DEVELOPING A NOMENCLATURE FOR STEELHEAD, COHO, CUTTHROAT AND OTHER ANADROMOUS SALMONIDS WITH EXTENDED FRESHWATER REARING Hal Michael, John McMillan, Bob Gresswell, Leon Shaul, Bob Leland, Joan Trial

WHAT AND WHY? Knowledge of life history “oddities” has advanced but terminology has not What we call a fish, or how their behaviour is described, does not always mesh A group is beginning to work to develop a unified nomenclature for these fish

A HATCHERY STEELHEAD CAN 1 Smolt as age-1, after stocking 2Smolt as an age 2 or an age 3 3Stay permanently in freshwater 4Die If it stays in freshwater after stocking it is called a residual

A WILD STEELHEAD CAN 1.Smolt as an age 1 2.Smolt as an age 2 or 3 or 4 or.. 3.Stay permanently in freshwater 4.Die It has no special name, yet it and the hatchery fish behave in the same manner. Is an age 1+ non-smolted wild mykiss a residual?

STRAY, HOME STREAM FIDELITY Wild migratory salmonids are believed to have very accurate homing instinct, some few who do not home accurately are said to stray. A variety of studies on hatchery origin fish show significantly less accuracy in homing; they are called strays

STRAY, HOME STREAM FIDELITY II Studies with non-lethal tags have shown some interesting results –A wild steelhead smolts from Stream A and returns to Stream B –A wild steelhead spawns in Stream A and repeat-spawns in Stream B –A wild steelhead spawns in Streams A&B in the same year –And the home stream is ???

STRAY, HOME STREAM FIDELITYSTRAY III Sea-run cutthroat smolt from Stream A and overwinter in Stream B-these are called “Feeders” Adult sea-run cutthroat overwinter in Stream A and them move to Stream B to spawn Where’s “home?”

T The big unanswered question: Where would it have gone to spawn? An Alaskan coho: a brood year 1997 coho smolt ---- that originated who-knows-where---- spent the summer of 1998 in marine/estuarine waters, entered the Chilkat with the returning nomad migration in Fall 1998, was caught and CWT’d somewhere 5–26 km up the Chilkat between April 7 and June 2, 1999, re-entered saltwater and swam a minimum 67 km down and across Lynn Canal to the mouth of the Berners River where it joined the fall nomad migration up that system for 8 km to a Beaver Pond from which it was recaptured in a downstream migrant trough trap on May 17, 2000 at fork length of 126 mm. A second tagged Chilkat fish (length 127 mm) was recovered leaving the same pond 9 days later, but it had only been in saltwater during summer 1999, right after tagging, and had lived a “normal” coho existence in its first year. The big unanswered question: Where would it have gone to spawn?

STRAY, HOME STREAM FIDELITYSTRAY IV Coho that smolt from Stream A and overwinter in Stream B, and maybe C, return to what home stream and what stream would they be a “stray”? Currently, these coho are called Nomads

SMOLTS Everybody knows that salmonids smolt in the spring Except for coho and steelhead that also smolt in the fall

THE GOAL Develop a consistent nomenclature for PNW anadromous salmonids, concentrating on steelhead but recognizing that their life history patterns may occur in coho, cutthroat, native char, Atlantic salmon, sea trout, and coasters

KELTS We call a post-spawning trout a kelt When I named a post-spawning lamprey a kelt I was told this applies only to Atlantic salmon A “resident” mykiss that spawns and then smolts is a smolt-kelt?

IF YOU WANT TO PARTICIPATE Contact Hal Michael at We will then organize the group, divide up tasks, and move ahead.