcheries in the Columbia. The facility is closed to the public to • Rainbow trout ponds Closed all official holidays. • Outdoor white sturgeon pond Oregon and the largest in terms of fish production. minimize stress and other impacts on the fish. • Sturgeon viewing center Maps • Interpretive displays Self-guided tour maps are available at the hatchery in • Hatchery video the Spawning Room Visitor’s Center. Tour maps also are • Bonneville gift shop available by mail. Please call 541-374-8393 to request a copy. Visitors • Outside accessible restrooms Employees are available during working hours to answer any questions you may have. Guide Local sites of interest • Bonneville Locks and Dam • U.S. Forest Service hiking trails • Old Columbia River Highway • Cascade Locks Partners and funding ODFW operates Bonneville Hatchery with funding from the Oregon Department U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and NOAA Fisheries. Funds of Fish and Wildlife for the captive broodstock program come from the Bonneville Northwest Oregon Power Administration. Oregon Wildlife Heritage Foundation 70543 NE Herman Loop operates the gift shop. Cascade Locks, OR 97014 (541) 374-8393 Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife strategy, because most of the When fish are ready for spawning, a hatchery technician Rearing Fish reared and released young do not survive the long operates a mechanical crowder that moves fish toward a lift. Fall chinook fry spend the Each year, Bonneville Hatchery raises 1.2 million coho, journey to the ocean and back, The lift raises fish to an anesthetic tank and onto the sorting winter and spring in outside 8.5 million fall chinook, 215,000 summer steelhead and whether they hatch in the wild table in the spawning room. Hatchery workers place eggs rearing ponds. Bonneville 60,000 winter steelhead. The coho are released into a from gravel nests called redds taken from females into buckets where upriver bright fall chinook are pipeline that takes them to Tanner Creek and out into they are fertilized with sperm from males. released as 4-inch fingerlings after six the Columbia River directly from the ponds. The fall All salmon die naturally after spawning, months of rearing. Umatilla fall chinook chinook are split between Tanner Creek, the Umatilla but in the hatchery setting adult fish and coho salmon are released as 6- to River and Ringold Hatchery, which is located in the are killed humanely prior to the artificial 8-inch smolts after one year of rearing. Hanford Reach on the Columbia River. spawning process. Nets over the ponds reduce predation by Best viewing opportunities birds feeding on the young fish. Bonneville Hatchery also rears fish for hatcheries in Incubation other river basins. Summer steelhead are spawned at • See adult salmon spawning late Bonneville Hatchery can Feeding South Santiam Hatchery and the eggs are transferred October to early December. incubate up to 30 million to Bonneville Hatchery. The eggs are incubated and • Visit the rainbow trout ponds Hatchery workers feed the fry each eggs annually. After hour during daylight hours. As the fry grow, automatic feeders reared in the outside ponds for one year. They then year-round. spawning, the fertilized are transferred to Sandy and Clackamas hatcheries • Visit the white sturgeon viewing center supplement hand feeding. Fry receive dry pellets made from eggs are transferred to animal, vegetable and mineral products. The pellets come in for acclimation and are released into each river. Winter year-round. trays in the incubation steelhead are spawned at Sandy Hatchery and the • Take a self-guided walking tour various sizes for feeding fish of different ages. Each pound a room. The eggs develop at young fish gains requires about eggs are transported to Bonneville. The eggs then year-round. a rate controlled by the temperature of the are incubated and reared for one year before being • one pound of fish food. See adult salmon August through water that continuously flows over them. transported back to Sandy Hatchery for acclimation November at the holding ponds or at and release into the Sandy River. the fish ladder and viewing window at nearby Bonneville Dam. Marking fish prior to release or are raised in a hatchery. For example, Salmon life cycle of every 1,000 salmon that Bonneville Before release, crews mark a portion of the young Chinook, coho salmon and Hatchery releases, only three return salmon and all steelhead by clipping their adipose fins Steelhead or by mechanically steelhead are “anadromous” fish as adults. On their journey, salmon Hatching occurs in inserting a tiny coded species. That means they hatch encounter predators, dams that as few as 50 days wire tag into each in fresh water, then swim to the impede their travel, river and shore with 52° water. Fish that hatch in the incubators salmon’s snout. ocean when they reach the environments that may be harmful, are known as sac fry. After these small Fisheries technicians smolt stage at about 6 inches and variable ocean conditions. fish have absorbed the yolk – a process working on docks long. Chinook generally Sport, commercial and tribal called “buttoning up” – they are called or at canneries or migrate at 6 to 12 months fisheries also catch salmon to fry and instinctively swim upward in conducting creel and coho at 18 months. While provide food for people. search of food. Hatchery technicians then surveys remove in the ocean they will grow move the fry to the rearing ponds. and mature to adulthood. All salmon die after spawning, the snouts of fin-clipped which completes their life cycle. Coho Salmon fish caught in sport and Chinook return from the ocean Steelhead, however, may return to Fish diseases commercial fisheries. when they are 3 to 5 years old the ocean one or more times. Hatchery fish can be They freeze the snouts and coho when they are 3 to 4 Spawning susceptible to disease and later recover the tags years old. Steelhead trout generally due to the large numbers using a metal detector. return the first time after they are 3 years From August through November, returning The information recorded adult fall chinook and coho move from Tanner of fish in rearing facilities old. They swim back upriver to their stream and the stress of the on the tags helps fisheries or hatchery of origin to spawn where their life began. Creek into the hatchery holding pond. Hatchery workers managers determine the sort and count fish by species and sex. All female and male crowded environment. Fish These fish serve as parents for the next generation. pathologists routinely take hatchery of origin, the fish needed for spawning are held from one to three months Chinook release date and location, and where and how many Each female chinook salmon carries about 4,500 eggs, until they are “ripe” or ready to spawn. Up to 30,000 adult fish tissue samples and Salmon fish have been harvested. and each coho about 2,800 eggs. This is a useful survival chinook and 50,000 adult coho are handled each year. Illustrations by Joeseph Tomelleri treat any diseased fish.