Entrepreneurs Save Native Fish

I have two friends who are salmon innovators. On Al Adams’ quarter-acre lot I watched two species of salmon and a foot-long steelhead living in 50 linear feet of water. I think Al and Jerry Manuel represent a future for native fisheries in Montana and the Greater Yellowstone area.

Al and Jerry developed a backyard wild salmon incubator capable of hatching 100,000 eggs in a 55-gallon plastic barrel using fake plastic gravel and PVC pipes. It uses a flow of only 3 to 4 gallons per minute to do so. The whole package can be installed in a remote location and costs only a few hundred dollars.

Al began his love affair with salmon in the 1970s and came up with the idea of his own salmon run at his Mercer Island home near Seattle. After classes at the University of Washington he was quickly permitted for a residential salmon hatchery by the state. Salmon were in trouble and entrepreneurial bureaucrats were willing to try new ideas. That Mercer Island Coho run averaged 50 salmon a year for the next decade and became an educational staple for local schools. Al retired to Hood Canal and in 1990, with Jerry Manuel, helped start the Hood Canal Salmon Enhancement Group. The volunteer-based group has planted almost 4 million salmon.

by Jerry Johnson

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