Why were you sorting salmon eggs?

A couple of commenters wanted to know why I was sorting through salmon eggs one at a time.  What was I looking for?  I appreciate those questions.  It gave me the topic for tonight’s blog post.  :)  Bandon State Fish Hatchery, in Oregon, is a very precise operation when it comes to salmon eggs!  They provide viable eggs for hatcheries throughout the state.
And this is the building where all the action happens.  It is located along a river that empties directly into the Pacific Ocean, and the salmon make their way up stream to spawn.  The hatchery catches them on a fish ladder, harvests the eggs and milt, and mixes them together in this building.
These are the incubators.  There is a constant flow of river water through these incubators.  I think the temperature of the water is a constant 45*, but sometimes I forget those little details.  Suffice it to say, that the inside of the building isn’t what you would call warm.  :)
Each of these trays in the incubator contain hundreds of eggs.  Notice that they are not all a healthy pink color.
After being in the incubator for a certain amount of days, each tray is taken out and poured into this machine.  Take note of the screen on the right, that’s where we do the sorting.
 As the eggs go through this machine, a laser light kicks out the obviously cream colored rotten eggs, and shoots out the rest into this holding tank.  My job was to scoop out a bunch of eggs with a strainer, and then go through each one individually looking for the beginnings of that opaque cloudiness.  The other thing that we had to do was check how many eyes each egg had.  Yes, that’s right!  A good egg has two eyes (black dots), but some eggs would have three or more, and that means they weren’t viable.  The less than perfect eggs were put into a separate strainer for disposal.  Since I was the only volunteer that December, I was often the only one sorting eggs.

Lest you think this was a totally boring procedure, picture this:  Occasionally, I would dip out too large a scoop of eggs, and as I poured them onto the screen they would overflow and some would drop to the floor.  I’m sure you’ve seen those super bouncy balls?  Well, salmon eggs do the same thing!  I’d be running around trying to catch those bouncing eggs, and giggling all the way.  Can’t waste those eggs, you know, and then someone would shout down from the offices above and ask “Is everything all right?”  And I’d respond, “ Oh, yes, everything’s under control!”  :)
Here’s a tray of sorted eggs.  See that measuring cup on the left?  After all the eggs were sorted, then we had to count them!  One of the staff would come down, and we’d both count a cup of eggs at a time.  We did this three times in a row to determine the average count.  That guy could sure count fast!  Then the good eggs were measured out back into the trays and put back in the incubators.  I believe I sorted and counted over a half million eggs while I was there.  What an unusual thing to have on one’s resume.  :)

It was a real hoot to be there for a month, and I really learned a lot about salmon fish culture.  I think I’d do it again, but only for a month.  :)

Thanks for stopping by….talk to you later,  Judy      

Sunday's Blast from the Past...

Once I finally got to leave Ft. Flagler State Park in Washington at the end of November, 2006, I headed south for my next assignment at the Bandon State Fish Hatchery in Bandon, Oregon.

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The hatchery was located at the bottom of a hill. The building on the left is where the salmon eggs were processed. The fish pools all contained trout.

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My duties at Bandon were varied. See all those nets?

All of them were ripped, so it was my job to repair all the rips and sew them back together. The hardest part of that job was having to stand to do the sewing in a cold workshop. I did position myself under the one heat blower. :)

These are all of the trays of Chinook Salmon eggs. They are being incubated until they hatch. I always thought of an incubator as a warm place, but not so with salmon eggs. They must be kept at the same temperature as the river outside.

Each of the trays contains hundreds of eggs, and river water is continually circulated through the trays. Notice the scattered lighter colored eggs in the tray.

One of the steps in the culturing of these eggs is to sort through them and remove any defective eggs. They are first placed in an automated sorter that kicks out the totally rotten lighter colored eggs.


The sorter doesn't catch all the bad eggs, so they all have to be gone through by a human sorter (me). How do you do that? Well, you take a scoop of maybe fifty at a time and carefully look at each one and pick out defective eggs with a tweezers! Besides looking for eggs with white spots, you also have to be sure each egg has two eyes. Some eggs only have one eye, or three, or four eyes. Those eggs would be deformed and not live anyway, so they must be removed.

After the eggs have been sorted through and counted (yes, counted!), they are returned to the tray and put back in the incubator. An interesting fact about these salmon eggs is learned if some of them accidentally fall off of the sorting screen. When they hit the floor, they bounce like one of those little super balls. I'm sure you can just picture me chasing those bouncing eggs around the room when a few would get away from me. :) In my month at Bandon, I sorted through and counted close to 1,000,000 eggs! I was seeing eggs in my sleep at night.

Quite a few storms rolled through that part of Oregon while I was there, and one particular storm resulted in the river, that the hatchery was located next to, rising enough for the Coho Salmon to make it through the fish ladder into the holding pen. Since Bandon doesn't process Coho eggs, the spawning salmon had to be sorted by sex into separate pens to be sent to other hatcheries.

The salmon are netted by hand and then males and females are separated to different pens. Thanks goodness, my part of this job was to keep track of the numbers. One of the staff did the actual netting. We sorted 65 Cohos that day.

On my days off, I was able to do a little touring of the area, but December in Oregon isn't the best time to be traveling around on a mo-ped. This is the light house at Bullard's Beach State Park. My time in Oregon convinced me that towing a car behind the motorhome was in my future.

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Bandon State Fish Hatchery was one of the most interesting places that I have volunteered and I'm really glad I did it in December. That's when the salmon are spawning, so I was able to really get some hands on learning about fish culture.

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Thanks for stopping by....talk to you later, Judy